Advice on picking the right rims for my set up

[AlexRa]

I’m having some trouble working out which rims I need. I get that I’m looking for something a bit unusual and there are probably more sensible options. But I am where I am…

So I need a rim

- Tubeless ready, so I can run tubeless when I’m ready
- 700c / 622
- 32 spoke
- Tough enough for touring with a few days of stuff on the bike / light gravel 

Most of the rims I’ve found don’t have all of these. Most of the rim brake rims seem to prioritise weight rather than being tough enough for touring. Most of the tough rims for loaded touring / gravel don’t have a braking surface for rim brakes. Other options aren’t tubeless ready.

I’m going to build the rim on to my Rohloff hub. And yeah I know - I should probably sell the hub and buy a completely different bike that already has disks and tubeless. But I’m attached to it and if there’s a way of making my set up work I’d like to do it.

 I appreciate there may not be a rim that fits the job.

But if you know of one please let me know.

[Andyb1]

You don’t actually say what types of brakes you want to use, but assuming you want rim brakes then perhaps the difficulty finding of suitable rims is because what you want is a mix old tech (rim brakes) and new tech (tubeless)?

[mickeg]

It might help if we knew the size tires you want to run, wide, narrow, etc. 

[JohnR]

Several of the Kinlin rims here https://www.spacycles.co.uk/m20b0s116p0/Wheel-Components/Rims are tubeless ready. Most are disc brake rims although the XR-26T is tubeless compatible and rim brakes.  Ideally, IMO, the inner rim width wants to be about half of the tyre width you plan to use. That puts you in the middle of the range recommended by Schwalbe https://www.schwalbetires.com/media/16/8f/9b/1654668257/reifen-felgenkombination-etrto-22-en-2.pdf.

[RonS]

DT Swiss makes a variant of the R460 that is rim brake and tubeless ready. It has a bead width of 18mm so would work up to 35-622

[Andre Jute]

Ideally, IMO, the inner rim width wants to be about half of the tyre width you plan to use.

Good sense.

However, in this case where the cyclist is already hard up against a real shortage of options in the market, it is worth mentioning that the ERTRO engineers originally (before some rim makers without wide-rim capability started politicking) specified that the inner rim width should not be less than 40% of the tyre width. That means a tyre up to 2.5 times the widest rim he can find which meets his other desires.

I run 60mm tyres on rims 25mm across the beads -- that is, 42% of tyre width -- and have never had a problem because of it, even though I operate the tyres at what most here would consider really low pressure, down to 1.5bar at the end of the month before I inflate again. Where I live, all the flat roads are crowded and dangerous, so I ride the hills up and down, and have had plenty of opportunity to observe that those ERTRO engineers' initial 40% was a wise compromise.

[JohnR]

I've clocked up many miles with 50mm tyres on 17mm internal width tubeless-ready rims. I think that such rims, designed to hook onto the tyre beads, have enabled the tyre width / rim width limit to be increased. I also feel that a light bulb-shaped tyre gives a more comfortable ride than a U-shaped tyre.

[Dunroving]

I had a similar, but even more challenging job of looking for a combination of old and new tech (QR, rim brake, tubeless ready), except I was looking for 26 inch rims also. I ended up going with Velocity Cliffhanger rims, and I note that they also come in 700c. I don't know if they tick all of your boxes, but worth taking a look at their site. I purchased from a UK retailer, but I'm pretty sure you can also buy direct from their US site. You might find some helpful information in my thread on the topic in this forum.