After much swearing and maybe a little loss of humour yesterday while trying to get a ghetto’d tyre to inflate with a track pump, I think I may have hit upon an easy way to inflate ghetto’d tyres.

Now, I am not sure I have heard of someone doing it this way before, or if I have I didn’t understand what they said, so I thought I would share this and maybe make peoples lives a little easier…

After fitting the split innertube on the wheel, giving it a quick clean with soapy water and fitting the tyre, I then ran a piece of flat nylon tape around the outside of the tyre, on the centre line all around the circumference… pulling it as tight as you can, and tying it in place. This puts pressure onto the centre of the tyre, which in turn forces the bead out towards the sidewall of the rim.

Once I had done this it just pumped up first time without any fuss whatsoever… which was nice! Just remember to remove the nylon tape before the tyre is pumped up too much!

So, after taking about an hour and a half to fail to get one tyre inflated, I then managed to complete two wheels in about 20 mins once I had come up with this…

People have been using luggage straps to do this with difficult tyres for a while. Its a useful technique to have in your tubeless skills repertoire!

I found filling the rim well with sticky-backed foam made life about 1000% easier too. Way lighter than using 50 rolls of insulation/cloth tape.

so… Oooh, I didn’t think about using luggage straps. In fact, I have some ratchet straps at home which would do the job perfectly. I just couldn’t believe how much easier it was using this technique though…

adh… I’d heard about that, but doesn’t the foam just absorb all the latex solution as soon as you put it in?

I’d have thought the foam went between the rim and the split inner tube, so wouldn’t come in contact with the latex at all.

Wish I’d made the effort to get the foam tape, wrapping the rims with insulation tape worked well but took AGES.

I found filling the rim well with sticky-backed foam made life about 1000% easier too. Way lighter than using 50 rolls of insulation/cloth tape.

Ditto. From hours of getting nowhere to the tyre being on and inflated in minutes!

how wide does this foam-strip need to be? – are we talking about the draught excluding stuff you get for doors?

Under the inner tube? Gotcha…

Doesn’t it make getting tyres on and off a right bugger though? Some tyres are tight enough to get on even when you can use the centre of the rim to give a little more slack!

i just ran a roll of cloth rim tape under my rubber rim-strip, took up the slack in an old tyre and meant it went up with no hesitation. Means i wont have to faff about with luggage straps/whatever next time i pop it off the rim to add sealant or swap tyres.

I used soem stuff I found kicking about at work. It was too wide for my rim gutter, so I cut it in half with scissors. Came up a bit narrower than the rim bed, but used up the space over the rim gutter. This allowed the BMX tube to relax into the bead a bit after grubnting the tyre on, so the tyre bead can sit against the rim hook properly. I think this reduced the possibility of ‘burp’.

Inflated first time with a trackpump, which I have NEVER managed before.

I ran them at 25psi for the 75 k of the isle of mann end to end, normally I’d manage to pinch them even if they were both 40psi. They rolled alarmingly when you cornered on tarmac, but no burping at all, and AWESOME grip everywhere else.

Doesn’t it make getting tyres on and off a right bugger though? Some tyres are tight enough to get on even when you can use the centre of the rim to give a little more slack!

You shouldnt be having a problem inflating them if they are tight.

Stato.. that was what I thought when I started yesterday, but it didn’t seem to be the case.