Okay, so we're going to talk about converting from a regular setup with a
tire and a tube to a tubeless setup. The main advantages of tubeless is that you
take away any risk of puncturing by pinching the tube. That means you can
start running lower tire pressure, so you might find more grip. It's also going to
be a little bit lighter, so you've got less rotating mass on there, makes a
really big difference to how your bike rides. It'll make the bike feel more
nimble. To convert a regular setup with a normal rim that isn't tubeless-specific,
to tubeless, you're going to need a few little bits and pieces.
We've got some universal valves that are specially made for tubeless kits,
some tire sealant, and either a rim tape, or you can actually use this sort of
gaffer tape or duct tape which is really narrow, really, really strong. So there's
two options, really, for rim tape. Step one is taking off your tire and tube to
get it down to the rim, where we're going to need to put a tape on there
to convert it to tubeless. Tire and tube are off, you probably want to
keep that tube as a spare anyway, because although you're taking away
any risk of puncturing by pinching that tube, you might end up putting
a little hole in that tire, which means that tire isn't going to seal once it's
tubeless. So keep a spare tube anyway and take that on rides just in case.
Make sure that the inside of the rim is nice and clean and dry,
because this is where the tape needs to stick. You can get tubeless-specific rims,
where you won't get these holes for the spokes. The spokes actually joins the
rim to the outside, so they're completely solid, so you're not going to need that
tape like we're using today. This is a more standard rim, I would say,
where we're going to actually wrap the tape to cover these holes.
So, now let's look at getting this tape on there. There's different theories for
where you should start. I always go to the opposite side of the wheel from
the valve hole, where you'll find the weld of the rim. Start off there, wrap
it 'round nice and tight, and then overlap it when I come back around
here. That way I just have one nice layer of tape in that valve
area, so that when I push the valve through, it should be nice and clean.
Now, push your thumb in nice and firmly on that tape to get it in there,
and this is where I like to put quite a lot of tension on that tape.
So I'm really pulling it with my right hand to get that tape
stretched out and get it right down the middle of that rim.
Once you've gone right around the rim and overlapped it slightly,
now use a sharp Stanley blade and just cut that tape nice and square.
Now that that rim tape's on there, we need to get this valve into the rim.
I've always used a Stanley blade to do this and just carefully put a nice
little hole in that rim tape. Some people don't recommend that, because if you
put too big a hole in, it might keep growing, which'll cause you a bit of
an air leak down there. But I've never had a problem with that. As long as you're
really careful and put a nice small hole in that rim tape, you should be fine.
So find your valve hole. Actually, with this rim tape, I can just about see
through it, and there's my valve hole. Put a nice little hole in there,
don't have to go too big, so, this valve is now just going to push
through there and through the rim. Once that's through, you need to
use that little lock nut to tighten that down. Tighten that up relatively
firm so that you've got a nice seal between that and the tape.
What I do now is get the tire fully on there, dry, before I put any sealant in,
just to check for fit. If that tire is too baggy on the rim, meaning it goes on
really easily, it probably isn't going to pump up very easily,
because you need a good seal between the tire and the rim surface.
If it is baggy, I take the tire off, take the valve back out and actually fit
another layer of tape on there. That's going to increase the circumference of the
inside rim and make it a tighter fit between the tire and the rim.
Obviously, if it's really hard getting that tire on there, that's going to be a
bit of a faff, but it should pump up a lot easier and seal a lot better.
With a bit of experience of fitting tubeless tires, you get a feel and you'll
know if that tire is tight enough to seal properly. If it's not sealing, it can be
really frustrating, I've had that. It's especially hard sometimes when you've got
a tire that's been sat folded like this. The bead isn't going to sit very well to
begin with on that rim, so a little trick is to take that tire back off
and actually just fit a tube. Pump that tire up, get that bead to pop onto the rim
so it's really nice and tight. Then let that tube down and just sneak that tube
out of one side of the tire, so leave one side of the tire popped into that bead,
use the tire lever to remove the other side of the tire, pull that tube off
and start again. So, actually, this one side of the tire has already sat
in that bead, and you've got a pretty decent seal there. That should help
with you then trying to pop the tire onto that tubeless system.
There's two ways of getting the sealant in. The way I tend to use is get most
of the tire on, go right around, you have a little bit of your tire open
like that. On the back of the bottle will be a volume marker, and it'll tell
you how much of this to put in for your tire size. And that's the way I put it in.
Pour it straight into the tire like that. The alternative method,
maybe you'd use this if your tire was really tight to get on, you just get that
tire onto that rim. Then you can use one of these to put the sealant actually
through the valve and into the tire, but for me that's a little bit
more faff. Generally, just pouring it into the tire's the way I do it.
Give this a real good shake before you put it in. I've poured the sealant in.
Now what I do is roll that tire around so that sealant's going to sit in the bottom
of that tire, so hopefully I'm not going to get too messy when I finish off getting
that tire on the rim. Now let's try pumping that tire up. This is the moment
of truth, the really frustrating part sometimes where it doesn't seal.
There's another little trick to this. Try it first as it is. If you can't get it to
seal, take out the inside of this valve core. It's going to give you more air flow
into there, and you might get a better chance of popping that tire and getting it
to seal. Obviously your tire isn't going to stay up, because you haven't got the
valve core in, once you take the pump off the air's going to come back out,
but hopefully by that point you'll have that bead sat on the rim nicely,
so when you put the valve core back in, it should work.
I'm using a track pump. I'm in a really nice workshop here at Bad Ass Bikes.
They've got a really fancy Snap-on compressor there. I would be using that
normally, but to help you guys out, I'm doing it the hard way to show you it's
possible with just the track pump, hopefully. Oh, that's what we want. Start
hearing the tire pop onto the rim, and I keep going up to about 50 psi to get that
tire sat on the bead. Now it's a good idea to wipe any of that excess sealant off,
and give that tire a nice roll around, or a good spin, just to get that sealant
working around the tire and filling any little gaps there might be.
I'll leave that tire nice and firm until I want to ride it, because if I'm leaving
the bike overnight I'll leave it at 50 psi. You might find that it does go down
overnight, but on that first ride you'll spin that sealant around, and it should be
fine after that. So if you are struggling to get that tire to seat properly on that
rim, there's four tricks. First is that inner tube trick of pumping that tire up
first, get that one side of the tire sat on there nicely. The next one is to make
that tire tighter by putting more rim tape around. Another one is to take that valve
core out so you get a better flow of air in there, or lastly, you can use a
compressor to get a big blast of air in there. Also, CO2 cartridge to pump
your tire up quick, or there's these things on the market now called Airshots,
little cylinder that'll give you a big blast of air to get your tire seated.
There you are, ready to roll. If you liked the video, and you found it useful,
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