Zipp 303 firecrest tire clearance compatibility

Hello all,

I recently bought a Merida Reacto 6000 that has a 30mm tire cleareance.

It is this one:

I want to upgrade the wheelset and I live in hilly conditions and there are some climbs which I love doing, so naturally I found the Zipp 303 firecrest best allrounder wheelset for what I plan on doing.

However, the new rim measures up 25mm wide internally and shapes a 28mm tyre up at 30.9mm.

Or so it seems from the review here:

My main question is this:

Are these wheels still a valid option? Or would I be pushing the clearance beyond its limit?

Do any of you have experience with this?

I could use 30mm tires as well, but wouldn’t that push everything into 32mm external width teritorry?

So I think generally manufacturers tend to be pretty cautious on published frame clearance. I.e. If they say it’s 30mm then I would say you will be fine with any 28mm tyre (even if it blows up a bit wider than that) and most likely would be fine with 30mm tyres as well.

However, that said - 28mm tyres on a 25mm hookless internal rim is already outside the ETRTO guidance/standard. And while Zipp do their own testing and say it’s a safe combination there’s been a lot of debate about hookless rims, tyre widths, risk of blow offs, etc. I don’t think it would be a huge shock if at some point Zipp and/or some of the tyre manufacturers changed their advice (for legal reasons if nothing else) such that using a 28mm on those wheels wasn’t recommended/supported. In which case if 30mm was also a tight fit on your frame then you’d be in a bit of a bind. Personally I’d view it as a bit of a tight call and would likely err towards a different wheelset with maybe 23mm internal width which gave a bit more of a buffer in terms of tyre options for the foreseeable future.

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