Schwalbe Tubeless Rim Tape

Want tubeless? You need tubeless tape. Well, you don't *need* it but it makes everything a lot simpler, and this Schwalbe tape makes it about the simplest it can be. It's expensive, but it's really good.

• Pros: Seals first time, handles high pressures, adhesive works well
• Cons: Expensive

If you're switching to tubeless you might baulk at the price of dedicated tubeless tape and try to get the job done with insulating tape, or duct tape, or whatever else you've got knocking about. It tends to work okay at lower pressures but if you're running a 28mm tubeless road tyre at 80psi then you'll often spring a leak, in my experience.

Schwalbe's tubeless tape is designed to handle high pressures, and does so extremely well. Assuming your rim bed is clean and dry it's super-easy to fit, with an adhesive that's stronger than some of the other options. Make sure you get the right width for a good seal: you want the tape to fill the whole of the rim bed. Generally you'll want tape that's a few millimetres wider than the stated internal width to account for the fact that the tape drops into the recessed middle section of the rim.

Schwalbe says you only need one wrap of tape, which means you'll get three wheels done from a 10m roll. I didn't have any trouble at all sealing rims with a single wrap, with about 20cm of overlap over the valve hole. The tape is thick enough to handle a nice tight wrap and just flexible enough to work its way into the gaps, without stretching and leaving gaps of its own.

Overall it's an excellent tape: if you just want to get the tubeless job done with minimum fuss then 20 quid might seem like a reasonable spend. DT Swiss tape – which is also excellent – costs about the same. There are plenty of cheaper options out there if you're on a budget. You won't go far wrong here, though.

Verdict

Excellent – if spendy – tubeless tape for high-pressure systems