Raleigh Man said:
I wonder why a 28 mm tyre on a touring bike ?
good question Iain
Lots of bikes are built up by shops of a mixture of bits . Usually whatever is cheapest or simply to-hand.
Its why you see sub £500.00 bikes with a Shimano Tiagra rear mech, a no-name chainset, a cheap front mech from Tywan and so on.
If you are riding 90%+ on good roads most folk on here would probably recommend 25c rather than 28c .
The difference in the amount of effort required to reach a reasonable speed will be considerable.
I personally use 23c on my road bikes although I have several 20c tyres I used for Tri's etc
You could probably use the same tube although I don't know what you have.? Most tubes will say they are good for 23c-28c
if your tubes are better suited to 28c MTB tyres it could explain why your tyres beads are not sitting on the rims easily. Too much bulk to fit a narrow 18mm rim you see boyo