Wide load?

Triathlon Forum
1

I’m looking to upgrade the wheels on the cyclocross bike that I use for commuting through the hair-raising Washington, DC roads. I’ve got a set of the 28mm Michelin City tires, which seem well-designed for the rough ride.

My old wheels are the standard 19mm road width, and I was looking into some of the new wider wheelsets that are around 22 or 23mm, like the Hed C2 series, the American Classic Hurricane, a custom Velocity A23 or similar.

Anyone have any experience with wider wheels on a road bike? The current marketing around them claims that the tires sit better, and make the ride smoother, with better cornering, etc. Any truth to that?

If I’m going to mostly be using wider tires, would it be worth prioritizing finding wider wheels? Or is 19mm fine even for 28mm plus tires?

2

I run a 28 wide tire on a regular rim on the trainer. Haven’t had any trouble, it mounted OK, just gotta spread the brake pads REALLY wide to stuff the tire up in there. I’ve never ridden that tire on the road though so I can’t comment on the ride. It looks enormous though!

3

The wide tires were one of the main reasons I’ve been using the cross bike—wider fork and cantilever brakes.