lornt78

I can't believe I still hearing people say that tubeless is the way forward. Tubeless is the only way to go. Any discussion is backwards.

Wider rims may be better, but only up to a point. Everything is a compromise, and what I think this article fails to address is the other side of the story: What if you make the rim too wide? Imagine a stupidly wide rim, and it becomes apparent what the downside of increasing rim width is. The centre of the tread may still be a good distance from the rim, but when cornering the part of the tyre in contact with the ground is closer to the rim. This effectively results in characteristics of a narrower tyre, namely: reduced bump absorption and hence less traction, and more prone to 'pinching' of the tyre.

Wider rims may be better, but only up to a point. Everything is a compromise, and what I think this article fails to address is the other side of the story: What if you make the rim too wide? Imagine a stupidly wide rim, and it becomes apparent what the downside of increasing rim width is. The centre of the tread may still be a good distance from the rim, but when cornering the part of the tyre in contact with the ground is closer to the rim. This effectively results in characteristics of a narrower tyre, namely: reduced bump absorption and hence less traction, and more prone to 'pinching' of the tyre.

Good article. So wider is lighter and less burp prone; but there must be an upper limit. Any gain usually means a compromise on some other aspect. So what to you compromise by gaining less tyre-burps? What is the ideal tyre width to rim width ratio? What would happen with a rim as wide as the tyre (i.e. the tyre cross-section a semi-circle)? If the rim was even wider than that, you'd basically have no sidewall! I can think of three considerations: (1) As you increase the rim width the tyre volume increases, but only up to a point; then further increase in width the tyre reduces the volume. (2) An equal tyre/rim width (i.e. semi-circle tyre cross section) seems to be the optimal shape for the air pressure pressing the bead directly against the rim; with any wider a rim the air pressure is going to be pushing the bead more outwards off the rim. (3) If you picture a wheel with a huge rim width to tyre width ratio, it becomes obvious that when the wheel is leaning over (i.e. when cornering) you have less space between the rim and the ground than you would have if the rim were narrower. This would presumably mean less bump absorption, less traction, and more 'pinching' of the tyre.

here here