As a long time UST user, I’ve been chuffed with the benefits of tubeless for a few years. But the increasing price of UST rims, and the lack of a “suitable” rim for my purposes (819 is plenty strong, but too narrow for tyres beyond 2.3″ really, 823 is HEAVY!), I decided to go down the normal rim route. Was gonna go for Stan’s rimstrips, but saw some BMX inner tubes for £1.99 each today, so thought sod it!

Anyway, the only thing I’ll say is that my tyres (Bontrager 2.35″ ACX TR) are an absolute nightmare to mount, but in fairness I already suspected this as they were an arse to get on a normal rim even when just running a tube in them. But the upside to that is that the tight bead sealed instantly, and as they’re Tubeless Ready, they were not very porous either, so I got away with only 60ml or so of Stan’s sealant. Once I’d spent 30 minutes or so (really!) wrestling the tyre onto the rim, everything else was plain sailing! At least the tyres are damned good in just about any conditions so won’t be getting changed any time soon!

In summary, bit more of a faff than proper UST setup (though no more than a DT/Eclipse rimstrip setup which is EVEN MORE of a nightmare IMO), but significantly cheaper… Time will tell on the reliability side, but can’t see it being any different to anything else.