# HED Belgium Plus Rims with 25mm tires?



## Lombard (May 8, 2014)

I know there have been many discussions here about the acceptable (or safe) range being expanded for inner rim widths with certain tires.

As many of us have seen from Sheldon Brown's page, these acceptable ranges were quite small and it appears that page hasn't been updated in quite some time. Even though there is a wealth of good information on this page, the chart is VERY conservative and almost laughable by today's standards:

Tire Sizing Systems

DT Swiss now has a chart which is quite a bit more generous than the old train of thought on the subject and makes a whole lot more sense:

https://dycteyr72g97f.cloudfront.net/uploads/RDR047DPN24S011543/MAN_WXD10000000866S_WEB_ZZ_001.pdf 

So here, they have the cutoff for 25mm tires at a 20mm internal width rim. Above that, they recommend a 28mm tire. As much as I would love to do that, there is no way my road bike will fit 28mm tires with a 20mm rim. 28mm tires with a 17 or 18mm rim, yes, but that's pushing it. Wider than that, no-can-do.

So......the HED Belgium Plus has around a 21mm internal width. Would it be OK to use a 25mm tire with this rim? I am thinking DT Swiss' chart is more of a recommendation than a safety cutoff, otherwise, their lawyers would probably put that in print. Anybody here use this combo?


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## upstateSC-rider (Aug 21, 2004)

I'm using 25mm Pro One's (tubeless) on Belgium+, no problem at all, in fact I have an S-works 26mm in the batter's box when it wears out.
Sheldon has tons of great info out there but I don't think anyone has updated it since he passed, and I believe the wide tire trend started afterwards.


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## Marc (Jan 23, 2005)

23mm and 25mm work fine on Belgium+. Have used 23 to 32 on my roadie with those rims fine.


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## Lombard (May 8, 2014)

Thanks guys!

And if I had only looked at HED's own website, I would have seen this:

*25mm Plus clincher rim MIN/MAX tire width: 23 - 58mm *

I don't even have the excuse that it's a Monday because I posted this on Sunday! :blush2:


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## aclinjury (Sep 12, 2011)

I've used it with both 23mm and 25mm Conti GP4000 tires fine. Contis are known to run a little bigger than their stated sizes.

I've also tried the Secteur 28 tubeless tire, but I've found that at 28mm, the ride felt too smushy for my taste.


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## Lombard (May 8, 2014)

aclinjury said:


> I've used it with both 23mm and 25mm Conti GP4000 tires fine. Contis are known to run a little bigger than their stated sizes.
> 
> I've also tried the Secteur 28 tubeless tire, but I've found that at 28mm, the ride felt too smushy for my taste.


Just out of curiosity, how much extra did your tires expand when you ran these wider rims? I noticed a 1mm increase when I went from 15mm to 17 or 18mm rims. So my 28mm tires measured 29mm. I am guessing the Belgium + at 20.8mm would expand the tire by 1 more mm making a 28mm tire 30mm or making a 25mm tire 27mm.


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