- Tubeless tyres for road bikes have increasingly
become a popular choice for triathletes as
wheel and tyre manufacturers readily provide these options.
So today I'm going to take you through
a step-by-step process for fitting tubeless tyres.
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Now, as the name suggests a tubeless system gets rid
of the need for an inner tube.
So we need to ensure that both our wheels
and our tyre are tubeless compatible.
And if they're not, they're just not possibly going
to be as safe as they should be.
So please don't try to fudge this with any tubeless,
non-tubeless combinations; it's just not worth the risk.
So to get on with how to do this,
there's a few things that we need for the set up,
and those include some sealant,
some adequate sealant rim tape, some tubeless ready valves,
valve core remover, a syringe for the sealant,
a high volume charge track pump-
something that I've never used before,
and also some tyre levers too.
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Make sure you start a couple of inches
to one side of the valve hole with your rim tape
and then do a full lap of the wheel,
overlapping the value hole
and then finishing a couple of inches
the other side of the valve, just to ensure a good seal.
Then pierce the rim with something like
a Phillips screwdriver, but just a small opening.
Then we add the tubeless valve and use this
to force through the full hole ready for the valve.
Use your finger to add pressure to the end of the valve
so that we can get the valve nice and tight.
But we don't need to use anything like a set of pliers,
just finger tight will do the job nicely.
However, depending on the brand of your rim,
if it's a narrow wheel, then you could leave
the valve a little looser as this might make
fitting the tyre an easier process.
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Firstly, be sure to check for any directional
requirement of the tyre before mounting it,
and then align the tyre with the rim accordingly.
This is most apparent on a disc brake rim.
Start by fitting one side of the tyre into
the well of the rim, just as you would
with a standard clincher tyre.
And now the second side of the tyre will be a lot
trickier to fit as these tubeless tyres are much tighter.
So begin by fitting at the valve
because otherwise you run into even more trouble
trying to get the tyre over the rim.
If you're able to manage this
without the use of tyre levers, then fantastic,
but if you're like me then you'll need them
for the final section of the bead
to mount the tyre onto the rim.
(upbeat music)
A quick point before moving on to seating the tyre,
is remember to tighten and snug up the valve
to the rim after having left it lose,
to help with the mounting of the tyre process beforehand.
So now is where the charger pump
I mentioned earlier comes into play.
In essence, this type of pump works just like
a regular floor pump, but has an air canister that can be
pre-charged to as much as one hundred and sixty PSI,
before it then releases that entire volume of air
in one single motion, just like a compressor would.
This will hopefully seat the tyre onto the rim,
but we ready and aware not to get frightened
of the cracks and loud noises as this happens.
If you don't have one of these, then there are a couple
further options available to you.
You can try and seat the tyre using a regular pump,
or even using a CO2 cartridge
would be a good method too.
But you can also pop along to your local petrol station
where they are likely to have a compressor pump available.
But be mindful of the fact that car tyres have
a Schrader valve, rather than the Presta valve we require.
So this might not work unless you
have an adapter of your own.
And finally, a really safe bet might just be asking
your nearest bike shop if they can help out.
(upbeat music)
Remember to deflate your tyre
before we can start adding the sealant.
Be sure to give your sealant a good shake
to dissipate any lumpy sediment that might be in the bottle.
Then you need to check the label for the recommended volume
of sealant required, then fill up your syringe.
You can either use a large bottle for multiple uses,
or like I've done here, a single use serving of sealant.
By using the valve core remover
we can now take out the core of the valve,
as freeing up this extra space makes it
easier to add the sealant in with our syringe,
simply by placing the syringe nozzle
directly into that open valve.
Once all the sealant has been added we can simply
reinstall the valve head using that valve core tool.
Now we're ready to reinflate the tyre
using the charger pump as we did before to seat it,
or now that the tyre is properly seated on the rim,
you could just do this with a truck pump
to inflate the tyres, for example.
Now take the wheel and gently turn and roll it
through your full three-sixty degrees
to allow the sealant to fully move
and reach all the areas to create a good seal.
And ideally you should leave the wheels
for at least a half an hour to allow
the sealant to spread as well as possible.
Now a quick point worth noting is that these
tubeless systems don't actually hold their pressures
quite as well as the standard inner tube does.
And in fact, this bleeding of pressure
is considered quite acceptable.
So really you just have to monitor your tyres
and make sure you've checked them
before you're heading out for a ride.
Now that's me; I walked us through the
how to set up a tubeless tyre set up process,
and hopefully you find that useful.
If you have, then please give that
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of our other videos on the channel.
If you want to see a video that Mark did
about how to set up cleats, well you can find that here.
A further video about how to avoid junk miles,
you can get that here.