In recent years, the trend in wheels and tyres has taught us that wider is better. As new wheels come to market, the marketing team will happily follow the lead of modern riders who prefer bigger tyres for more comfort. At the same time, the engineers involved continue to show concrete advantages. Wheels are more stable in crosswinds when the exterior is wider with a rounder point. Pairing wider wheels with wider tyres makes the whole system aerodynamically faster. Given all this, wheels and tyres have steadily grown.
Over the last few years, the informal standard has shifted. Around 2020 the vast majority of new wheels coming to market had a 19mm internal width and most people would have paired that with a 25mm tyre. By 2023, things have shifted to a new informal standard of 21mm wheels paired with 28mm tyres and another shift seems to be on the horizon. The most forward-thinking wheel manufacturers started to not only build hookless wheels but have also been expanding the internal width from 21mm up to 25mm. Then, seemingly out of nowhere, something changed.
