Going Tubeless

mikeyj28

Hi all

I currently have xc717 rims and Xt cup & cone hubs. I ride a 23lb HT and do xc/races and don't do mad drop offs etc.
How much would it cost to have a half decent tubeless set up for XC riding?
Does it benefit really well from not getting pinch flats,valves coming away from the tube and thorns?

How good is Ghetto tubeless or is it just a poor relation?
Thanks in advance for your advice.

Mccraque

I swear by tubleless and run on my trail bike. have had two flats in 2.5 years...one one of them was because I had let my wheel milk dry. That's on Shimano XT rims, which I find to be fantastic (shame about the hubs)

I also went ghetto on my hardtail. I ran a chopped up Brompton tube on my ritchey wheelset as as experiement. Was a bugger to seal, but stayed up for a number of months...then all of a sudden...went flat. And that was the end of that.

I invested in a Joes No flat conversion kit....tried again - have had no luck ever since - so back to tubes on that bike!

cooldad

I use tubes and have had one flat (a pinch) in two years, so....?

cloudynights

been running stans no tubes nearly 6 months now on a mavic 717 rim, only problem ive had is i struggle to get a wire beaded tyre to seal on the rim and i have a air line, not had any problems with punctures, best thing i did really, was picking up a puncture every couple of weeks with tubes and not pinch flats either

Mccraque

cooldad wrote:

I use tubes and have had one flat (a pinch) in two years, so....?

so you obviously don't ride hard enough.

cooldad

With my massive skill and lightning reflexes I just ride round thorns.

Pudseyp

There are pro's and con's such as no punctures, run lower pressure, better rolling resistance due to the voloume against the tyres can be a pain to seat, it's expensive to start (rims, UST tyres, tape and jiuce)....people say weight, but sometimes there is not much in it once you consider the rim tape and gunk will probably weight similar to a tube... I have a set of Bontrager rims and have ran them tubeless but have gone back to tubes as I got some cheap winter mud tyes.

So to me it's horses for courses..

VWsurfbum

Pudseyp wrote:

So to me it's horses for courses..

This.
I have tubeless wheels and when i'm racing i use lightweight non tubeless lyres set up tubeless (just for weight saving) never had any issue and never had a puncture.
Now the Mud is here and my 2.4 mountain kings are on, the weight is so high and the rolling resistance is so poor anyway i cant be bothered to set up tubeless.

njee20

For me it's definitely worthwhile, 717s aren't the greatest rims, you need to build up the bed with some tape to make tyres tighter IME.

Assuming they're the 6-bolt hubs they're a reasonably weighty wheelset on a fairly light bike, so I'd consider selling them and buying something like Hope Hoops or Superstar hubs on Crest rims. If you choose your tyres fairly carefully (Schwalbe and Maxxis work well, Conti are ok, Panaracer aren't) you should be able to have a range of tyres which will work really well.

Personally I use Schwalbe tyres on Crest and Podium MMX rims, I have at least 6 sets of tyres, all of which will go on easily and inflate straight away with a track pump. Ghetto often leads to faff with compressors and washing-up liquid and that, IMO it's not really worth the faff, I'd rather do it properly! If you get Stan's rims you just need a turn of their yellow tape (which is basically a rim tape) and a 6g valve, plus the weight of the sealant (I run about 60g worth), so there's definitely a weight saving. This obviously gets eroded if you start adding more sealant, tubes, loads of insulating tape etc etc.

Pudseyp

njee20 wrote:

For me it's definitely worthwhile, 717s aren't the greatest rims, you need to build up the bed with some tape to make tyres tighter IME.

Assuming they're the 6-bolt hubs they're a reasonably weighty wheelset on a fairly light bike, so I'd consider selling them and buying something like Hope Hoops or Superstar hubs on Crest rims. If you choose your tyres fairly carefully (Schwalbe and Maxxis work well, Conti are ok, Panaracer aren't) you should be able to have a range of tyres which will work really well.

