Looking for a pair of new carbon wheels for my older Ti frame (quick release, rim brakes, 30.5 mm chainstay opening). Been looking for used for months and haven’t found anything that checks all the boxes. As my bike is older the chainstays are a bit narrow. using dial calipers across the chainstays I measure the opening at about 30.5 mm. Only thing new I could find that was close was from light bicycle, but the max external width of those was 27.3 mm. I thought 3.2 mm total clearance (1.6 mm each side) was too tight).
Anyone know of any companies making new carbon rims that are narrow enough for my bike?
The used wheels i have found have all had v cross sections and I hesitate on these as I’m concerned about cross wind stability… maybe I worry too much?
I know there are numerous variables that would go into determining this, but is there a general rule of thumb as far as how much space there should be between the widest part of a tire/rim and the chainstays? My guess would be at least 2 mm. Sound too small? on my current wheel/tire/frame combo I have 2.5 mm and things never seem to rub.
the ISO standard is to have at least 6mm of clearance between your tire and any part of the frame. Daring riders will push this to around 4mm and get away with it, but be wary. If you go too wide, the tire will rub your frame.
These Light Bicycle wheels (and a couple others) are 25mm external width. I’ve had good luck getting my tyre to be flush with the rim on 25mm external width rims. Still, quite small margins.
I’m not sure if they still have them, but I had Light Bicycle build a pair that was something like 19mm internal to fit my 2012 Colnago. Works great w/ GP5k in 25mm. If you go on their website, you can choose wheels by internal width. If you don’t see anything, their customer service is very quick to respond thru the chat function
I picked up a set of used by nearly new ENVE SES 3.4 …I think its gen 3? Anyway, its tubeless compatible. 27.5mm wide front and back. I’m running them on my CAAD10. I’m running 25mm in front and 28mm in rear.
There are tons of 25mm wide rims (17-19mm internal) that should fit your bike fine. I have 25mm wide Farsports wheels on my Colnago C59 with 25mm GP5000 tires. They fit fine.
They now call the 25mm wide rim “Classic”:
If you want cheaper, there seem to be tons. I was looking at Superteam wheels on Amazon:
Elitewheels gets a little better reviews and has more build options. Several of their wheels are 25mm wide.
