Tyre choice (resurrecting old racer!)

[arghill]

Hello All,

Firstly Merry Christmas to everyone here

I am very much a forum lurker but do read regularly and find it a great source of information and inspiration!

I am currently commuting on my hyrbid which uses 700x32 continental sport contact tyres, between 4 and 10 miles a day of road and tarmac cycle paths depending on route. So far no p******s!

My weight has dropped over 18months from 16 to 12 stone (+ mince pies) and so I want to bring my old race bike back to use for the occasional commute.

One of the reasons this bike was stored years back was down to the amount of what I believe were pinch flats, usually when cornering hard.

Frame is Reynolds 753 race frame and rims are old Weinman 700c and measure 19mm at edges.

I've reserved some Continental 700x23c Ultra Gatorskins and tubes at Halfords (good price at the moment).

So a few questions :

• Will these tyres fit ok ?
• The current tyre sidewalls say 700x25 but they are nowhere near 25 when measured - more like 20c, why is this - I'm confused ?
• Will the new setup help with pinchflats at all or should I go for something wider ?

Thanks all.



btw : the new forum interface doesn't seem to allow post creation from Firefox, not sure if this is a known problem.

 

[RecordAceFromNew]

Merry Xmas!

Since narrower tyres and lower pressure are more liable for pinch flats, the narrower the tyre, the higher the pressure needs to be. If the tyre is barely wider than the rim, one is also far more likely to get rim damage.

I would say 23c is about as narrow as you want to go with your rims. You might want to read this for guidance regarding pressure.

 

[chugsy]

More choice of sizes here at the same price:

http://www.highonbikes.com/wheels-tyres/tyres-road/continental-ultra-gatorskin-road-bike-tyre.html

I bought a mid 80s Raleigh and replaced the crusty original tyres with some Conti Ultrasports I had spare in the shed (700x28) with no problems - pumped nice and hard they're quite zippy and comfy to boot. Like yours, the originals seemed alot narrower than as stated on the sidewall.

 

[arghill]

Thank you for the info all.

New tubes, tyres and rim tape fitted!

One of the reasons to go to the big orange shop was I had a gift voucher spare so that made achieving n+1 on the road much cheaper.

Assuming I haven't pinched the tubes getting the tyres on I will take it for a quick jaunt around the block later

Also needs a really good clean...

 

[chugsy]

you'd know if you had pinched the tubes when you pumped the tyres up. Now... I think we'd all like to see some pics of the "new" steed!

 

[PpPete]

Hello All,





btw : the new forum interface doesn't seem to allow post creation from Firefox, not sure if this is a known problem.

Firefox works fine for me !