OK, here’s a dilemma I’ve never come across before, a supposed ‘tubeless ready’ Fat Albert Evo 2.4″ tyre that is so slack/sloppy in the bead that it will barely sit on the rims safely with a tube, and won’t even look at going tubeless?

Rims are syncros DP25, and mavic D321. The mavic is broader in the channel and plumps up the tyre a bit better, but still, even with a factory installed air line (cylinder is a monster thing the size of the average van) with the valve cores out, nothing, nada, just £8 worth of stans blown all over the place.

Both rim’s are taped with stans yellow tape (25mm) and rear has just had an ageing Michelin UST tyre peeled off it (even in its age it was still an utter fight to get off).

In my desperation to FINALLY get some riding in this weekend I went out to shops, bought more stans liquid and a pair of those rubber things with the valves already in them (a marked up cut down inner tube, no more lol). And that actually seemed to make the fit worse.

All UST/tyres I’ve ‘gone’ tubeless with before have been utter fights to get on the rim, but once you’ve straightened them out and plumped them, they’ve taken air, at least from a track pump, at worst from the factory compressor. But these are so unbelievably baggy I’m not even feeling that happy about riding them with tubes in them (I can see the grey from the bead sticking out around the rim most places).

I dug up some posts from 2011 mentioning ‘faulty fat alberts’ in regard to people having same issue with them being too baggy and not taking air, guess mine could be from one of those older batchs?

Cheers guys.

Stans have recently stated on their website that they no longer recommend the use of any schwalbe tubeless ready tyres with their ztr rims due to inconsistent quality & the tyre potentially blowing off the rims.

That said, my fat alberts seated fine & have stayed seated on my sun ringles. Would put me off schwalbes going forward though, which is a shame as the Hans Dampf is getting lots of recommendations from friends.

Mmmm, seems to be the same theme, Schwalbe’s tolerances aren’t that great!

I’ve already shot a message to the retailer, will shot one over to Schwalbe themselves, as I like what I’ve heard about the FA and it seems to fit my needs perfectly, and the weight is impressive too for such a massive tyre, but all that becomes slightly pointless if I have to run it tubed again O_o

I couldn’t get some ‘TLR’ Schwalbes onto a pr of Mavic Crossmax recently, harder to seal than a std tyre on a non ust rim. Maybe a ‘one off’ pair, but neither sealed with gas or track pump. (

I fitted a new pair of Nobby Nics, 26×2.25, Tubeless Ready to Crossmax ST’s on Wednesady night.
Went on easily enough with levers, added a bit of sealent & blew them up with a track pump – still up today.

I got them from on-one, they’ve just replied saying they haven’t heard of this before, so I could return them, but I’ve already rolled around a bit on them, so doubt they’d do that, and frankly at the price i got them for, will use them for something else I guess.

Contacted Schwalbe as well. But seems from even more internet digging there are problems with the bead ERD (effective rim diameter?) on isolated batchs of their tyres vs. the vast majority of people rav about how easy they are to seat (still a bit tough to get on, but not as tough as my old michelins which need 2x people and 3 or 4 stainless workshop tyre levers) and easy to inflate/pop/hold pressure.

So I’m hoping the mftr gets back to me with some good news, i.e. where I can find a reliable supply of tyres that will seat.

Finally got the rear one on!
3 little tubs of stans later and only managed it by rigging up compressor in a pretty dangerous way….

I’ve come to the conclusion that presta valves on tubeless wheelsets are daft, they just restrict the flow too much, but I carried on regardless.

Compressor normally dish’s out 120psi regulated to each hose end, and has a monstrous tank (something like 100gallon or air? its like 2.5m x 1m cylinder, and is driven by a 30hp 3phz motor), but even this was not enough.
Had to hook directly up to compressors release valve right on the side of the tank (around 220psi unregulated) to get enough flow to pop the tyre bead into place. So yeah, dangerous as the flex hose/gun/nozzle/fittings aren’t rated to that, and it would easily have blown the tyre into pieces in my face (goggles people!).

But finally, its up, it holds air, and thats all fine and dandy. But STILL no response from Schwalbe on this!? I’d really expect better of a mftr with what seems to be quite a well known/ wide spread problem, I know 100% I am not the only one with baggy tyres.