[sjb2332]

quick question…

I’ve preordered a pair of Hunt ‘all season’ wheels as an upgrade for my Genesis Vagabond, but im completely new to the tubeless tyre concept….

My question is this – Should i buy my own tyres, sealant, valves etc and pay my lbs to set up the wheels or shall I give it a go – As a newbie am i lilely to f*%k it up by damaging the wheels? I understand i may need a better track pump as well…..

Topic

[hawkinspeter]

I fitted a pair of Conti

I fitted a pair of Conti GP5000 TLEs before Xmas (onto Prime Carbon rims) and didn’t find them a problem and yet the other day I managed to completely snap a tyre lever trying to remove a MTB tyre (tubed) from Mrs Hawkinspeter’s bike.

[don simon fbpe]

hawkinspeter wrote:

Give it a go yourself. You’re unlikely to damage the wheels (unless you have a hard time getting the tyre on and resort to using a screwdriver or metal implements) and you’ll certainly learn something.

Important points to remember:

• Properly applied tubeless rim tape is essential – your wheels may already have this fitted
• If you need to fit your own rim tape, make sure that it ends up nice and flat without wrinkles and make the valve hole with something round and pointy rather than a knife
• Lubricating the tyre beads makes it easier to seat the tyre – you can use dilute washing up liquid to do this first before putting the tyre on the wheel
• Remember that the middle of the rim bed is lower (i.e. smaller diameter) than the outsides, so push the tyre bead into the middle to give a tiny bit more play when trying to mount the tyre onto the rim
• I recommend trying to seat the tyre beads without using sealant first of all as it’s a lot less messy and should give you some clue as to how airtight your setup is. If the beads bang into place without sealant, you can then deflate it and add sealant through the valve (if you’ve got a removable core and some kind of syringey thing that fits in the valve) or unseat one of the beads and pour some sealant into the tyre (typically a bit messy)
• Do it outside or somewhere that spilled sealant won’t be a problem

When everything works fine, you can seat and inflate them with a normal track pump. When you’ve got a small air leak you may need to push a lot of air quickly into the tyre to seat it and that requires something like a tubeless air tank (e.g. https://road.cc/content/buyers-guide/21-best-bike-pumps-and-co2-inflators-183431).

If you try it yourself and struggle, take it to your LBS and they’ll probably get it done in 5 minutes and make it look easy (probably by someone with bionic thumbs).

Follow this and you can’t go wrong, I would add that some tyres sit more easily than others. That is, if you’re stuggling to get the tyres to sit, it isn’t necessarily your fault. Always give it a go.

[Recoveryride]

If the wheels come set up

If the wheels come set up with the tubeless tape, do it yourself. hawkinspeter explains very well how to do it.

One tip: as noted, try and inflate the tyre first without sealant. If that’s tricky, you can use a C02 canister (don’t do that with sealant, as it can freeze it and render it useless). Then you can deflate it after an hour, and put in sealant through the valve hole.

Oh, and some tyre/rim combos are much easier to fit than others. Conti GP TLEs are b*stards on most.

[hawkinspeter]

I sort of recommend MilkIt

I sort of recommend MilkIt valves – they make it easier to add/remove sealant but they’re over-priced for what they are and I somehow manage to keep breaking them (but I’ve replaced them with new MilkIt valves despite the price).

[hawkinspeter]

Give it a go yourself. You’re

Give it a go yourself. You’re unlikely to damage the wheels (unless you have a hard time getting the tyre on and resort to using a screwdriver or metal implements) and you’ll certainly learn something.

Important points to remember:

• Properly applied tubeless rim tape is essential – your wheels may already have this fitted
• If you need to fit your own rim tape, make sure that it ends up nice and flat without wrinkles and make the valve hole with something round and pointy rather than a knife
• Lubricating the tyre beads makes it easier to seat the tyre – you can use dilute washing up liquid to do this first before putting the tyre on the wheel
• Remember that the middle of the rim bed is lower (i.e. smaller diameter) than the outsides, so push the tyre bead into the middle to give a tiny bit more play when trying to mount the tyre onto the rim
• I recommend trying to seat the tyre beads without using sealant first of all as it’s a lot less messy and should give you some clue as to how airtight your setup is. If the beads bang into place without sealant, you can then deflate it and add sealant through the valve (if you’ve got a removable core and some kind of syringey thing that fits in the valve) or unseat one of the beads and pour some sealant into the tyre (typically a bit messy)
• Do it outside or somewhere that spilled sealant won’t be a problem

When everything works fine, you can seat and inflate them with a normal track pump. When you’ve got a small air leak you may need to push a lot of air quickly into the tyre to seat it and that requires something like a tubeless air tank (e.g. https://road.cc/content/buyers-guide/21-best-bike-pumps-and-co2-inflators-183431).

If you try it yourself and struggle, take it to your LBS and they’ll probably get it done in 5 minutes and make it look easy (probably by someone with bionic thumbs).

[Rich_cb]

Personally I’d let Hunt set
Personally I’d let Hunt set them up (assuming they still offer that service) then ride for a while and see if you prefer tubeless to tubed.

If you’re going to buy your own tyres etc then I’d recommend Milkit valves, will make your life far easier in the long term.

Probably worth giving it a go yourself first with your standard track pump, a lot of modern tyre/wheel combos will seat easily (a lot will not!).

You shouldn’t damage the wheels at all, just might make a bit of a mess!

If you can’t get them to sit I’d go LBS before investing in new pumps etc.

[Author]

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