- Road tubeless wheels and tires promise so much.
They're light, they're fast rolling,
and most importantly of all,
they're almost puncture proof.
But, they just haven't really caught on yet.
Some people have concerns about safety,
but mainly it's because they're
a massive pain in the backside.
To fit, to pump it up, and then,
to flip and take it back off again.
However, just take a look at this.
No inner tube.
No tire levers.
Standard pump.
Seriously, that was like the third time
I've done it and I'm still utterly flabbergasted.
I think we need to take a closer look.
(funky electronic music)
Right, this is the brand new road tubeless
system from Mavic.
As a brand, they have a long, long history
of innovation in the sport.
And in fact, a lot of it is on display
all around us here at the legendary
service course of their HQ in Annecy, France.
And one of those innovations is this.
Which is UST mounted bike tubeless wheels.
So back in the late 90's Mavic partnered up
with French tire manufacturer Hutchinson
to help make their legendary cross max wheel
work without inner tubes.
A complete first, tubeless.
It seems weird then that with tubeless
going from strength to strength
on mountian bikes that Mavic
have seemingly been standing by
as road tubeless develops without them.
They haven't though,
they have clearly been very busy
because they have just launched
a complete range of 12 compatible wheel sets
and two new tires.
Okay so Max as the concept
and product manager on the road side things,
you're probably very well placed to
answer my questions.
Given that Mavic invented tubeless for bikes,
how come it's taking you guys
seemingly so long to enter the road
tubeless side of the market?
- So mountain bike and road are very different
because road uses much higher pressure,
with skinnier tires and skinnier rims,
so it's a world of different constraints.
There have been road tubeless wheels
on the market,
but none of them is really up to our requirements.
Especially in terms of ease of use or safety.
- But, effectively, what have you done then
when releasing these new ones
to satisfy your requirements?
- Okay.
So it's all about the system.
We're making wheel tire system for a long time now.
Road tubeless, road UST is now possible
because we've designed the rim
and the tire together.
Setting up the right diameter for the rim
and the right diameter and best stiffness
for the tire.
- What sort of tolerances are we talking
because we've all experienced, I'm sure,
a tire that's easy to fit on a rim
and a tire that's super hard to fit on a rim.
And then if you've ever used tubeless,
you'll be familiar with,
tires that are almost impossible to inflate.
But what's the discrepancies between
the wheels and the tires then?
- Discrepancies are that tolerences are within a millimeter.
- A millimeter?
- A millimeter, yeah.
We've been doing a lot of testing
on competitors products already existing
on the market and we've seen that within
a millimeter of differences,
it makes the tire impossible to mount
or very easy to come off the rim
at high pressure.
- Okay, which is why it's easy to get on
and inflate, so actually, the problem
with very tubeless was never that
it was difficult to inflate,
it was just that the tolerances were too big.
- Exactly, tolerances were too big
and especially there were tire makers,
there were rim makers,
that didn't reach out with each other.
They all wanted to be on the safe side
so wheel makers then to have wheels that were too big
and tire makers would make tires
slightly too small so none of them would
take any chances on the safety off their
cyclists and riders.
- Yeah.
- But the result is that is was super hard to mount.
- Yeah.
Okay, well looking at safety,
I think we should go and see exactly
what's in your lab.
And what a lab it is.
Mavic are particularly geared up,
as you might imagine,
for putting wheels and tires through their paces.
Given what we've just heard about tolerances then,
for the UST tubeless project,
some of the most important tests
are just really accurate measurements
of both tires and rims.
Sounds simple, but it actually required
some bespoke creations.
This one measures the circumference of the wheel,
so you divide that then by pi,
and you get your diameter.
Then another tool measures the height of the side wall
of the rim to give you that all important
bead seat diameter.
This jig then measures the diameter of the tire
and then is importantly the stretch
in the tire bead.
Clearly, if a bead stretches when a tire is inflated,
that's going to be bad news as well.
Knowing these measurements
means we can predict whether a rim
and tire combo will work.
But there is one more bit of kit here we need to see.
But ultimately this machine behind us now
is going to tell whether it is safe or not
because we're about to see a tire explode.
Is that right?
- Yes, exactly.
- Cool, and so what exactly are we going to do,
well, just inflate it basically, I guess?
- Yes, this very, very simple.
We need to use this kind of wheel.
- Okay.
- This is what we call master wheel.
It's a machine wheel.
So it's very heavy.
If you want to?
- Probably not, I better not touch it.
- But the dimension are well known.
The dimension of this wheel are well known.
And the dimension are not moving with the pressure.
- And as well as testing to your own standards then,
you've got diameters of wheels there
that represent the smallest diameter road wheel
you would expect to find on the market
and the largest diameter tire.
You've got data then across the whole spectrum
of what's available?
- Yes, we are testing both combinations,
but the most critical, the worst case,
is the smallest rim and the biggest diameter of the tire.
- What's the difference in pressure then between
the ideal standard blowing off the rim,
versus the worst case scenario.
What's the difference in bar between?
- It depends on the width on the rim,
but it can reach one bar or one bar off.
- [Simon] Really?
- So yes.
- It's quite a lot less.
- [Brieuc] Yes.
- [Simon] Should we press the button,
make it explode?
- [Brieuc] Ten off.
- Ten off bar.
- [Brieuc] 11.
- 11 bar, wow.
There's quite a lot of pressure in there now.
- [Brieuc] 11.5.
- Ohhh. (tire explodes) Oh.
- [Brieuc] 12.
- Wow, 12 bar.
Well to be fair that would serve someone right
for putting that pressure in their tire.
Wow.
