Bicycles Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for people who build and repair bicycles, people who train cycling, or commute on bicycles. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
I understand that the first number is the tire diameter, so on that part I know it will fit, and that the second number is the tire width and that's my main concern.
I want to put winter tires on my bike and all the studded winter tires that I find are 35C. Will they fit on my wheels if I currently use 23C and 25C?
35c might be a bit too wide for your rims, maybe 32c would be a better choice. They may fit your wheels just fine, but they may or may not rub on the chain stays, seat stays or the brake caliper.
35c tires are not only wider, but also have a larger outside diameter than than their smaller counterparts.
If you have enough clearance on your frame & calipers, you should still consider how big of a change in size you want to try.
Consult the chart below to help determine if they will fit.
From Tire Sizing Systems
Width Considerations
Although you can use practically any tire/rim combination that shares the same bead seat diameter, it is unwise to use widely disparate sizes.
If you use a very narrow tire on a wide rim, you risk pinch flats and rim damage from road hazards.
If you use a very wide tire on a narrow rim, you risk sidewall or rim failure. This combination causes very sloppy handling at low speeds. Unfortunately, current mountain-bike fashion pushes the edge of this. In the interest of weight saving, most current mountain bikes have excessively narrow rims. Such narrow rims work very poorly with wide tires, unless the tires are overinflated...but that defeats the purpose of wide tires, and puts undue stress on the rim sidewalls.
Georg Boeger has kindly provided a chart showing recommended width combinations:
Which tire fits safely on which rim?
Note: This chart may err a bit on the side of caution. Many cyclists exceed the recommended widths with no problem
That depends on a number of factors specific to your bike (for which you have listed no specifics), but the likely answer is no. You need to check your frame/fork and brakes for available space. Many road frame/fork combos I have seen will accept much larger tires (32c or maybe 35c) however, the brake arches are very tight and will not allow a tire larger than say, 28c.
If you carefully follow along the entire edge of your wheel (front and back) you can check for any tight spots. If you don't have at least a fingers worth of room every where the frame, fork, brake or anything else gets tight, it probably isn't going to work. If you have at least that much room, it may be worth having a shop ready to sell you those expensive tires trial fit one on your rim, and see if the studs will tear a whole somewhere or not.
They will fit on your wheels. All tire sizes that start with 700 and end with C have the same rim size (see the Tire Sizing Systems for a full explanation).
A different question is whether the wheels will fit your frame when the larger tires are installed. That can only be answered by measuring the free space when your current tires are on. Keep in mind that you need some extra space for snow and mud that stick to tires.
I want to put winter tires on my bike and all the studded winter tires that I find are 35C. Will they fit on my wheels if I currently use 23C and 25C?
I used to ride 40C studded winter tires in the winter. I found them to be far too narrow for this use case.
Especially if you have to ride on snow modified by pedestrians walking over it, the 40C tires do not travel in a straight line. You will find your bicycle continuously wobbling from left to right.
I would assume a 35C tire is far too narrow, being even more horrible than the 40C tires I used to use.
Also, while a 35C tire is far too narrow to ride on snow modified by pedestrians, it may at the same time be far too wide to fit into a typical road bicycle (IMO, these bicycles that come with ridiculous 23C/25C tires shouldn't be called road bicycles -- they should be called racing bicycles). In the winter, you want enough clearance between the tire and brake/bicycle. Especially with caliper brakes, you may find a tire wider than about 28C may not fit. With disc brake bicycles, the situation may not be as bad, but you may still find the space to fit a tire with decent snow clearance may be limited.
My advice would be to get a fatbike for winter. Yep, it's slow but then so is riding on a snowy road.
