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

Might explain my Clement tyres from them a few years ago. The tread started to come away from the carcass and PX weren't that interested. "Luckily" the bike got stolen shortly afterwards so I didn't have to get into it with them.

My g ones went up fine on my hydra rims earlier this year, rode them around etc. Front one seems to have deflated in the shed and isn't going up now. Annoying. Will have to get the booster out.

(I have read the first post). Bought a mtb setup tubeless. All fine so far, and appreciated the what to carry info in the first post. Seller advised to add sealant every 4 months or so. Is this a function of how much the bike is ridden? and how much really roughly should I add? 29x2.2.5/2.3. Cheers

add about 60ml every few months, yeah.

@platypus cheers :)

Rode the gravel bike through a lane that had had the hedge cut yesterday and found 4 thorns sticking out of the tyre at the end. All sealed immediately on removal & didn’t even need to pump the tyre up to get home

This morning went to take the road bike out & had mysteriously lost all air in one tyre overnight despite it being fine and unridden yesterday. Had to do the road ride on the gravel bike as no time to sort

Tubeless is good 1:1 Tubeless is shit

Picked up a cheap Bonty TLR rimmed wheel today. Could hear some cack rattling around inside the rim cavity as I was checking it on the truing stand so pulled the rim tape off and opened up a can of worms I wish I'd let be.

The plastic rim tape I think was stuck to the rim with a lovely mix of sealant and aluminium oxide.

I did my best to clean the rim up, got rid of most of the oxidisation and most of the old dried up sealant but I couldn't get it set back up tubeless.

The plastic rim tape was rather misshapen from pulling it off so I tried with Tessa tape instead. 2 wraps first then 4. Seating both beads with a tube then pulling the tube out didn't work as the 2nd bead just de-seated itself.

Untaped it and put the plastic rim strip back in the and tyre would seat more easily and the 2nd bead stayed on when pulling the tube out but there was a lot of air leaking out around the valve and spokes when I aired it up without any sealant in. I then tried one wrap of Tessa under the rim strip but it wasn't much better.

Not sure whether buying and fitting a new TLR rim strip will seal it up given that the rim bed isn't in the best shape. Or is it likely that if I chuck sealant in it'll fill the holes around the valve and where ever it's getting to the spokes from?

Are you using the official Bonty tubeless valve with the woefully-inadequate O-ring seal? If so, bin it, and use a standard tubeless value. The rim strip idea is a good one, the use of a waffer-thin O-ring to seal the valve is a crap one. The Hope tubeless valves work well with Bonty rim strips in my experience.

Leaving sealant to work past the valve is a bad idea, I've found. I've had a couple of alloy nipples give up the ghost due to corrosion from the ammonia-laden sealent.

Are you using the official Bonty tubeless valve...

Nah, wheel didn't come with one so I used one I'd bought from Cycle Clinic.

I suspect the air was getting around the wrinkled and stretched rim strip, through the spoke holes into the cavity and the valve hole was the easiest place for it to escape.

Triton have a rim strip I hope will work so probably going to order that and see how I get on.

I don't have any Bonty rims, but I have some old Light Bicycle 'Bontyesque' rims which use the Bontrager plastic rim strips. If they're the ones I'm thinking of, the only possible leakage point is the valve hole as rather than tape it's a moulded plastic rim strip which curls up around the rim beads. If the tyre's seated against the plastic rim tape, there really shouldn't be any way for the sealant to escape other than the valve hole.

When I pulled the strip off it got all stretched and distorted because the sealant and oxidisation was effectively gluing it to the rim.

I hoped putting the tyre on with a tube might flatten it out but it didn't.

I'm slightly worried a new rim strip won't seal properly because between some old hardened sealant and bits of oxidisation the surface is a bit uneven in places, especially up in the bead/hook kinda of area.

The strip is less than a tenner so it's worth a shot I figure.

If it's the plastic moulded rim strip I'm thinking of it doesn't need to seal to the rim - the tyre and the rim strip form a sealed unit, where the only possible means of escape is the valve hole. If there's sealant underneath the rim strip (assuming it's the moulded plastic type) then the only possible point where the sealant could escape is the valve hole.

Ah yeah, I see what you mean.

I've got a problem where my valve stems keep clogging - I can pump the tyres up OK, but can't let them down at all. It's not the valve itself, as the problem remains if I remove the core. Guessing a kind of flap valve forms at the base of the stem, made out of dried sealant.

A bit of digging (I used an unmounted drill bit) works but soon reoccurs and it's really annoying - I quite like the ability to reduce pressure if I end up doing more bumpy off-road than expected. Any solutions?

Always inflate / deflate your tires with the valve at 45 deg. Never at the bottom or top. IF the stem dips in the sealant you'll have clogging problems.

Hmm, these are 38mm tyres and the sealant volume isn't sufficient for the stem to dip into the sealant. I can see that you might get wet sealant drying in the stem if it's at the top of the wheel though. But why 45 deg?

It means not only does the sealant drain from the valve back into the tyre, but it also avoids it being sucked from the pool at the bottom of the tyre into the valve when air is released. At least that's why I do it that way.

The 60ml or so of sealant at the bottom of the tyre is nothing like enough for the valve stem to touch it. I reckon I'd need to put about 500ml in there for that to happen with an inflated 38mm tyre.

Even with a 25mm tyre, I think it's unlikely with normal amounts of sealant.

Got the new TLR strip in for my bonty wheel, fitted fine and tyre went up and popped into the bead the easiest I’ve ever had.

Still had some air leaking from around the nipples on the opposite side of the wheel to the valve.

Unseated the bead to see if there was anything obvious, only thing I could see was some dried sealant on the tyre bead so cleaned that up and it made things better but still was leaking slightly.

Just thought ‘fuck it’ and chucked a load of sealant in and reinflated. Heard the hissing but no sealant visible, did the bounce and spin and it went quiet and stayed up overnight so hopefully it’s a win.

You are doing it wrong. You should ignore the first post, and then ask a series of questions that would have been addressed while getting upset by tester and myself swearing at you.

suggestion for a tubeless kit (e.g. 650b tyres) ?
wanna try hard this new world
thanks in advance

Tesa tape of your chosen width.
Lifeline valves or whatever is cheap ATM.
Bottle of Stan's, Orange seal, Muc Off or whatever is good and decently priced.
Tubeless kits come very short on tape and sealant, if you mess up the tape and need to redo or you need to top up sealant you'll be out of luck.

Thanks mate

Rather than Tesa I'd recommend powder coating tape. It is a bit stickier and has a bit more give. I've used both, but I prefer the powder coating tape.

What is it that makes a bead stay seated when theres no pressure in the tyre?