Death in the mountains

I've ridden carbon rims for a while now, but the type of brake in use has defined the type of tyre and mounting system - tubular rims and tyres for rim brakes, clincher tyres (most recently tubeless) for disc brakes.

The distinction is driven by my fear - possibly unjustified - that rim brakes will overheat the epoxy/carbon structure under heavy braking (for e.g. in the mountains) leading to a clincher tyre being spat off the rim and a horrible death, remarkable only for the duration and intensity of the pain and concomitant screaming.

However, fairly recently ENVE released their 2.2 SES rims as being both (primarily designed for) tubeless tyres, and with a braking track for rim brakes.

I therefore decided to use them for the Gravity Shadow, a bike that will be ridden in the high mountains of Europe and America, and see if my fear was justified - agonised screaming is still very much on the cards, I'm just hoping that the pace of technological change will make this unlikely. I may be wrong.

I ordered the rims built onto Chris King R45's and they arrived a little while ago, this morning I mounted the tyres, Schwalbe Pro-One Evo in the fashionable 25mm width (they have to clear an ENVE 1.0 fork crown).

This is the first time I've ever purchased carbon wheels new, which was quite nice as they were clean and came with lots of bits, plus a five year warranty.

Here's a rim showing the new tubeless profile:

And here's the very Euro man-bag that came with the wheels, with it's contents:

I won't be using the rim strips pictured above:

Instead we'll use the contents of this box:

Note the isopropyl cleaning pad, I didn't think it was going to do much more than take finger grease off - I was very wrong:

Supplied tape was just over 28mm wide:

And went on fairly easily:

And then make a small cut in the rim tape and mount the valves - I liked the inclusion of an O-ring which fits into a recess in the lock-nut:

Up to this point the install has been remarkably similar to installing tubs - clean the rim, apply an adhesive layer to the rim, but now we have a difference, namely mounting the tyre.

It wasn't the hardest clincher tyre I've ever muscled onto a rim but it certainly wasn't easy - without a tyre lever it would have been impossible. It always strikes me at this point how much easier it is to get a tub onto a rim than it is a modern clincher. Anyway, tyre mounted it was time to deploy the secret weapon:

With the aid of which getting the tyres to inflate was fairly trivial, with the standard nerve-shattering bangs that mark the bead seating properly. The wheels are now going to spend 24 hours at 100 PSI as is, in order for the tape to adhere fully and them to have their chance to explode in the peace and quiet of my kitchen:

Then tomorrow I'll put the sealant in, presuming everything is still fine:

All being well I'll be riding these on my Talbot Frameworks Gravity Shadow in California, then Colorado, second week of July - if I stop posting around mid-July you'll all know why.