Personally I use Schwalbe tyres on Crest and Podium MMX rims, I have at least 6 sets of tyres, all of which will go on easily and inflate straight away with a track pump. Ghetto often leads to faff with compressors and washing-up liquid and that, IMO it's not really worth the faff, I'd rather do it properly! If you get Stan's rims you just need a turn of their yellow tape (which is basically a rim tape) and a 6g valve, plus the weight of the sealant (I run about 60g worth), so there's definitely a weight saving. This obviously gets eroded if you start adding more sealant, tubes, loads of insulating tape etc etc.

Njee....we all know your a passionate lycra clad racer, so for you it makes sense....but for average joe mountain biker I do not see any benefit at all.

njee20

Why? Does your average Joe not want to save weight, increase grip and reduce punctures? :?

I didn't say it was for everyone, I just gave my opinion on the matter, which is that it is a big advantage. I have a set of wheels that I never use for racing, and they're still tubeless, not really sure of the relevance of my riding attire or style! I did also say that ghetto isn't ideal IMO, and agree with you that the initial outlay for new wheels etc can be prohibitive.

I was an early adopter though! I had one of the first sets of Crossmax USTs in 2001, when there was one UST tyre out there and sealant was a mere pipe dream! Stan's is far superior to UST it must be said!

YMMV.

Pudseyp

njee20 wrote:

Why? Does your average Joe not want to save weight, increase grip and reduce punctures? :?

I didn't say it was for everyone, I just gave my opinion on the matter, which is that it is a big advantage. I have a set of wheels that I never use for racing, and they're still tubeless, not really sure of the relevance of my riding attire or style!

I was an early adopter though! I had one of the first sets of Crossmax USTs in 2001, when there was one UST tyre out there and sealant was a mere pipe dream! Stan's is far superior to UST it must be said!

It wasn't a dig at you in your lyca personally all I was trying to say that to convert to tubeless is an expensive job and for average joe that probably uses his steed once a week the benefits aren't great. You can increase grip by buying the right tyre..I ripped the sidewall in a UST tyre what a pain in the ass that was...like I said its horses for courses....I have Bonty rims so for me can run either, but is hassle to convert back to tubless from running tubes.

bails87

I found tubeless to be a nightmare on converted rims. Tyres wouldn't seal, I broke* a track pump trying to inflate them once. Sealant wouldn't seal and would just pour out of 'pinch' holes on the tyre. At least with a tube a replacement is a quick and clean job. I don't get many punctures, in fact I've had less tubed than tubeless :?

For me, tubeless was awkward, time consuming, an unreliable faff and expensive. For me tubes work. So I won't bother going tubeless again, not on converted rims anyway.



*I got frustrated and threw it at a wall :oops:

njee20

Yep Bonty rims are a PITA if you use their plastic rim strips, particularly as tyres are then insanely tight.

IMO the best solution (having tried most!) is Stan's rims. As I said all you need is a turn of their yellow tape (which doubles as a normal rim tape) then you either put in a valve, and run tubeless, or you run tubes. Not much good unless you need/are prepared to get new wheels though!

Definitely think it depends on tyre choice as well, when the conversion kits first came out I was having the same problems as Bails, using Conti Explorer Supersonics; they were so porous it was ridiculous, very inconsistent fit too, some were so baggy they'd never inflate. Schwalbe are superb, I've got Nics, Rons, Ralphs, Freds, Black Sharks and Dans, I know I can change any of them in 5 minutes and ride off, without that I'd not be keen and can see why people shy away from/are put off it!

bails87

njee20
The worst experience was with Racing Ralphs actually. I put well over 500ml of sealant into just the rear (not all at once!) and every time it would inflate, I'd do the shaking thing for ages, it would seem to be holding air so I'd leave it and come back a few hours later to a flat tyre and a pool of sealant all over the floor.

That and the 'Tubeless Ready' Mud Xs that just wouldn't inflate, no matter what I did.

