chuckybb

I picked up an old Otero road bike, I think made in the mid-seventies, that has a hook-less at the front. It is a Rigida Chromage Superchromix <74> 27 X 1 1/4" (H.P) Steel Rims 36H - France. The tires were Schwinn HP Sport, 27" x 1 1/4", 85 psi gumwall, raised center ridge. I'm just wondering what might be an appropriate new tire for this rim?

Iride01 

On my old Schwinn's with hookless steel rims I used tires with wire beads. But unless the tire manufacturer states that the tire is made for crochet or hooked rims only then you should be good. But you have to check their websites for the actual specs and FAQ's on the tires.

The last 27" tires I ever used were from Kenda. Others still make them, but they were harder for me to find. 27" is a 630mm BSD.

dedhed

If I was doing this and seeing that the rim is not laced to a hub, I'd scrap the steel rim and lace a nice aluminium hooked rim on and get a much nicer wheel.
An alloy rim will weigh less, stop better, and look nicer as that chrome isn't particularly pristine. Really a worthwhile upgrade.

Something like this

https://www.ebay.com/itm/23261962006...xoC91kQAvD_BwE

RH Clark

I thought the hookless thing was fairly new. I would have no problem with a glued tubular, but I would personally be scared to death on any downhill decent with that new hookless system from what I've read about it. I don't mind being corrected though.

79pmooney

Those rims were made in a day when all clinchers had steel beads and over 75 pounds wasn't done yet.

As the previous poster said, steel rims are a poor choice to build up and use. Poorer stopping all the time and in the wet - almost zero stopping power. I know this very well. My first 10-speed was the infamous Peugeot UO-8 with its Rigida patterned steel rims. Even with the pattern on the sidewalls, it took all of my hand strength (and often lever travel to the handlbars) to stop at all downhill in the rain - this with one of the all-time great caliper brakes, the Mafac RACER. In 1973 I discovered sewups on another bike. Instantly swapped those steel rims for aluminum sewup rims. And - revelation! With those great brakes I had great stopping power!

27" is an old standard that is getting harder to find in good choices. I am sure aluminum rims are out there but I cannot tell you where. Panaracer Paselas are out there and in steel beads. They are good all-around tires. Not great at anything but no glaring weak points. I have probably 60,000 miles on their 700c tires from 25c to 38c.

Now, another option that might be possible would be to switch to 700c. The question would be the brakes. 700c rims sit about 4mm lower on the fork and stays so need 4mm more reach for the brake calipers. Does your Otereo have that? Another brake like the Mafac RACER might make your bike work. I've been doing the 27" to 700c swap on bikes for 50 years, usually with the RACERs or the long Weinmann/Diacomp centerpulls. Been easy on the half dozen or so that have been my winter bikes. (I love RACERs in front, Weinmann in back. The Weinmann are stiffer and less powerful Braking power is neither needed or wanted in back but rear brakes suffer "sponge" from the long full length cable housing. With the RACER/Weinmann mix, the brakes feel the same at the levers and the braking is very predictable and very good.)

Iride01 

That's just fear mongering on your part.

You've read all the horror stories but haven't accounted for all those that haven't had any issue. I rode smooth bead rims in very hard conditions and never had them blow off the rim. Even with the extremely over inflated pressures I use to use in them back when I was a teen and even just before I stopped using them in the later part of the 2000's when I got a 700C bike.

However dedhed 's recommendation for something in an aluminum rim is a pretty good suggestion as steel rims were obscenely heavy and didn't brake well. At least that was the case for the ones I had on several bikes. And a aluminum rim from that era will likely be crochet any how. So that is a plus because then most any folding Kevlar bead tire could be used.

greatbasin

I have some nice Weinmann alloy hookless rims in 27" and they work great with Continental Ultra Sport III's in that size. I also have some later model Weinmann 416 hooked rims and run some Schwalbe Marathon Greenguard tires on those. I wouldn't hesitate to put either tire on the hookless rims. The key thing is to keep inflation pressures down on the hookless rims. For my weight, even touring with 25 pounds of luggage, I only need about 50 to 60 psi in those 32's (1 1/4"). I would start to be concerned about 90 psi on the hookless rims, but it depends on the tire too. I've had cheapo tires blow off both the hookless and 416 rims because the beads were junk.

