The early mountain bikes had 32mm rims for the 50mm or so tires they had. The tire and rim with were proportional. Mtn bike tire rims got skinnier when Keith Bontrager (this is not a knock, he has been a hero) cut down Mavic road rims (MA-2, 20.5mm) to mtn bike 26 size, and big rim makers and bike bike product managers wanted to be nearly as cool, so followed that move and made skinnier rims, and we've never recovered. The ISO (international standards org) recommends much rider rims than almost anybody uses...for fat tires. They don't enforce rules or oversee or anything. They're a bunch of engineers who recommend. The older wider rims are more in line with their recs for fatter tires.
The only drawback to a wider tire is weight. It holds a lower pressure tire better, it provides slightly more height and width, and especially in the case of a sidepull or centerpull, it gives a fatter tire a better chance to escape btw the pads when the arms are released. With canti or V, this isn't a big deal, but if the fork blades are wide and the canti posts are set wide and the rim is skinny, the pads will arc down at the contact point, which...can't be great. Wider is also much stronger laterally, but...blah blah blah... I think in our catalogue we have tire recs for rim widths. I don't have one here and I won't be within 122 miles of one for a few days, but basically...if your tire is fat your rim should be...not skinny. I don't think I'm surprising anybody with that statement, but I apologize for using so many words to get to it. G On Thursday, January 16, 2014 5:00:38 PM UTC-8, hsmitham wrote: > > Hey I need the collective wisdom of this group. First, how does rim width > affect tires overall width, height, ride? Does it even make a difference > between 22.5 mm and 27.5 mm? > > What are your thoughts on these rims for a loaded tour/S240 rig: > > Sheldon Brown 26" rims <http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/rims/559.html>. > > Which of these would you go for especially if your attempting to keep the > costs down? Other suggestions are welcome. > > Thanks, > > ~Hugh > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