Changing a tyre when I was running tubeless meant getting sealant all over myself, having to get a bucket of soapy water to help the seal, potentially having to remove all the tubeless gubbins to make the tyres fit with a tube overnight before removing the tube and putting the rim strip back in, then 15 minutes per end of huffing and puffing to inflate, followed by another 15 minutes of shaking the wheel to seal the sidewalls and the bead. Then I'd go for a ride and the tyre would fall off the rim and throw me off the bike. no hope of reinflating without soapy bubbles and a track pump, so I'd have to put a tube in. Then when I got home I'd try to take it out but the sealant had 'glued' the tube to the tyre.....

With tubes it's a <5 minute job. Wheel out, air out, tyre off, new tyre on, reinflate, ride.

With proper rims it might be mroe reliable and I might give it a try, but at the moment, with how and where I ride there's just no point.

blinddrew

Having switched to tubeless I wouldn't go back. Being somewhat, well, let's just say fat and be done with it, I used to get a lot of pinch flats unless i ran the tyres at pretty high pressures. Moving to tubeless has meant no punctures since (in about 3 years) and being able to run much lower pressures (which i find faster and more controlled).
I have ust-specific rims though, which probably makes things easier...

njee20

With proper rims it might be mroe reliable and I might give it a try, but at the moment, with how and where I ride there's just no point.

Sounds like you had tyre problems rather than rim though, so perhaps not! I've never in my life used soapy water/had tyres roll/removed all the kit to get tyres to seat etc, just pump and ride. I can understand that if I had, my thoughts on it would be somewhat different :-)

bails87

njee20 wrote:

With proper rims it might be mroe reliable and I might give it a try, but at the moment, with how and where I ride there's just no point.

Sounds like you had tyre problems rather than rim though, so perhaps not! I've never in my life used soapy water/had tyres roll/removed all the kit to get tyres to seat etc, just pump and ride. I can understand that if I had, my thoughts on it would be somewhat different :-)

I've had very similar experiences with Racing Ralphs, Maxxis Advantages, Bonty Mud Xs and I'm sure something else too.

Either way, I had those problems going tubeless, I don't have them with tubes.

Of course, like anything there's pros and cons, and then you might just be lucky/unlucky.

Out of interest, what do you use to inflate? And have you used converted rims, or just proper tubeless ones?

blinddrew

I know I wasn't asked directly but I'm on crossmax STs and just use a track-pump. Not having had a puncture since fitting them I don't know if I could bed them in with my mini-pump

jairaj

my 2p for what its worth.

I've tried conversion strips and thought they were a pain in the a**e wouldn't go back to them.

I now have a Shimano UST wheel set and a Stans Wheel set and find life much easier and highly recommend them. Changing tyres is quite straight forward just need to take a little bit of care pouring the old sealant from old tyres into the new ones. apart from that no issues.

The difference is not massive though. I wouldn't bother changing your wheels just for the tubless functionality. If your current wheels are getting to the end of their life and you need some new ones I'd recommend either Hope or Superstar hubs with some Stan's rims but otherwise stick to tubes.

njee20

Out of interest, what do you use to inflate? And have you used converted rims, or just proper tubeless ones?

I've got a cheap Specialized track pump, used to have a Topeak one, and used various pumps when I worked in the LBS, nowt special though.

Personally I've had:

UST Crossmax
717s with an Eclipse kit
Olympics with rim strips
Olympics, Roval Controle SLs, Crests and Podiums just with yellow tape and valves

Of those the Crests and Podiums are the easiest, the rims are slightly bigger than the older Stan's rims, so tyres inflate better. The Olympics with rim strips worked really well, but the rim strips weighed more, cost more and got tatty over time.

I've used Maxxis, Schwalbe, Conti and Bontrager tyres, never failed to get one to seal (except for the inconsistent Contis which occasionally would just be too baggy).

Like I say I've been on tubeless more than 10 years, and I probably set up about 50 wheels while working in the LBS. There is a knack with getting them to inflate, and on some of the earlier combos I did resort to CO2 to get them to inflate, but I've not done that for years.