Pumps for Tubeless Tyres

justal

I've tried converting to tubeless tyres on both my MTB and Cyclocross bikes and all works well if I can take the wheels to a garage and use the air compressor there to pump them up. However, I'd like to be able to swap tyres etc at home but can't for the life of me manage to get the tubeless tyres to seal on the rim with a normal track pump.I now that Lezyne do a very expensive track pump with a special 'Over Drive' system for tubeless tyres but at over £100 it's just too expensive. Does anyone know if there's anything cheaper that would be suitable - do the 12V air compressors for cars work?

Thanks,
Al.

tgotb

The 12v ones aren't going to be much use; tbh they're not much use for pumping up car tyres either. What you need is something with a large reservoir, so one of those workshop air compressors would do the job (though it's somewhat overkill). Think of the 12v ones as a slow electric equivalent to a track pump.

I use an Airshot, which works very well indeed.

You can build your own equivalent to the Airshot, using a fizzy drink bottle and some old valves, bits of tubing etc; some people have done this and are very happy; I tried, but couldn't get it to work...

CO2 canisters also work well; whether that's an economically viable solution for you depends how often you're likely to use them.

lostboysaint

Bontrager Flash Charger.

jimothy78

You could try the Topeak Joe Blow "Mountain" track pump:
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/tope ... -prod74895

It's got a very large volume cylinder - about twice the volume of most other track pumps, so blows a lot of air very quickly, and I've found it good for seating tubeless tyres, as long as they're a good match for the rims. Of course, the flip side of this large volume is that it quickly gets hard to pump as the pressure increases, so you might decide to swap to your regular pump once you've got the tyre seated on the rim (it's not a problem for mtb tyres, but I presume you'd be using higher pressure for CX)

justal

Thanks,
The Bontrager one is out of my price range really... Maybe something for the Xmas list!

The Joe Blow one is actually the one that I have (although I've got an older version of it). I can sometimes get the MTB tyres to seat with it (if I have a helper to hold the wheel and I pump like a man possessed) but have no chance with the CX tyres.

Looks as though it'll be off to the garage or back to tubes for me.

Al.

schlepcycling

I have one of these http://www.hargrovescycles.co.uk/airshot-inflator.html for getting the tyre seated.

skeetam

I have a TopPeak Joe Blow and a Ghetto Tubeless pump which will work really well for my road and mountain bike tyres. Most track pumps don't have the volume to seat a tubeless tyre.

How to build a tubeless inflator https://youtu.be/ePbjM6wQ1I8
The only hard bit to find is the little red SRAM bleed kit pipe valve but you could use mole grips.

bigmitch41

Another shout for the Airshot here!

Tubeless setup tip: if really stuborn and wont seal, inflate first with a tube, then deflate and remove the tube carefully from one side leaving the other side of the tyre/rim still seated, then after fitting the tyre back on the rim & adding your tubeless valve, re-inflate as normal this time only one side of the tyre has to seal, so far has worked every time.

g00se

Beto now do something similar to the Airshot for £40 and Bikediscount.de have a Giyo pump (track pump with built-in canister) for £60.

But saying that, I went to a local shop to help get a stubbon-to-seal tubeless tyre on and they basically showed me that nearly any tyre can go on with a normal pump if you use fresh tubeless rim tape and enough of it so that the beads of the tyre catch and seal against it straight away.