17" Wheels

[longdog]

I've seen lots of posts about fitting cast wheels to a GS on here, but............ has anyone had a pair of 17" rims laced onto GS hubs? Yes, I know the back is a 17" but if I wanted to keep a dedicated set for road only tyres, I thought it might look good to have a set of wire wheels. I would probably lose the tubeless option, so has anyone got any experience, comments, advice?

 

[longdog]

Hmmm...... so, if I go this route, I'm on my own. Right?

 

[Paul Young]

Hi LD,

I think you may have problems lacing different rims onto the GS hubs due to the design of the spokes & the angle they approach the rim. Changing the rear hub isn't really an option due to the single sided swingarm, but I'd be happy to be proved wrong as I think that spoked wheels look much better......

 

[Le singe]

I looked into fitting a smaller front,spoked rim to my 1100 before I went for the alloy conversion,the best I found was the 18" rim off of the R1100R,(if I remember correctly).
This had all the benefits of being able to run tubeless tyres,stainless spokes and the modification used BM parts.
Plus it was possible to buy a complete wheel from a breakers.

 

[longdog]

I shall look into this and report back IF I find anything positive

 

[Grizzly]

Why Change Wheel Size??

Hi Longdog,
It would be great to have a spare set of wheels with road tyres on them and I also think spoked wheels suit the GS better - but their a bit harder to clean!. But I wonder nowadays if it's worth the bother of going to 17" front rim??. There's no need to do this now purely to fit road tyres since Bridgestone brought out 020's last year in GS sizes and now, this year Michelin have brought out Michelin Pilot's in GS sizes.
Both these tyres would be well suited to the GS I think?, and it also avoids the resulting changes to steering geometry etc and front mudguard changes every time you change to your "road" wheels??. So all you need nowadays is a spare set of standard wheels and the jobs done??

Cheers............................Grizzly

 

[longdog]

Re: Why Change Wheel Size??

Hi Longdog,
It would be great to have a spare set of wheels with road tyres on them and I also think spoked wheels suit the GS better - but their a bit harder to clean!. But I wonder nowadays if it's worth the bother of going to 17" front rim??. There's no need to do this now purely to fit road tyres since Bridgestone brought out 020's last year in GS sizes and now, this year Michelin have brought out Michelin Pilot's in GS sizes.
Both these tyres would be well suited to the GS I think?, and it also avoids the resulting changes to steering geometry etc and front mudguard changes every time you change to your "road" wheels??. So all you need nowadays is a spare set of standard wheels and the jobs done??

Cheers............................Grizzly

Yes, good point Grizzly! I had thought about this, but part of me still thinks the 17" option looks sooooo good! Thanks for the tyre info. I knew that Bridgestone did 020s, but I didn't know that Michelins had brought out Pilots too.