I’m thinking about going tubeless on my KH24 with my stock 3.0 Duro tire. Actually the guys at Notubes said they’d make a (custom?!) rimstrip at no extra charge for the weird rim.
Anyone done this?
I do know from German bike testing with wattage meters that it will appreciably reduce rolling resistance. I estimate it should save a 1/2 pound (at the edge of the wheel!) if the stock tube weighs 1 pound, which I think is about right (even if I use 120g of fluid, which seems generous with such a thick tire). ((And it will save even more than that for sudden accelerations/decelerations as you don’t have to spin the fluid for that.))
Being pretty new to Muni, I don’t know whether I would gain any of the typical bike advantages like preventing pinch flats or goathead punctures. (That is, I don’t know if these things ever happen anyway with such a ginormous tire. But tubeless will prevent them.)
On the down side, I don’t know if I would notice any loss of lateral tire stability. I also don’t know if burping will be an issue at optimal tire pressures.
From biking, I already know the up-sides. Has there been any discussion of it with Muni or trials, though. That’s where I’d learn about the down-sides.
I converted my muni to tubeless a while back using a method a bit like the Stans system but using half a smaller diameter inner tube as a rim strip instead. It’s brilliant - it feels much smoother over rocky bits and I don’t worry about punctures any more. I actually found a huge great thorn in the tyre the other day, so pulled it out - after a few seconds hissing it stopped and has been fine since. It’s great.
I plan to convert the 29er using the same system when I get round to it.
What kind of cycle with what kind of tire? What kind of riding do you do? Are you hopping on it and putting any lateral pressure on the tire when you come down? Do you know what tire pressure you’re running?
'Tis a muni with a 24x3" Halo Contra tyre; I think it’s running at just under 20psi at the moment, although I could be wrong - I inflated it to about 25 and just let air out until it felt right. It gets used for rocky cross country; no particularly big jumps or drops but lots of rocks, technical bits and little drops. I haven’t yet managed to lose any air despite lots of sidehopping and general riding around.
My only reservation about applying your experience to mine is that I’m running about 13psi (~.9 bar). You may be running about that too. Pump guages are often off by about 100%. The digital Topeak guage for about $20 is actually quite accurate.
If you’re running much more, than you would be much less likely to burp. What are you guaging with?
On Saturday I tried this. My set up is very similar to Phils, (except the tyre is a brand new Nokian Gazzalodi 24 x 3), so followed exactly the same procedure.
I only had a normal type hand pump though, so wasn’t totally surprised that I couldn’t inflate it quick enough for it to pop right on to the rim to seal. Today, however, I was able to put the wheel in the car and take it to a garage forecourt to use their compressor. Unfortunately this wasn’t able to get enough air in to it quick enough either.
Has anyone got any suggestions? Is the fact that the tyre is new going to be a problem, or is it just a matter of getting a huge amount of air in very quickly? Would the trick with lighter fluid and a match work? (If so, how?)
If you try the lighter fluid trick, make sure you video it!
I think my Contra sealed very easily as it has a bead that “wraps around” the rim and so provides lots of contact even when not inflated. On some of the bike tyres I’ve done it has not been so easy; I’ve used either neat or very slightly diluted washing up liquid wiped generously around the outside of the join to provide a bit more of an initial seal until air pressure does the rest.
Those little CO2 canisters can provide a quick enough blast to do it too, although they’re not cheap and as mentioned before you have to use them sparingly so they don’t affect the sealant.
Another trick is that if it’s a new tyre that has never been used stick a tube in it and leave it overnight pumped up hard; the tyre should adopt a more circular shape and might seal better.
Another thought is that some (generally newer) garage air lines use pulses of air, which are fine for just inflating tyres but don’t provide enough “ooomph” to make the initial seal. You could try a different garage…
Thanks guys. I’ll try the washing up liquid trick tomorrow, along with another garage (I’ll try to find one with a ‘real’ compressor, not just one of the vending machine types).
If that doesn’t work, I’ll pop an inner tube in for a few days to see if that seals it.
Failing that… has anyone got a video camera I can borrow?
I’ve got loads of experience in tubeless conversion from bikes. There are 2 keys to it.
One, you absolutely want to have a removable valve-core. (I only have experience with Presta, but I vaguely think that all schraeders are potentially removeable–don’t hold me to it.) You can buy tubes that have that, or notubes.com rimstrips all have that. This allows way more air to pass through. The fact that after the bead seats, the air passes back through the other direction is of little consequence. At that point, you have all the time in the world to re-insert the valve-core and inflate.
I’ve got loads of experience in tubeless conversion from bikes. There are 2 keys to it.
One, you absolutely want to have a removable valve-core. (I only have experience with Presta, but I vaguely think that all schraeders are potentially removeable–don’t hold me to it.) You can buy tubes that have that, or notubes.com rimstrips all have that. This allows way more air to pass through. The fact that after the bead seats, the air passes back through the other direction is of little consequence. At that point, you have all the time in the world to re-insert the valve-core and inflate.
Two, use a truck-stop air compressor for initial inflation. Those boys don’t mess around when they’re inflating their tires. Just be careful about over-inflating or wear protective ear-and-eye equipment (this is mainly a joke, but with light kevlar-bead tires, it is not).
BTW, the dishwashing liquid idea above is a good one for many reasons, including that it helps the bead seat correctly, which is not trivial at least with bike tires. I’ve never heard of using it “neat”–that means undiluted? I always use maybe a 1:20 dilution, and I think that’s about what notubes.com recomends. But I could imagine why thicker would be better if there are no other disadvantages.
A question–does anyone know if air-burping is ever a problem with low pressures or with lateral or twisting jump-landings? In biking, some people with some tires and some riding-styles do have problems.
May sound daft, but did you / the garage try inflating the tyre with the valve core removed?
When I was a tyre fitter i found that certain car and motorcycle tyres were a pain to inflate with a decent compressor, untill the valve core was removed, when they’d inflate and sit on the rim nicely.
