27 inch wheels, any decent replacements out there?

I am currently restoring an old Keith Coppul bike from the late 70's Everything has gone really well except for the wheels. I don't think the wheels that came with the bike when I acquired it were the originals. The build quality was poor, "Sunshine" hubs and Weiman rims and after much cleaning , polishing and retruing I had a set of wheels that basically fell to bits on the first ride. I think they are past recovery as the front rim has a real flat spot in it and I would like to replace them. The wheels are 27 x 1 1/4, I don't want to switch to 700c as they just don't look right in the frame and I have a really nice set of Suntour Superb brakes that are too short to reach 700c rims. I've looked around the web for replacements but everything available seems pretty basic and I'm not convinced they will last any length of time. Are there any decent replacement wheels available or will I have to go down the custom built route?

You might be lucky and find some Mavic MA2 in 27".

Others will have better suggestions but I always found tyres to be the next challange

Re:

I have the same predicament on my Raleigh Clubman

I may have to convert to 700c.

I had a lovely Raleigh Road Ace but it was 27" and going over to 700c meant a lot of expense!

I found some Mavic MA-2 27 inch rims on eBay last summer... sadly this is no help to you as I decided soon afterwards to convert to 700c, due to potential lack of spare parts while touring, and sold them on. But they are out there.

SJS Cycles carry a few different 27" 630ERD rims, up to you whether you consider them decent. Certainly they aren't too bad...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/27-X-1-1-4-PA ... 1d6fd021dd

Sometimes like the above for old styleee HP tyres?

Shaun

Wheels are so expensive by themselves; that is where it often comes in handy to just buy a whole used bike, often for less than the price of a set of low cost wheels. Even at that, I'm running 27" steel wheels on the Raleigh now and should a real need come up to put the nicer wheels I have on, I do have that.

All this said, the usual suspects in the States probably have 27 inchers,

http://sheldonbrown.com/harris/wheels/630.html

And Velo Orange which has its goods sold in the UK now last I checked.

http://store.velo-orange.com/index.php/ ... ls/27.html (27" inch wheels but at what price? Seriously)

I've had to mess with the interchangeability on tyres too, sorry this is off-topic and the tubes that use them.

700s on a 27 inch wheel and so on. They say it won't work but I'm not always positive about that. Then, some of the darn tyres I have, I can't even find the size written on them.

Re:

Hilarystone.com has a very nice selection of 27inch wheels.