There are good Weinmann 27" complete wheels on Amazon -- and if they're anywhere else I don't know. They're not Belgian Weinmann, but they're as good replacements for 27's as you'll find unless you're willing to buy vintage hubs, rims, spokes and build your own. I wish I had the tools, skills, and time, but don't.

Trueblood

Hookless was around before hooked rims. Be very careful about the PSI, don't go by what the tire says on the sidewall. I have had them blow off the rim even at 70. I now only pump them up to 60 on my C&V bikes. Plenty of threads about hookless rims and 27" tires in the C&V section.

KerryIrons

Hook bead rims became popular in the late '70s/early '80s as clincher tire pressure rose and tires were made to compete with sew-ups. Given the history of technology in bicycles it wouldn't surprise me if hook bead rims were "a thing" over the past 100+ years, coming and going as tires evolved.

Trueblood

Here are some 27" tires on the market:

https://www.westernbikeworks.com/search/27in-road-tires

https://www.biketiresdirect.com/search/27in-road-tires

Ha, the websites look so similar in layout, i wonder if it is the same company. Anyway, the thing is, if the tire blows off the rim, it usually damages the sidewall and bead. Unfortunately, I have had this happen with Panaracer and Schwalbe wire bead tires. It isn't the fault of the tires, I simply overinflated them. As I indicated before, I only go to 60 PSI now. On some of the other threads in the C&V section, people say they regularly inflate tires to 75 using hookless rims without a problem. That didn't work out very well for me. In one instance, I wasn't even riding the bike, it just blew up in the house in the middle of the night. Rude awakening.

alcjphil

The current generation of hookless rims has almost nothing in common with the hookless rims of the past. Hookless today is all about providing maximum compatibility for tires designed for tubeless applications with rim diameter and tires designed to conform to very close tolerances to those rim diameters.
Back then, hookless rims were largely made of steel for tires with rigid beads at pressures very close to the same as current hookless systems,(surprise, surprise) That said, I owned a Peugeot UO8 back in 1972. It was equipped with Michelin 50 clinchers and the same rims as in the OP's post. One day I pulled into the local gas station back in the time when gas stations provided air hoses where you could refill your tires for free. So, I "knowing" that since car tires didn't need the same pressure as high pressure bicycle tires, I just filled my tires until the air stopped flowing. My ride that day was kinda rough, so I decided to check my tire pressure when I got home. I had(and still have) a truck tire gauge that reads up to 150 psi. I had been riding that day at 130 psi on hookless Rigida rims like the ones the OP is asking about
As an aside, I worked in a bike shop back then where we sold Peugeot bicycles. One thing I learned was that if you set up brakes before you fully inflated the tires, the rims would expand after tire inflation and change brake adjustment

chuckybb

Thanks! Lots of good advice.

Jax Rhapsody

It's not new. Rims like that were common decades ago on balloon tire bikes(beach cruisers), and some newer cruisers with painted steel rims still have that poor design, and you gotta run low pressures, or the tire de-beads. They aren't desirable or "new tech", choosing those type of wheels, or keeping them on a bike, is like getting bias-ply tires for your car.

3alarmer 

...the last couple of sets of wheels I built with modern, box section alloy rims, they came from Sun Ringle. I think they still make and sell them in the CR18 rim. But the price has almost doubled.

curbtender

A good tire and nice vintage look try the Panaracer.

3alarmer 

.
...as people have already said to you, spending he money to buy spokes and nipples, and then using them to rebuild your wheels using those rims, makes no sense from a functional, riding standpoint.
Even on bikes that are older, I try to at least use a hooked bead alloy rim as a minimum standard. Steel wheels are not much fun to ride, and spending money on something like a Panaracer tire to put on them is wasted.

You can't pump them up to the sorts of pressures that reduce rolling resistance a lot, or they will blow off those rims.