I've just taken the wheels off my pinarello and after popping the first tire off, I was surprised to see that the rims are not taped... They have those old school cloth spoke hole protectors - The ones that come as a ring - like a big elastic band.
The job I had planned today, to swap them over to tubeless and put some GP5000s on is now abandoned until Amazon delivers me some 32 mm rim tape. And yes I would like to support my local bike shop but I called around all of them and none of them had rim tape wider than 24 mm.
I would also like to congratulate whichever person put the front wheel on as I'm not entirely sure that was done up to 6 newton metres given I had to go and get a glove on and really give it some effort to get it to undo....
Rant over
Bikes and components are assembled and built many months in advance and they can sit in a warehouse for a long time. No one want to deal with a container load of bikes where the tyres have deflated and the tubeless sealant has dribbled and dried everywhere.
not annoyed they arent tubeless but why not tape the rims in anticipation .... all the bikes i have bought in the last 3 yrs ( 3) have come with inner tubes but rim tape fitted so it was just a quick job to convert over. I understand why they arent shipped with sealant from the factory but sans tubless rimtape ? is it a roadie thing ?
My YT from 2016, my Giant Defy from 2017, my Reilly Gradient from 2019 and My Cannondale Scalpel from 2022 all came pre-taped. That's why I haven't responded to the "What's your favourite rim tape" thread, because the last time I had to tape a wheel was about 2011.
I guess it's just cheaper and easier.
Is it a roadie or MTB? Roadies aren't all sold on tubeless so it'd be a few quid on the cost of each bike for no benefit. MTBs it'd be more odd that it wasn't done.
Bikes and components are assembled and built many months in advance and they can sit in a warehouse for a long time. No one want to deal with a container load of bikes where the tyres have deflated and the tubeless sealant has dribbled and dried everywhere.
Yea, but I can't really see why they wouldn't at least assemble them dry and the tyres seated. Then all the shop has to do is take the valve core out and add some sealant. The way most bikes are packaged there's no weight on the wheels so it's not like they'll get a flat spot.
I guess it's just cheaper and easier.
Is it a roadie or MTB? Roadies aren't all sold on tubeless so it'd be a few quid on the cost of each bike for no benefit. MTBs it'd be more odd that it wasn't done.
Bikes and components are assembled and built many months in advance and they can sit in a warehouse for a long time. No one want to deal with a container load of bikes where the tyres have deflated and the tubeless sealant has dribbled and dried everywhere.
Yea, but I can't really see why they wouldn't at least assemble them dry and the tyres seated. Then all the shop has to do is take the valve core out and add some sealant. The way most bikes are packaged there's no weight on the wheels so it's not like they'll get a flat spot.
Indeed, that's my point. I haven't had to tape a rim in a long time as they've all come pre-taped from the factory.... I would have thought that tape would have been cheaper than the rubber ring thingies that I seem to have. Given that the bike was over 7k I'm a little bit surprised that they haven't made it tubeless ready
Oh well at least when I fit the gp5000 and get rid of the butyl inner tubes, it'll feel a lot faster! I've also just spotted that the TPU spare inner tube that I have in my cycling Jersey does not have the right length of valve stem! So some good things come out of it
I guess it's just cheaper and easier.
Is it a roadie or MTB? Roadies aren't all sold on tubeless so it'd be a few quid on the cost of each bike for no benefit. MTBs it'd be more odd that it wasn't done.
aah its a road bike - perhaps thats the reason ? it has vision wheels on it ( ultrafast 45's) - i think its these
https://shop.visiontechusa.com/en/wheelsets/road-gravel-cyclocross/metron-45-sl-disc-clincher-tl
interestingly the tubeless kit is provided but i didnt get it. On the site it says that the inner width is 21mm but i just measured it at 31 mm hence i just bought 31mm rim tape
What road bike uses 31mm internal width rims? That's wider than my MTB rims and tape.
I know road rims are getting wider but 31mm across the bead seat is not going to take a GP5000 which only go up to 32mm themselves?
