[DoctorFish]

Hi,

I’ve been having a lot of fun on my Pinnacle Arkose, but the standard tyres it came with are starting to wear and I thought about going tubeless, especially as I’ve had  few punctures.  My options are to buy a set of hunt wheels and get the tyres fitted at purchase and to keep the standard wheels and fit them with something robust for winter riding (expensive option) or the cheaper option is to fit tubeless to the wheels it came with which are described as tubeless ready.

If you have fitted tubess tyres to Alex Draw 1.9s rims which the Arkose comes with could you please share your experince and let me know what I need to make the conversion.  I know I will need suitable tyres, sealant and valves.  Do I need rim tape?  Will they seal with just a track pump?

Cheers

Topic

[MonkeyPuzzle]

If you look for Kapton tape,
If you look for Kapton tape, it’s basically Stan’s tape but for half as cheap for ten times as much.

[DoctorFish]

This is all great information
This is all great information, thanks all. I think I have a couple of months of wear left in the tyres it came with then I’m going to set the stock wheels up tubeless with spoked g-ones. With the comments here and a bit of other reading it seem simple enough. If I like tubeless it seems unlikely I would swap between wheels with different tyres on, so might as well stick with one set of wheels for summer and winter.

[Anonymous]

You don’t need fancy ‘rim

You don’t need fancy ‘rim tapes’ such as Stan’s or Gorilla. Plain old everyday electrical tape works just fine. If your rims are tubeless ready you don’t need to take the tape to the rim bead, just seal the holes where the spokes are  – the rim profile will seal the tyre (assuming you use a tubeless/tubeless ready tyre).

 

[gunswick]

I converted some Alex rims,
I converted some Alex rims, this my setup, it works great:

* Milkit valves and refill / check kit. £30 ish from Amazon.

* yellow rim tape – it is “packing tape” in normal speak, which Stand’s etc rebrand. I bought 10m on eBay for £11 which was 19mm and it fits perfect on the 17mm internal Alex rims. Do 2 layers, overlap the valve hole, and squash air bubbles out as you go with a tea towel or similar cloth. Keep the tape tight and be smooth, no kinks or folds in the tape. 6m on my has not leaked or broken etc, but can be removed easily for spoke replacement, unlike gorilla tape which makes a mess and is hard to remove (pro: its cheap).

* Orange seal Standard, it goes down to -11c and lasts months and seals well. I used the Milkit system to check after 2 months and very little lost, I topped up after 4m but there was still lots (I used 2 ounces, 60ml, and had 1.5 ounces or 40ml after 4m). I have never had a puncture not seal, and even a 3mm sidewall slash sealed once the psi dropped from 60 to 20. It is excellent stuff and good value for money. I rode 3000 miles through UK winter this year with zero punctures. Last year on Conti GP4S I had 6 doing the same thing riding.

* Schwalbe s-one tyres. They are excellent. Fast, comfy at 60psi, very durable (4000 miles and going fine with another 1000 in the rear, 3000 in the front). £40 each so a little pricey
G-ones are just as good. S-Ones have now been rebranded as G-one speed I think. Went on fine with a track pump and some sealant round the bead, and where the rim is pinned together (the metal join in the rim). Could ride them a day or two with tubes first to spread the bead first. Easy on and off with tyre levers.

Tubeless is brilliant, do it.

[Johnnystorm]

I used Tesa tape (same as
I used Tesa tape (same as stans) with plenty of overlap. I fitted 32c Panaracer gravel king slicks. Lovely comfy ride w. 60psi in them. I have some alpkit wheels with nanos on for off road duties.

[DoctorFish]

Ratfink wrote:

Tape i used some gorilla tape i already had does the job and is availlable at all good diy stores.

Valves are schwalbe ones (mainly because i wanted black)

Sealant i bought a large bottle of schwalbe doc blue both from Mantel

currently £27 for both but i wont be buying sealant again for a while.

The tyres were the biggest expense near enough £80 i paid although you can get them cheaper online now if you shop about the tubeless ones are the g-one evolution in 35 or 40mm width i went with 40.

Of course you may have your own choice of tyre in mind.

 

 

Great, thanks, I’ll take a look.  I was thinking of g-one tyres.  

[Ratfink]

Tape i used some gorilla tape

Tape i used some gorilla tape i already had does the job and is availlable at all good diy stores.

Valves are schwalbe ones (mainly because i wanted black)

Sealant i bought a large bottle of schwalbe doc blue both from Mantel

currently £27 for both but i wont be buying sealant again for a while.

The tyres were the biggest expense near enough £80 i paid although you can get them cheaper online now if you shop about the tubeless ones are the g-one evolution in 35 or 40mm width i went with 40.

Of course you may have your own choice of tyre in mind.

 

[DoctorFish]

Ratfink wrote:

I’ve got the same rims on my Charge plug 4 and i changed them to tubeless no problem.

You will need tape and as the spoke holes are all over the place make sure its wide enough to go right up to the edge of the rim bed this helps the bead seal too.(obviously discard old rim tape dont tape over it).

I fitted schwalbe g-ones and i left them hanging for 24 hours to straighten out before fitting.

They went on first time with a track pump just took a rapid pump.

When you stick in the sealant move the wheel round so that the valve is at the top pump back up quite high and just slosh the sealant around the parts you hear any air escaping from repeat until needed took me a couple of top ups of air.

They’ve been on for 6 months now no problem  i topped up the sealant after 4.

Personally i love em The weight loss on my bike was something like 1.2kg over the rather marmite stock tyres and tubes.

Riding they have a lovely kinda slinky feel on the tarmac.

They cope well with my commute which is a bit of everything including some very rough roads and a cut through the woods and a gravely path.

I say go for it.

Great, thank you for your response, this is very helpful.  What brand of tape/sealent/valves did you use?  I’ve looked at the Stan’s kits, but they seem rather expensive.

 

[Ratfink]

I’ve got the same rims on my

I’ve got the same rims on my Charge plug 4 and i changed them to tubeless no problem.

You will need tape and as the spoke holes are all over the place make sure its wide enough to go right up to the edge of the rim bed this helps the bead seal too.(obviously discard old rim tape dont tape over it).

I fitted schwalbe g-ones and i left them hanging for 24 hours to straighten out before fitting.

They went on first time with a track pump just took a rapid pump.

When you stick in the sealant move the wheel round so that the valve is at the top pump back up quite high and just slosh the sealant around the parts you hear any air escaping from repeat until needed took me a couple of top ups of air.

They’ve been on for 6 months now no problem  i topped up the sealant after 4.

Personally i love em The weight loss on my bike was something like 1.2kg over the rather marmite stock tyres and tubes.

Riding they have a lovely kinda slinky feel on the tarmac.

They cope well with my commute which is a bit of everything including some very rough roads and a cut through the woods and a gravely path.

I say go for it.

 

 

[Author]

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