Howdy, I recently gave some new life to an old 1980s raleigh road bike that I found on craigslist turned into a commuter. The tires are somewhat old, and I’m looking into replacing them. Would you recommend any different sizes for the wheels? Brands to look for? It’s not a common size tire on modern bikes. Also, I currently have 700 x 35c inner tubes in the tires. Is that an issue or will they work just fine for now? They were provided to me by my local bike shop.
Second this on the brake clearance checking. I had an old west German steel road bike with 27 x 1 1/4" wheels and thought I could just swap in modern 700c road bike wheels and be happy. However the brake calipers on the bike wouldn’t work as the rims were now in a slightly different location and wouldn’t adjust far enough to reach. That said you can get extenders and longer reach brake calipers if you’re fully committed to putting a modern wheelset on, but worth checking everything will work/fit before going too far down that route.