Edit, just saw your last post -
On the site it says that the inner width is 21mm but i just measured it at 31 mm hence i just bought 31mm rim tape
21mm internal width sounds right but 31mm tape is too wide for a rim that's 21mm wide. And I'd be surprised if they really are 31mm width.
Well the tires are 35 mm. But I measured with a tape measure from the inside edge to the inside edge of the rim and that's definitely 31 mm
And just to add the 35 mm pirelli pzero's that are on there don't bulge past the edge of the rim.
Seems quite a trivial thing to make a post about imo but if it gets it off your chest I guess.
Absolute shocker incoming tomorrow when the tape ordered is way too wide (which it is)
So what size tape do you think will fit given measured the inside edge of the rim to inside edge of the rim and it was definitely 31mm ? The 35mm pirelli's barely peek over the side of the rims
My point on the post was due to my surprise that some companies are shipping rims without being taped - I assumed that everyone did this
Id suggest you read the pdf for the rims if you want the correct width of rim tape cos it's right there in the manual. OP is not too far off to be fair .
I'm out of touch with current carbon aero rim profiles then, or changes to the ETRTO guides for rim to tyre widths. I knew there were rims that line up close to the tyre sidewall for smooth airflow but not that they were quite that wide inside. Sounds great to me, all that added air volume from the same tyre spec.
It could be engagement/Rage bait but Threads is constantly feeding me posts by roadies hating tubeless either in practice or just the thought of it.
All credit to the OP for DIY but I'd hazard a fair percentage of the £7k roadie market would just get the shop to do it.
I'm also surprised that people are expecting a shop would have a bike on the sales floor set up tubeless. It'll have dried up or needed some riding to seal up properly.
roadies hating tubeless either in practice
Imagine you're in the bunch on a ride and the rider near the front hits a a bit of glass, you and the rest of the bunch get sprayed wit a load of sealant fired out of a 90PSI tyre ..
: )
(another reason for guards and roadies don't like them much either)
I'm also surprised that people are expecting a shop would have a bike on the sales floor set up tubeless. It'll have dried up or needed some riding to seal up properly.
I bought an ex-demo (shop floor model, hadn't been ridden) Cannondale gravel bike, was pleasantly surprised when it arrived tubeless. Only realised when I went to change what I thought was a tube with a very slow puncture!
So what size tape do you think will fit given measured the inside edge of the rim to inside edge of the rim and it was definitely 31mm ? The 35mm pirelli's barely peek over the side of the rims
Still sounds insanely wide. That link you posted says 21mm inner width, same as the wheels on my new bike which I just did with 24mm tape, and they've got a 30mm outer width.
You don't need tape to go from one edge, down the side, across the well, and right up the other, just cover the bottom section of the rim, the tyre bead is bushing down against that.
It's a 3D shape, you won't be able to apply 35mm tape to a 21mm rim, it'll just wrinkle down the middle! Start with one slightly wider than the rim, then stretch it (which makes it slightly narrower) then as you apply it to the rim the tape will stretch/shrink/conform to the U-shape channel rather than bunch up. If it's a hooked rim then tape about 4-5mm wider than the measured width is probably right, if it's hooked then maybe 2-4mm wider because obviously they measure slightly differently.
I'm also surprised that people are expecting a shop would have a bike on the sales floor set up tubeless. It'll have dried up or needed some riding to seal up properly.
Depends how long they have bikes in the shop for.
I would have assumed that most shops would be aiming to turnover stock in 6-weeks not 6-months? Surely they're not buying one bike and having it sit there for the whole year? On average anyway, there's obviously stuff that hangs around long enough to need discounting but most shops must be selling a few bikes a week otherwise what's paying the staff/rent/overheads?
As a redux to this
I used 27 mm tape in the end, I had some 25 and some 32 and I think that the 25 could have worked but the 27 just gave me a little bit of extra confidence. I used the stretch and wiggle technique to get it underneath the hook. I used one wrap of tape overlapping by about 6 in.
