Tubeless Tyres -"saying the same things about tubeless tyres over and over again" Hippy read the first f**king post

Read this thread from about 10 pages back you'll probably find all the info you need from @hippy 's venture into tubeless

Some thoughts on my own tubeless adventure of recent (and not so recent) times.

I’ve had two sets if ENVE rims setup as tubeless for quite sometime now, one set on the (now gone) CAAD12 and one set on the Cross bike.

For the new Bike Of All Work I wanted to use the Cross bike wheels as they have centre lock hubs, which would give me a 140mm rotor with the Freeza disc at the rear.

The Cross bike tyres didn’t leak air, didn’t soften appreciably over night, had gone on with just a track pump - they’d been the perfect tubeless experience.

Therefore I was not expecting what happened next:

• The tyres were an epic, mind-blowing pain in the arse to get off, seriously considered cutting the fuckers off at numerous points in my battle with them. Key learning here was to apply pressure along as much of the tyre wall as possible - focussed pressure doesn’t work, pressure over a large area does. I’ve never fought a pair of tyres so hard as I had to fight these.
  
• I cleaned the rims, then mounted the new tyres
  
• Both valves now leaked like fuck. I had made zero changes to the valves. I’d not even taken the cores out. I have no idea why they changed from being perfectly airtight to anything but, however this was the reality
  
• I stripped the old (Gorilla) tape off both rims, cleaned the rim bed with Isopropyl, used the Tesa tape identified in this thread. I gave each rim two wraps - this, I think, is insufficient - I’d go with a minimum of three in future, maybe more.
  
• I clearly made the valve holes in the tape too large, I was making an “X” shaped incision with a pen knife, I finally had success using a hole punch to make a neat cut-out for the valve that was slightly smaller than the valve stem (I used additional sections of tape that I put over the valve hole area, rather than re-wrapping the rims again)
  
• The front tyre held 100 psi overnight, with three wraps of tape and sealant
  
• The rear softened overnight, this has two wraps of tape and sealant, I may strip the tyre off and give it a further wrap of tape
  
• I finally rode the bike into work today
  
  

So - redo from start rather than re-use old tape/valves, use more tape than you think you should, make your valve holes small.

I've read sealant can get into valve cores and stop them working. That might explain the first issue.

It does. Happens all the time.

Does no-one read @Howard ‘s guide to tubeless set up anymore? One of his key points is that the tyres won’t seal properly until after you’ve ridden them. This works every time for me, if you’re losing pressure then a 30 min ride will solve it.

I couldn't get enough pressure in the tyres to ride them, on first setup.

I've read sealant can get into valve cores and stop them working. That might explain the first issue.

They were fine, air was coming out around the stem.

Yeah if the air is gushing out then then fine, something is wrong - but usually if they will mount with a floor pump or airshotz or whatever, then they are good enough.

Link?

This is driving me insane.

How did you make the hole for the valve? I literally used a tiny philips head screwdriver then push the valve through, you want the hole to be as small as possible.

If you've managed it on other rim/tyre combos is the rim the problem?

Sorry just saw your latest post. Would agree that tiny valve holes and plenty of tape help.

Presumably the real, overarching problem is the lack of tubeless standards. So one combination of tyres and rims can be a dream while another can be a living nightmare.

I think it was in the cx racing thread, will have a look later.

I clearly made the valve holes in the tape too large, I was making an “X” shaped incision with a pen knife, I finally had success using a hole punch to make a neat cut-out for the valve that was slightly smaller than the valve stem (I used additional sections of tape that I put over the valve hole area, rather than re-wrapping the rims again)

there's something about using a hole punch that I find awesome.

I've not read that. Mine are still holding air, no sealant no riding. Schwalbe are doing well at this tubeless thing. Only problem is I'm too scared to use it in case it lets me down and I enter the tubeless hell that everyone else seems to be in.

You cleaned the rims after removing the old tyres. Perhaps this disturbed the rim tape or valve enough to stop it sealing. Or the new tyres were different such that the amount of tape was not enough to hold pressure.

Fine if you have a hole punch. I have many knives, zero hole punchy punchy.

yeah I know I just never thought of doing it. The roundness of the hole pleased me.

I've done the 'X' cut, used a screwdriver poked upwards through the rim and more recently just jammed the stem upwards through the rim. The later two probably wouldn't work with yellow tape though.

Looks factory. He might not be able to do anything mechanical but @Dammit can make things look nice :)

#waitingforkarmicsealantexplosioninlounge

You need: tubeless tape, make sure is the right width. I personally use Tesa off eBay
Tubeless valves, stans or whatever, or guetto it from old tubes with removable cores
Valve core removing tool
Some kind of syringe to put the sealant trough the valve. I have the Stans one, but is a ripoff, any cheapo one will do
Sealant. Stans or caffelatex seem to be the preferred ones.

overarching problem is the lack of tubeless standards

No, the problem is that people refuse to sign up to the standard which has demonstrably been working well for nearly 20 years. Cyclists have only themselves to blame if they have been suckered by manufacturers offering cheaper and lighter options at the expense of dismal functionality.

I used a scratch marker, it was perfect. Or Just get any round piece of steel of about 6mm and sharpen it, a nail could do too. The X cut may grow after you ram the valve in, as in Dammit's pictures, a round hole is way less problematic.
Another thing that works for me is tightening the valve a bit more as soon as it starts hissing

I work my way up through my Allen keys and ram the valve through the smallest hole it'll go through.

@Dammit did you do bounce the wheel on a hard surface? that normally helps for me.

Also, has anyone tried the spesh airblast?

Are you talking about UST? If so, when was road UST introduced?

when was road UST introduced?

Many years ago. When did the first generation Hutchinson Atom come out?