Goodbye Stans...

General
1

In memoriam: my tubeless 36er.

The day that I dread arrived a couple weeks ago, time to top off the sealant in my 36er’s tire. I remembered my mistake last time of popping a bead and adding sealant directly into the tire. What a headache it was to reseat my beads. So this time I was prepared.

I carefully deflated the tire and removed my valve core to add stans through the stem. Seconds into pouring, I hear pop-pop, and my heart sinks. Perhaps I can save it though, and quickly I grab the compressor.

I tried in vain to reinflate the tire, but the beads simply won’t seat.

I’m sick of this trash. Tubeless is great, but if it’s this much of a pain in my ass every time I add sealant, it’s not worth my time.

I’ve scraped as much stans as I could out of my tire (there’s still a fair amount left though) and cleaned my rim up. I threw my old rim strip over the Stans tape for now (tape will come off when I rebuild the wheel), and put a tube in.

So, I have a couple quick questions:

Are there any adverse effects to having some of the dried sealant still in my tire? Or do I need to go back in and scrape it all off?

Are there any adverse effects to running a rubber rim strip over my Stans tape for now? I didn’t feel like peeling it off which is why I left it.

Funny part was, I tore a hole in one of my tubes trying to get it in, and had to use my back up tube. It patched up fine, but now it’s a spare.

Tubeless is great, but not for me. From now on I’ll run tubes with Stans in them… (yeah, yeah, weight blah-blah).

R.I.P. Tubeless 36er: May 2013- September 2013.

2

I had similar experience with tubeless years ago.
It’s just not worth the effort. TUBES all the way!

3

No issue there, unless it’s some weird 36er unicycle specific one. I’ve done this with 3 or 4 mtb tires that got sidewall gashes, or would never seat right, or…

In any case, the old dried on sealant never caused me a problem. Next time you change the tube, you’ll have a bunch of little rubber BBs in there, but they’ll roll right out with the tube - hopefully not onto your living room floor.

Ghetto tubeless can definitely be a PITA unless your particular tire/rim combo is a good one. Sorry you had to deal with that frustration.

4

What a wimp!

Sorry you had so much trouble with tubeless, not sure why it works so well for me, maybe my rim is different or you live in too dry of a climate.

The reason we struggle so much with 36er tubeless is that the bead is steel cable, so it’s too inflexible to say put in the rim hook.

Don’t worry about the leftover tubeless stuff, it weighs barely anything once dried out.

So what tube will you run? Get a Foss and carry an extra?

I’m building a frankentire for my 32" using the Maxxis Ikon EXC, if I like that tire I’ll probably build one for my 36er. Maybe it’s time to build a tire??

Even though I love the Todd, it is still waay too heavy at 1500-1700gm. Relative tire weight is greater as the wheel size increase. An Ikon frankentire will weigh ~800gm, so half the weight of a Todd.

I’m building the tire this weekend, stitch up next week, should be riding it by this time next week. I picked up two barely used Ikons EXC for $50.

5

Are you able to run your frankentires tubeless?

6

Hi @Killian,

Please listen to this, you were the one who saved me from complete failure with my 36 tubeless - which I couldn’t get the tire beads to stick to the rim.
The post you found about the weatherstrip gave me the idea of using the polyethylene in the rim.
I also added stans sealant afterwards using deflate of the wheel, and didn’t have any problem with getting the tire on to the rim using a compressor - really no problem!

Please check the post where I added a photo of the polyethylene:

I really hope it would work for you - if this can help you, then it’s my way of thanking you for giving me the solution when I needed it most! :slight_smile:

7

Oh, yeah, I kinda forgot all about adding the weather strip. Maybe I should take my own advise! :smiley:

I’m rebuilding my wheel soon, so I’ll need to take off the tape anyway, maybe I’ll buy another roll and give it another shot with the weatherstrip.

I know I can get it set up, it’s just whether it’ll be a pain to seat the beads everytime.

8

No, it wouldn’t make for a reliable seal.

9

Get a FOSS tube. Done.

10

Can Foss tubes be run with sealant?

Edit: I can get some weather stripping for 8 bucks. Maybe I’ll get another roll of Stans tape, and give it one last go…

11

Looking back on that thread, it’s interesting how many people found the weather stripping uneccessary. It seems rediculous to me that I should have to use it, but if it works, I guess it doesn’t matter.

I might try using Gorilla or Strapping tape this time as well…

12

Hope springs eternal…

I hope you can get it to work. :smiley:

13

I just started running the waltworks with a foss tube for road use and I dropped 2.4lbs. I thought tubeless but did not have the patience. :roll_eyes:

14

Question for ya’ll:

So I went to Home Depot today, and picked up some Gorilla tape and 1" ‘sponge rubber’ weather strip.

I have two ideas:

First is to use multiple wraps of the Gorilla tape to help build up the inside of the rim. I wonder if 2-3 wraps would be enough. If it would take more, than it’s not worth it and I’d move toward idea 2.

Idea 2 is to put down a wrap of Gorilla tape, then my weather strip (to build up rim) and then possibly put another wrap of Gorilla tape over that just to keep things tidy.

Neither of these weigh’s more than a tube, and would be soley to help in seating my beads ANY time that I decide to deflate my tire.

Thanks.

15

Gorilla tape for the win! I work in a bike shop, everytime we have problem setting a tire of tubeless we clean the rim, take that Stan’s tape off and Gorilla tape it. It works much better than anything else!

When deflating the tire you should hang it so the tire doesn’t touch the ground. It might not stay seated because of the rim though, tubeless specific rims have a little space so the tire can stay there even deflated.

Good luck!

16

I have the FOSS in my 36, but I love my 26 guni tubeless. I used Gorilla tape and have a Hans Dampf tubeless-ready tire. It works great. I now have 26 non-geared with the same set-up that ways in at 11.5 lbs !! The HD tubeless has a great ride for muni.