Tubeless Newbie

diy

I've just bought a new to me bike, which is new, but has been sitting in shop display for the last 4 years. It has SRAM RISE 60, Full Carbon tubeless with Maxxis Ardent 26 x 2.25" Kevlar Bead Front, Maxxis Crossmark 2.1" 120 TPI Rear.

I have 2 questions.
- Will these tyres have some sort of sealant in them and will this have gone off and need cleaning and replacing? If so how will I tell? If they hold air can I assume all is good or will it show when I get the first puncture?

- What do you take on trail to deal with a puncture? I would normally take a spare tube and puncture repair kit.

oxoman

You should probably consider topping up. Seeing as it's a mtb your doing right by carrying a spare tube, i'd a also consider a Co2 inflator and tyre worms for patching holes. I also carry a tyre patch after getting a ripped sidewall. I embraced tubeless on my road bike before my mtb. Also worth getting tyre levers for carbon rims, cycleclinic do IRCC ones that are good.

02gf74

There should be signs of sealant at valve core insert otherwise unscrew it, push it in so core is loose and rotate wheel. Some sealant should appear unless it has dried up.

If no sign, remove the bead on one side to see what is inside.

If dried up, I'd recommend taking off the tyre and removing the stuck on sealant. The way I do that is to rub finger tips over it, it is time consuming and will leave you with sore tips so you may want to do this over a couple of days to allow fingers to recover.

I'd be interested in a less painful way of doing this, I tried brushes, water to no avail.

Re. Kit, I carry spare inner tube and pump, not had to use it yet but would be stuck if both tyres went bad.

On my tubed bikes, I would attempt to patch the inner and only use the spare tube if I fail to patch.

I also carry a small section of plastic cut from a milk container to patch a tear in the tyre.

diy

Right so - I can just bung an inner tube in, if the tyre wont seal out on trail? What sealant do people recommend? Also why do I need levers because the rims are carbon, I use my fingers normally.

oxoman

If you can do it with fingers then no need, a lot of tubeless have a locking groove that can be awkward to get tyres out of.

swod1

The most widely used sealant is stans no tubes, I've used this for the last 6 months and not had any issue until I rode my mtb to work other week and ran over some glass which ripped a hole in my tyre that wouldn't seal (doubt you would have this issue on the trails)

I would pop one side of the tyre off and see if there is any sealant on the bead then you'll know but if you want you could just run inner tubes in the tyres I did when my rear tyre got cut on some glass a couple of weeks back.

if you can get the tyre bead on/off with your hands then just do that, some wheel/tyre combos are tight and you have to use a lever on the last part of the tyre to get it on the rim

The Rookie

Just because the parts are tubeless doesn't mean it's not been built up tubed, as above you'll need to open it up enough to have a look.

I run tubeless and always carry a tube and a small piece of plastic to cover a sidewall rip (cut from a coke bottle, corners and rounded off).