29er vs 700c tubular

Triathlon Forum
1

This is probably a stupid question, since 29er is just marketing speak for mountain bike 700c, but here it is.

Will a 700c tubular cyclocross tire fit on a tubular 29er rim like this one:

http://www.wheelbuilder.com/store/enve-composites-xc-tubular-mtb-rim.html

Thanks
Andy

2

Yes, you just have to check the suitability of rim width and tyre width. 32 would be about as low as you generally want to go on a MTB rim.

3

Is that true? I’ve seen it as interchangeable but in theory you could mount a 29er mountain bike tire to a wide rim 700c road bike wheel?

4

I’m not sure of your question.

Considering the OP is talking about tubular, not tubeless it is alittle different.
If the rim is really narrow (roadie style) and you try glue a wider MTB tyre onto it that is say 2.25 it is possible it will “over hang” the rim. Not that I have seen many tubular 29er tyres. There are not alot of tubular MTB tyres out there. Honestly can’t see why you would bother and 99.9% don’t.

Now if it is a normal clincher or tubeless clincher tyre on the rim it is all about the bead being able to grip the rim. MTB tyres are wider and mount on a slightly wider rim. Road tyres are not made to mount on a MTB rim. They don’t have the same depth sidewall to take up the extra width and will spread and flatten as they pull out. The beads won’t fit the same and could end in a blow out on when you least expect one…

or some pretty serious damage to your rim.

There is a point where there is alittle crossover. That is where 32 is generally accepted in the MTB community as the narrowest one would run on their MTB rims (commuters often do this).Now I have unerlined and bolded generally because triathletes have a tendancy to look at things in the extreme or black or white rather than shades of grey. I’m sure if you looked hard enough you could find an MTB rim that might run a narrower tyre quite safely, but why bother. Just get a road rim?

5

I actually run 700c tubeless tires (700c x 35mm stans raven) on a tubeless 29er rim for my gravel bike. Works great.

The reason for my question was to make sure that there wasn’t some idiosyncrasy of mtb tubular rims that I didn’t know about.

Thanks for the help.

Andy

6

There isn’t, and I don’t think that tubular rim is particularly wide, IE I’d use it with wide road tires 28/28mm), normal cross tires or mountainbike tires.

The only thing I’d worry about is very narrow road tires.