Im going to give tubeless ago.i have a set of dt swiss tubeless ready wheels m1900.with it already having the rim tape on.will this be enough or is is wise to put another layer of tape on? Or just stick the valves straight in .

If the rims are tubeless ready, I don’t think you need tape at all (I’m willing to be proven wrong as I’m also a relative newbie).

In this scenario tape and the build up thereof is more about getting a tight fit with the tyre (but not too tight).

You also need to consider the tyre when doing this – some tyres seem to be porous from what I hear, so more sealant than initially apparently necessary might be required.

Good luck. I put it off for years until about three months ago as I thought it would be one of those things that just wouldn’t work when I tried it. Turned out to be a piece of piss.

I had a slightly more difficult time with a different wheel (I got a mechanic riding buddy to help me first time), but on a subsequent time I just used neat washing up liquid on the beads and didn’t bottle it when the pressure was creeping up to 80 PSI. The tyre seated in the end.

Mine went up with just the valve and a glug of stans, nothing else needed, no bother. Others may say different.

Worst case they don’t go up then you need to add the tape. I say try without first.

What he said.

It’s a bit trial and error – just remember Stans is expensive, so maybe try without the sealant, then add?

If it’s DT Swiss tubeless tape you don’t need anymore tape

Please don’t pump your tyres up to 80psi, that’s just mental!
You risk blowing it off the rim, deafening yourself and maybe worse.

Please don’t pump your tyres up to 80psi, that’s just mental!
You risk blowing it off the rim, deafening yourself and maybe worse.

Admittedly I was shitting myself, but the end justifies the means…..

My rims are tubeless compatible (Hope XC) but have spoke holes, so need tape. You can get rims with a solid rim base (no spoke holes) and if you have these then I assume that tape is not needed (I’ve heard them referred to as tubeless only rims but can’t see why you couldn’t use a tube if you wanted to – although there may be one).

My rims have a single wrap of tape (but overlap it at the ends).

Seating the bead can be difficult and my WTBs need 60-80 psi to do this even with soapy water on the beads (Hope advise that I could push this to 100 psi but not to ride them at this pressure!). Use soapy water and nudge the pressures up slowly – sometimes you can see the bead slowly creeping into place.

I was sagely advised on here not to add fluid before seating the beads as it would get rather messy if they did blow off of the rim! Once the beads are in place the tyres can be deflated and fluid added.

Thanks for the help.both wheels went up well.stayed up over night so fingers crossed.was tough going with a track pump tho.i bet with a compressor be real easy.i bed the beads in with a tube first to make pumping up a tad easier.

I have a friend who this week when converting the front wheel on his new bike to tubeless had the rim crack!

He had seated the tyre using an airshot and then inflated it to 40-50PSI to shake the sealant around and then leave flat overnight, walked away and then heard a bang, the tyres now several feet away from the rim but fine, then picks up the wheel and the rim has separated at the join!

What rims were they?

was tough going with a track pump tho.

All hail the ghetto inflator!

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/ghetto-tubeless-inflator-total-cost-9p

There’s been a few(!) threads on this. It does seem a lottery TBH, sometimes a tyre will seat no problem then the same tyre on the same rim will refuse to seat. I’ve done some with a hand pump but others have needed a couple of goes with an Airshot.

My general procedure is:

Unfold tyre and leave to adapt to shape overnight. Possibly use an innertube to encourage it.
Clean rim and apply tape.
Remove core from valve.
Fit tyre and get it to seat on the rim.*
Replace valve core and re-inflate.
Check for escaping air
Remove valve core, add Stans, replace core and reinflate.
Go for a ride.
Keep an eye on the pressure over the next day or two, might have to add more fluid. I’ve found that the pressure is most likely to drop overnight within the first few days until everything has settled down.

*One trick I found on here is to use a strap of some kind (a pair of belts joined together) around the circumference of the tyre when you try to inflate it and seat the beads. It reduces the volume of the tyre so takes less air and therefore less effort to pop things on.