ghettoed my bonty rims more as an experiment than anything else as they're on their last legs - used the gaffa tape method and it worked a treat.
Just got my 29er and thought i'd look at using a proper kit - cheapest option is a Joes noflats kit at 40+ quid!! it's more or less half a tube, some tape and sealant.... and as for the stans version - so over-priced!
so why are they dear?
1.because they are designed in such a way that once correctly set up, the tyre can peel away from the rim and still be stuck to the rimstrip without burping air making it a much better/more reliable system than half a bmx tube, some sticky tape a couple of felt tip pens and a bit of roadkill badger that some folks seem to want to use 😆
2. Because fools like me would rather spend a bit more money and be fairly safe in the knowledge that it won't suddenly burp air and face plant me into rocks/trees/road etc..
3. because the market will support the retail price they ask/demand 😀
Coz they used to be a low volume, niche-core-tastic thing that would cost a relatively high amount per unit to produce. Imagine how many 26" inner tubes are produced worldwide compared to the number of Stan's strips...
Plus, back then they had the market virtually cornered.
Now-a-days there's a lot more options out there, but they look at how they should price, and use the existing (Stans) benchmark as a guide, and despite the fact that Stan's must be selling a gazillion more kits than they used to, they don't drop the price. So nobody else does.
And that is how the bike trade works.
Buy the off the shelf sealant but only a total mug would pay £40+ for some bit's of rubber and tape when they can achieve the same results with a bit of intelligence at about 1/10th of the cost, I have 3 "Ghetto" wheels and one Pukka UST setup, and only the UST has ever "Burped" after a particularly heavy sideways landing, Ghetto has been flawless for me...
Kid yourself that it's worth the money if you like the rest of us will just spend the difference on something useful instead..
I run stans rims these days and don't have to **** about with any rubber strippy bits. 😀
Cuz evy body know that ghetto don't burp.
(to be sung in a Fun Lovin' Criminals stylee)
Forget the rubber, I just use the tape, some sealant and sensible tyre pressures.
The only reason for this setup is to save weight. Otherwise, you might as well get UST.
What bonty rims are they? Some of them will take a bonty tubeless strip which should be cheaper than a 3rd party conversion kit.
bought the bonty strips but they didn't fit my rims - they're not the issue. The new fsa xc290 rims on my 29er are the rims in question. It's not about weight saving it's about not pinch flatting every ride. The ghetto set up has been great using bonty tlr tyres