Always a bit worrying when you are playing around with the wheel set that cost more than your other bike!
Continental gp5000 as tires are now fitted.. although to my horror I realised that I put the rear tire on the other way around to the front. I have lined up the logo to the valve as is the way, but I was just a bit annoyed the after I'd seated the tire that I put it on the other way around to the front.... Looking on continental's website it doesn't seem to be a correct way round of putting them on. At one point when I have more time that I do now I will get it off and swap it around.... Hopefully in the middle of the summer with the tire fully warm it might be a little bit easier to put on.
Tyres are currently sitting at 60 PSI and have 60 mL of stans sealant in each one. I'll take them out for a little bit of a ride tonight and just make sure they don't go down!
Thank you everybody for the advice. Perhaps it's just me but boy, the bike looks better already! I went for the grey sidewalls and they match the grey of the bike!
I thought they were directional with the Rotation and arrow on sidewall.
Googling got me the following, so beware 🙂
Rolling backwards will cause the forward-facing design of your tire to delaminate and tear apart, like cheese on a grater. The resulting lack of pressure will cause your tube to explode, and at 100psi that's enough to sever your feet. The resulting pressure explosion will be like a grenade going off beneath your wheel, as shrapnel from your fork is sent rocketing to all sides, embedding itself in any one unfortunate enough to be watching. The shockwave, similar to that of a large explosion, will rocket you up and backwards, sending you spinning. The pressure wave it creates is so intense that for a moment it will emit a light so bright it can blind anyone looking directly at it. At it's heart, the pressure will result in temperatures higher than the surface of the sun.
God knows what it would be like on a tubeless setup 🤣 🤣 !
I am sure there was time to sort out those slabs while waiting for rim tape. 😉 🙃
I used one wrap of tape overlapping by about 6 in.
I would have used 2, but you might get away with it at 60psi. I tried 1 layer on my old wheels and 100psi hole punches through the tape around each spoke.
Actually I bodged mine and just put one layer over the original cloth tape, but do as I say not as I do!
I went for the grey sidewalls and they match the grey of the bike!
Nice 👌
Takes longer to put tubeless tape on than normal tape. (Have to be more accurate, rim needs to be cleaner.)
Probably only have one station for taping, or one machine. So swapping tape between widths *and* types is more cost. Might even need a different machine head/set up.
Most roadies don't want tubeless anyway. Not unless they've embraced massive tyres/lower pressures. A lot haven't.
Most roadies don't want tubeless anyway. Not unless they've embraced massive tyres/lower pressures. A lot haven't.
I think it's as much to do with just not buying 'new' as often.
I just bought my first new dedicated road bike* for 20 years and while it was probably the oldest-new-bike** in the group it wasn't an unusual setup, 10-speed and caliper brakes is probably still the most common bike on the clubrun. And if you're running caliper brakes then you can't run anything bigger than an undersized 28*** usually. And that massively limits the usefulness of tubeless. I've run it in 25's (both actual 25's and 25's that measured 27.4mmm) and would still only say it's different-faff but not better. And if one bike in the shed is tubed, they may as well share common spares and repair kits.
Give it another decade and tubes will be the preserve of either cheap beginners bikes or retro machines. A bit like once in a blue moon someone will turn up on tubs and everyone sucks through their teeth.
2 rides on my new bike and 32's and I'm already considering the sanity of whoever decided 23c was sufficient!
*i.e. not gravel, track, fixie commuter
**i.e. excluding those on proper vintage machines
***yes there are some small 32's out there, and some frames maximized the tolerances to squeeze them in, but officially most series calipers won't take 28c tyres, and I've never understood the aversion to long drop brakes, but no one had them on nice frames even for sportive/endurance models.
Tubeless tape can come off the rim and be ruined when you're changing tyres. Just annoying when you're getting the benefit of it, but if you're using tubes and it happens it'd be super annoying. Traditional rim tapes don't do this.
(tbh I suspect traditional rim tape is actually more expensive but tubeless tape is more hassle to fit, so that's probably the real reason?)