Wider road rims

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

"Interested in trying some wider road rims (>19mm)" - for what purpose, is it to fit wider tyres?

 if so there's nothing stopping you from fitting wider tyres on a narrowish rim like a 13/14mm never mind 15mm and over.

Really?

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

dottigirl wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

"Interested in trying some wider road rims (>19mm)" - for what purpose, is it to fit wider tyres?

 if so there's nothing stopping you from fitting wider tyres on a narrowish rim like a 13/14mm never mind 15mm and over.

Really?

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

Basic in whose thoughts, accepted wisdom you mean? Well in the real world that accepted wisdom is often bollocks, I've been using a 32mm tyre on the rear of my commuter/utility bike for around 8-9 years, the current rim is a narrow Open 4 Ceramic (on 8speed 105 HG hub), before that I used an Open pro Ceramic which was a little bit wider (it got crushed in a hit and run).

Only recently have I been under 100kg, I often carry 10-15kg load and occasionally substantially more (c.25kg), I corner pretty quickly, I chuck the bike about a lot, not once have I ever experienced any squirming or handling issues. That's even including times when I've got lazy and not pumped air in the tyre so it's run down to 45psi, as a rule of thumb I'd normally be around 80psi, if I was carting a realy heavy load I'd go up a bit more from that.

I can't even see the tyre when I'm cycling unless I particularly look down so what it actually looks like I couldn't give a fig about any 'lightbulb' effect.

So in my personal experience based over a fair few years and tens of thousands of miles of actually riding with this set up in what I would say is atypical utility/commuting riding that doesn't pamper the bike/tyres/wheels 'Basic Stuff' with regards to wide tyres/narrow rims doesn't match my own thinking/practical use.

dottigirl wrote:

Really?

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

Go and have a look at the nearest mountain bike and then report back.

LastBoyScout wrote:

dottigirl wrote:

Really?

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

Go and have a look at the nearest mountain bike and then report back.

I can just go and have a look at the road bikes I have stacked up by the door, or reflect on previous experience.  The wider rims ride better than narrow. 

If you want to talk about mountain bikes, here:

https://www.singletracks.com/blog/mtb-gear/can-i-run-a-wide-tire-on-my-r...

LastBoyScout wrote:

dottigirl wrote:

Really?

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

Go and have a look at the nearest mountain bike and then report back.

Or indeed the nearest gravel bike.

All that guff about the 'light bulb effect' to get us to buy wider road rims, then they put 45mm tyres on a 20 mm gravel bike, at low pressure.

It was bull.

matthewn5 wrote:

LastBoyScout wrote:

dottigirl wrote:

Really?

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

Go and have a look at the nearest mountain bike and then report back.

Or indeed the nearest gravel bike.

All that guff about the 'light bulb effect' to get us to buy wider road rims, then they put 45mm tyres on a 20 mm gravel bike, at low pressure.

It was bull.

Specialized were fitting 42mm tyres stock on their globe range (a little narrower on the Pro mens variant) and the rims were an Alex rim 'globe' at a not particularly wide 17mm, as you say, it's complete bull. Try as I might - and I did try hard, I could not get any squirm or rolling off of the wider tyre on what is/was a very narrow racing rim from BITD, as I said upthread that's with  a fairly heavy weight and at decent speeds too.

That said I've just picked up some lovely old skool wide rims with offset spoke holes and ridiculously low profile rim that are non eyletted and light as a bag of pennies!

dottigirl]<p>[quote=BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

You can, but haven't you heard of the light bulb effect? Makes cornering more than a bit iffy.

Basic stuff, mun.

Mountain bikes use wide rims to make the tyre less likely to fold when cornering at super low pressures. That's basically never going to happen on a road bike, and unlikely even on a gravel bike - I have 40c tubeless tyres on 17mm rims and they're entirely fine. I think the only other reasons are to get a little more volume for a given tyre size (marginally higher comfort / lower rolling resistance, supposedly) and to improve the profile on aero wheels (you don't want the tyre sticking out further than the rim or they become basically useless).

Keith.Slater wrote:

Thanks. Looks interesting.

Incidentally what size tyres are you using?

Conti 4000s II in 28c. The biggest I could fit under the long drop brakes on my T2. They measure up at just under 32mm (~31mm? I don't have a caliper tool) on the Ultrawide rims.