steve-in-kville 

A few months back I was deciding whether to rebuild/upgrade my Windsor Tourist or go with a new Surly. Decided to stick with the Tourist as it has served me well for the past eight years and is able to do everything I want it too.

Anyways.... I have some new accessories on the way and I'm looking at the wheelset. I'm running 32's but would like to have the ability to go a bit wider, maybe 35's or 38's. It appears they will fit, but not with fenders. Is there a commercially available wheelset out there that would handle this task? Or am I gonna have to go custom?

ETA: I most likely have a inside rim width of 15mm and should go to a 19mm for the wider tires size. Maybe I answered my own question??

robert schlatte

Google, Quality wheels, velocity dyad with Shimano LX 670 hubs. front and rear. Very good quality touring wheels.

steve-in-kville 

Thanks! I have a new website to look at when I should be doing other things!

Tourist in MSN

If you are buying new wheels, do you think for touring that you would ever want a dynohub? If so, the cost difference between a regular hub and dynohub is not very high when buying a set of wheels. It would be much more costly later to upgrade to a dynohub.

But if you do not think a dynohub is worth it, forget I mentioned it.

If you had a new set of wheels for touring, you could put some skinny supple fast tires on your old wheels for when you want to ride faster.

I do not recall if your bike has 130 or 135mm dropout spacing in back. Try to get the right hub spacing.

Brian25

I have a Tourist. I have 700 x 35 tires on mine and has plenty of room for fenders. Different wheels will not increase fender room. The stock wheels are fine. The stock handlebars suck. They curve way too far forward and really hit your forearms when in the drops. Shimano link wires are far superior to the stock cross cable and yoke that comes stock. I ended up switching out the crank to 24, 38, 48 chain rings, to give me lower gears.

steve-in-kville 

Yes, I've considered a dyno in the past, and from what I am seeing, a pre-made set of Shimano wheels with a dyno is not all that much more.

steve-in-kville 

What tired are you using?

52telecaster

i second the dyno. it is so convenient.

pdlamb

My Fuji Touring may be the same frame as a Windsor. It'll take 35 tires with fenders, but now 38. Other people have apparently run 38s, but perhaps without fenders?


If you can't run a 38 with your current wheels, you'd have to drop down to a 650b wheel to get wider tires in. That would (probably) require new brakes. Maybe you'd rather get some flexible Compass tires in a 32 or 35 instead?

Tourist in MSN

Regarding which tires fit inside fenders on which bikes, keep in mind that there is variation in different manufacturers for tire dimensions. I have some Continentals that are rated 28 and caliper at 25mm.

Also some people will ride with tires quite close to a fender, but for safety I like a lot more room between my fenders and tires. Thus a bike and tire that fits fine to one person might be a bike and tire that I would not say it fits.

So, it can be a gray area, not black and white.

steve-in-kville 

A few years ago, I mounted a cheapie set of 35's. Couldn't keep the fenders on as the tires were kinda knobbie. They rolled horrible! Took them off and sold 'em on ebay. Its not that I am unhappy with my 32's, but I'd like to do a little gravel stuff and I think 32's are a bit narrow for that.

mstateglfr 

Basically any 100/130 wheelset with a 23mm outside diameter will handle what you want to do. They will typically be 17 or 17.5 inner diameter.
And I would think your current wheelset can handle it too.

Ive seen versions of that bike with 130mm and other versions with 135mm dropouts. Which do you have and what do you want to spend?
If you have 130mm... H Plus Son Archetype Wheelset Shimano 5800 105 Hubs 36h DT Comp [740954] - $219.00 Velomine.com : Worldwide Bicycle Shop, fixed gear track bike wheelsets campagnolo super record vintage bike These are $220. I have them on my gravel bike with 40mm tires. 36 butted spokes, quality 105 hubs, excellent rim. I wouldnt hesistate to use them for touring as they are overbuilt for my current use.

3speed

I have a nice set of touring/commuting wheels on CL right now for $200. Hand built at a local shop. Lower miles on the rear wheel, new rim on the front. Even with shipping I think you'd be getting a lot of wheel for your money. You'd be over $300 just in parts to build them, plus labor to have them hand bulit by someone who knows what they're doing. I'm only selling because they don't fit my new bike(disk brakes). Figured I'd throw it out there.
https://madison.craigslist.org/bop/d...477949920.html

cyccommute 

If you are worried about tire width, don't. The charts used for determining tire width are way too conservative. Going from 15mm to 19mm is a very minor change and won't make a difference. It's 4 mm or 0.16" or a bit over an 1/8" or about the thickness of 2 nickels. It's a minor change and not worth the investment. You could use 35mm, 38mm or even 40mm now without issue.

For comparison, I run 17mm rims with 2.12" tires (~55mm) on mountain bikes without issue. That's a bit extreme but not outside of the norm for mountain bikes.

If you have other reasons to upgrade the wheels...you need stronger ones or you want hubs that require less maintenance, then get (or build) new wheels. But for a minor tire change? Just go with what you've got.

steve-in-kville 

Thanks for the replies.... beyond wanting to eventually go to a dyno, I really have no problems with my current wheels. They've served me well.

raria

Why replace the wheels? They are great once set up. Replace the bars definitely. What crankset do you have? Many of this bike came with 52/42/30 and a smaller ring is better.

Brian25

My tourist had 30, 39, 50 chain rings. with the 130/ 74 bolt patterns. I tried to just switch out the 30 ring for a 24, but the the new chain angle created bad "chain clang" as the chain hit the inner chain guide plates on the mid ring in a most of the gears. I was considering grinding the plates down to stop the noise, but ultimately swapped out thee crankset for some older SR/ Sakae crankset that looked really beat up, I ended up powder coating them. Now, they look like a million bucks. Well maybe not a million. I am using Kenda tires. I did not post anything negative about the wheels. I do wish that the E.R.D. was a little bigger, in that they take sort of short unusual sized spokes. (286 / 288) in the rear wheel. the spoke holder was mispositioned on the chain stay, so the spare spokes do not fit.

steve-in-kville 

I guess my underlying question now is.... can I safely mount some 35's or even 38's on my stock wheels?

Brian25

As an ex store owner/ mechanic for over 12 years, I can tell you that 35's or 38's will fit. I have easily fit much fatter tires on narrower rims. In fact in the late 80's Keith Bontrager or/ and and Gary Fisher were taking narrow 700c, 36 hole road rims, cutting them down to 32 hole/ 26"and using them for mountain bike rims then mount 2" tires on them. (The most extreme example that I can think of.) My tourist has wide rims. The only thing that I would not recommend is to put narrow tires on them.

raria

Remember they will just blow up more with narrower rims

raria

So what have you done?

steve-in-kville 

Do you mean "inflate" or "explode"??

Not sure I understand

steve-in-kville 

Are you asking me, or every Tourist owner in general?

mstateglfr 

What was the benefit of doing this vs just using any of the many 32h 26" rims available at the time?

raria

I mean that quite simply a 32mm tire on a 15mm rim will be taller than a 32mm tire on a 19mm rim. It's quite elementary but alot of people (including myself) have been bitten by forgetting this.

It is common knowledge that the Fuji touring and Windsor Tourist bikes are essentially the same bike (sans a few component changes). I have the Fuji and was wondering what updates people have done.