It's great to know that there is that focus
on safety then and as we've already seen,
setting the tubeless system up
is pretty much as easy as a standard
inner tube and tire.
But, if you are new to the whole concept
of road tubeless,
then the puncture resistant
side of things way well seem a little bit overblown.
No pun intended there.
So, let us try and demonstrate quickly, shall we.
We need a sacrificial tire,
and then we can play a little game.
Will it seal?
Or seal, or no seal?
14 millimeter upholstery nails
for fixing fabric and webbing
and given a decorative finish.
Right then, seal, or no seal?
You ready?
There.
You know what, I think that's sealed.
Bloody hell.
So five 14 millimeter upholstery nails.
Seal.
Number two, 20 millimeter floor tacks.
For floor coverings and upholstery.
Carpet tack, seal or no seal?
Oh no problem.
Sealed already.
Okay, number three, 30 millimeter galvanized
felt nails for roofing felt and slates.
They look brutal, absolutely brutal.
Roof nail, seal or no seal?
I think we might have found the limits.
Come on.
Quite interesting to know how much pressure
is in this tire now.
It's a seal.
Yes.
This feels all kinds of wrong.
And I have my doubts.
Well the knife has presented quite a challenge.
I will admit, I have inflated this tire once
since I slashed it,
but here we go,
that is undoubtedly, a seal.
There is no inner tube in this bad boy.
Can you remember how many tacks
were actually put down?
Okay so, the tubeless part definitely seems to work.
But let's face it,
most the time,
you're probably not going to be riding around
and thinking how many punctures
that you're hopefully not having.
Instead, what you really want,
is just a light, fast, and strong pair of wheels
and light, fast, and grippy tires.
So with that in mind then,
we probably better have a look at what's on offer.
There is the Comet Pro Carbon SL.
The Cosmic Pro Carbon SL.
The Cosmic Elite.
The Ksyrium Pro Carbon SL.
The Ksyrium Pro.
The Ksyrium Elite.
And they all come in rim brake and disc brake versions.
Plus there are three new additions
to the all road range.
So you got the All Road Pro Disc,
the All Road Elite Disc,
and the All Road Elite Rim Brake.
There is, frankly, an awful lot of new stuff going on
in the range, not just the tubeless compatibility.
So rim widths are generally up,
they're 19 millimeters on all the road wheels
except for the Cosmic Elites
and the Ksyrium Pro and Elite rim brake versions
which stay at 17 millimeters.
Then the all road ones are a quite frankly,
very roomy, 22 millimeters wide.
Interestingly though, despite the increase
in rim widths, weights have either been maintained
or in the case of the Ksyrium,
actually dropped by between 30 and 55 grams.
The entry to Mavic UST tubeless on the road,
is this one here which is the Cosmic Elites.
That retails at 449 euros,
but remember, that comes as a complete wheel system.
So it also includes the tires.
The tires.
There is an awful lot of development gone on here as well.
There's 3D models, it is the Yksion Pro UST
which comes in a 25 and a 28 mil width.
And they are 260 and 290 grams, respectively.
And then there's the All Road XL,
which is 40 mil wide.
And that weighs 440 grams.
So you can see it takes the light weight boxes there,
and actually, you'll find apparently,
that if you run tubeless,
you should save about 40 grams per wheel
in a direct comparison with a standard Mavic tire
and inner tube.
Now, Mavic say that the rolling resistance
on the new tires is really competitive.
But they didn't actually pursue the accolade
of having the fastest rolling tires out there
because they witnessed in testing
a significant trade off between some super fast
compounds and grip.
Meaning that you could be really quick in a straight line,
but then you lose it in a corner.
And I mean literally lose it in a corner.
I think it's time to talk to an engineer
to get some clarification.
Okay, I found one, this is Jeremy who is the tire engineer.
So, talk me through it then.
How have you found this balance
between grip and rolling resistance
and we stood next to a machine
testing for rolling resistance.
So, what are the parts of the tire
that you've needed to look at then?
- So, to find the good balance between
rolling resistance and grip,
it's always difficult
and we need to make a lot prototypes
and a lot of measurements on just the prototypes.
And after, it's a combination
between many parameters,
like the compound, the tire thickness.
Another component to use to build the tire,
like the casing.
And also the air you put inside.
- Okay, so, in terms of the grip then,
is that compound,
this largely dictates home much grip you've got?
- Yeah, in terms of grip,
pure grip on the wet,
it's really the compound that makes the difference.
- [Simon] Okay, is a tubeless tire faster rolling tire
than a tubed tire, an inner tube?
- Yeah, sure, in fact a tubeless tire
is always faster.
It's about 15%.
- 15%? - 15%, yeah.
- Wow, okay.
And for the nerds out there,
which is the fastest version that you've got?
Is it the 25, the 28?
Which rolls the fastest?
- Actually which was the fastest is the 28 millimeter tire.
- 28, okay.
You know what, I genuinely am still amazed
at how easy these tires are to seat
on these rims.
And this is the ninth pair that I've done
already today.
- Excuse me, Simon,
could you please stop chatting now
and put those tires,
and those 45 other set of wheels
you have to prepare for us, please?
- Yeah, okay, alright.
Sorry about that, Max.
Right, just very quickly then,
before leaving this video,
do make sure you subscribe to GCN.
It's completely free, just click on the globe.
And then if you're after some more content,
if you click up there,
you get through to a video about reducing
the risk of punctures,
which includes, but isn't limited to,
actually going tubeless.
And the for some more information
right from here, at the Mavic facility,
we've got a great inside look
at the development of their new
Comet Ultimate shoes.
That's just down there.