[Closed] Cheaper rim strips

Guess not then 😉

Joe's are the cheapest I've found.

20" innertube, hacked to fit.

£2.50 a go from Tesco.

Insulation tape - been working fine on my tubesless coversion for a couple of years.

Insulation tape and no rim strip at all?

Interesting if that actually works.

One of my colleagues swears by it. In fact that reminds me, he stole my tape to do his conversion.

Clubber, the tape thing works, I run it with a set of joes valves on 321 rims with no probs. Give it a go. I did wrap the rim 3 times, slightly overlapping each time, so the channel is fully covered.

+1 for insulation tape. You can tailor the thickness to suit the tyre- if the bead wont seal initially it needs a few more layers. 6 layers on my crossrides with panaracer fire xc pro and 4 layers with conti speed kings.

Yup, a few wraps of insulation tape. Been working a year or more on a DT 5.1 rim with a Mavic valve and a little rubber thing to reduce the size of the valve hole from Schrader to Presta.

Success may depend on tyre choice a little, but it's cheap enough to try out.

Well I did some experimenting last night - I did a ghetto conversion on the front wheel which worked very well - needed some strenuous pumping to get it up 😉 but did so easily enough and seems to be holding fine (with sealant)

The rear conversion was less good - I tried it with the rim tape in place which was velox rather than my more usual insulation tape. Also the tube I cut open was a conti one which has a large supporting section of rubber by the valve which caused a lot of trouble with seating the beads around it. In the end I did get it to seal but at 20psi the bead popped out with a loud bang so that's no good. Tonight, I'll try a conversion with insulation tape replacing the velox and no inner tube at all as suggested above.

Isn't Velox rim tape made of cloth, therefore likely to be porous?

Yes but since that one was done with a split inner tube, that's not an issue

+1 for insulating tape.

Is insulating tape the same as Duct Tape?

You're likely to be facing more chance of tyre burping under normal riding without a rimstrip, unless you've got a specialist hooked bead like UST, stans or similar.

I've been there with 719s and DT 5.1s

Is insulating tape the same as Duct Tape?

Not to me - insulating tape is just that - the plasticy tape you use for electrics. Duck/Duct tape is gaffer tape - the stuff that rips nicely in lines (and is good for rim tape because it's strong though I've never had a problem with insulation tape - on mtbs at least - I'd use Duck tape for road wheels).

Scienceofficer - interesting to hear that - maybe I'll stick with ghetto for now then...

I had an absolute mare with BMX tubes, they were fine for tootling along but in hard corners I kept getting leaks, which ended up in a couple of total blow-out burps. I'm sure it could have been made better with more work (electric tape to build up the wheel bed would have been the next step) but I'd choose tubes, or tubeless done properly, after my experience with it.

I did a conversion to tubeless using insulating tape last yr in preparation of the thorn-fest that is Spain.

I did two runs of insulating tape, one against one inside edge and one against the other to seal completely and it worked well (initially - in that it held pressure and was easy to inflate with a track pump).

I did have two offs that I am putting down to the tyre burping. The first happened traversing a fairly steep angled piece of rock. The front tyre got pulled away from the rim, lost pressure and all grip. It happened really fast. I think it was my fault as the pressure had already dropped from some thorns earlier on in the day and rather than stopping the group for 2 mins to stick some air in, I thought it would get me back as it was.

The second incident was on the road in Granada. There was plenty of pressure in the tyre (I think), I was going round a busy roundabout and a car cut across the front of me and then braked heavily. To avoid hitting him I really heaved on the brakes, and the front tyre burped, lost almost all it's air and the bike just went out from under me - lost all grip.

Now I make sure I run the tyres with a bit more pressure in them and haven't had a problem since. I am not sure if it was my lack of experience/knowledge of tubeless and they were running at lower pressure than I thought or whether it was due to the 'bodge' conversion.
An influencing factor may have also been that the front tyre is really loose on the rim - it can be put on or off without even using a tyre lever. It must have something to do with it, I'd have thought.

I have no intention of running at low pressures - I doubt I'll go below 35psi and currently they're at 40. I guess I'll give it a go and see how it holds up.

I generally run about 30 psi, and its those sorts of pressure I was seeing burping at.

I tried the ghetto approach. It burped out most of the contents after a small jump, but I think I was running around 28psi. I couldnt be assed so stuck tubes in. Might give it a go again.

My vote is for the Bontrager rimstrips which are shaped to resist the tyre moving off the bead hook of the rim(like a UST rim).
The shape also makes for easy inflation.
They are cheap as are the valves.
They can be used on 19mm+ rims of Bonti and other makes.17mm Alex rims were no good but other 17s might be OK.
They work with variuos tyre makes - perfect with Bontis.

Is this it? If so, that's exactly what I was asking for at the start of the thread all the way up there! 🙂

http://www.pedalon.co.uk/acatalog/bontrager_rim_strip.html

Aye, a traditional (i.e. Stans/Joes) rim-strip should (I think) be in contact with the tyre, so that the sealant sort of sticks them together.

You almost end up with a tyre/rim-strip 'tubular'.

Then in theory even if you pull back the tyre from the rim this seal should hold for a bit. This won't happen with insulation tape, increasing the chance of burpees.

Oh, except I need it in 29er size (Bonty Mustang OSB rims)

Yep, thats the Bunny.
Carefull of the widths, though, and you dont HAVE to use their super juice.