I’m trying to run my Vittoria Voyager tyres tubeless on my commuter, I know Voyagers can be ran tubeless as I have them on the other bike with 29er crests and they work fine, but on my Archetype rims, the tyres are so loose (even running with tubes, once the tube deflates he tyres aren’t attached to the beads, they just fall away) they’re not snapping to the rims. I’ve managed to get them inflated using a home made Airshot type device but am concerned that they’re not attached to the rim bead…I’m not sure a higher pressure will help, I’ll likely just blow the tyre off the rim. Has anyone else tried this or had this problem before?

Bump – Anyone have any suggestions for this?

The ideal situation for tubeless is where the circumference of the tyre bead is only slightly more than the circumference of the rim between the spoke eyelets and sidewall.

If the tyre is too ‘loose’ around the rim, air will just escape when you attempt to inflate it, even with a compressor. But if this gap is tight, the air will force the tyre sidewalls outwards until the beads ‘hook’ into the rim sidewalls.

In your case, it might be possible to ‘pad’ the rim out by applying layers of rim tape. Stans and Joes ‘No Flats’ both make thick rubber rim tapes (with built in valve stems) so these might help you.

Of course, if your tyre really is that loose, you might always be worried out it popping off the rim, even if you do manage to get it sealed tubeless. To be honest, if the tyre’s that loose on the rim, you have the exact same risk with inner tubes, so in my opinion, I’d get rid of the tyres, or change your wheels !

Good luck 🙂

Cheaper than stans/joes, just use electrical tape, more layers until the tyre is tight on the rim.

As for it sticking to the bead hook, IME it makes little difference, the force required to unseat even a well seated tyre is minimal compared to the tyre pressure so if it’s got enough force acting on it to overcome the pressure, it’ll overcome the seated bead.

I’ve only managed to get two tyres to unseat like that, one was a 7 year old maxxis high roller on the rear wheel that had been on and off various bikes a lot! Unseated it landing a drop off camber and sideways! The other was a fat bike.

I managed to get the tyre inflated tubeless using a Coke-bottle (well, 7up…) inflator but it’s still losing air on a daily basis and I’m concerned it’ll burp air, rapidly deflate and detatch from rim.

It was flat here at work this lunchtime and both beads are totally detached; I’ll have to bob a tube into it to get home as there’s not chance it’ll inflate again.

More tape. Lots more tape.

Archetype do not have a shoulder for the tyre bead, but instead use the traditional bead-hook design to hold the tyre. Its only the modern bead shoulder design that has allowed ‘ghetto’ tubeless to be reliable, in this case tho its never really going to work properly even with lots of tape.