Mrs Flossie and I have just returned from a few ‘uplifting’ days in the Alps which were marred by punctures.
Mrs F’s bike is a burly hardtail fitted with a Michelin Rock R 2.25 front tyre. The riding we were doing was purely green and blue runs and a bit of trail type riding, so nothing remotely extreme!
Under braking the tyre was pulling round the rim, (Mavic XC 717) dragging the tube with it and pulling the valve out of the tube. (Standard weight tube ie non downhill) the rim seems fine, nothing has changed from the normal set up and out of desperation we even tried one of our emergency 1.95 trail raker mud tyres which did exactly the same thing.
All I could think was that dust has got in between the bead and rim and was acting as a lubricant.
Had these issues started earlier in the holiday, I’d have tried to find a DIY store and glued the tyre in place with some type of flexible sealant.

Has anyone had this problem and how did you overcome it? It’s a new one on me in 35 years as a bikie!

Thanks in advance

Floss

Please don’t suggest tubeless, as with six regularly used MTB’s in our household, the prospect of maintaining and the cost of converting twelve tubeless wheels is why we stick with tubes.

Please don’t suggest tubeless, as with six regularly used MTB’s in our household, the prospect of maintaining and the cost of converting twelve tubeless wheels is why we stick with tubes.

The cost of converting my wheel sets were about the same as 2 RRP tubes.

Other than that you have narrow rims so it will pull across the rim if you have something of any decent width/volume

easy fix is to fit some proper tyres instead of those weird michelin things!

have xc717 on the wifes bike (twice) and have had xc717 on my heckler (once), in the alps, using maxxis tyres and never ever had anything like that happen

Plenty of talc between tyre and tube. So the tyre can move without pulling on the tube as much.
Also, clean the rim bead, really really thoroughly. Get rid of all the rubber, grease and assorted shit. It’ll stop the tyre sliding so readily. Can also do the same to the tyre. They can get slippy after a while, some are slippy from new.

And FWIW I spent several months piecemeal converting all but one of our mtbs to tubeless. Nearly 10 sets of wheels. Expenditure on sealant is far lower than it ever was on tubes. Tyres are now much more useful. (Don’t need to swap so regularly due to the larger range of useable pressures)

The only non-tubeless is my winter training bike. Studded tyres are all but impossible to convert to tubeless.

More pressure maybe? to attempt to act as a stronger beadlock?

(as an aside, why anyone runs with a tube in 2016 is beyond me! all my bikes are tubeless!)

oh yes, run tubeless mavic rims now and they are amazing. tubeless defo for winners

A proper clean of the inner rim sidewall and also the bead area where the tyre contacts the rim. Possibly a light sanding on the rim bead will roughen it up and help it grip the tyre more.

Please don’t suggest tubeless, as with six regularly used MTB’s in our household, the prospect of maintaining and the cost of converting twelve tubeless wheels is why we stick with tubes.

6 x Valves = £17.94 Cheapest on Google

1 x Stans Fluid = £16 Stans Fluid

2 x tubeless tape = £13.98 Superstar Tape

A grand total of £47.92 or £7.98 per bike!

Had the same when I first went to the alps years ago and rode loads including the DH courses on XC bikes with narrow rims and moderately heavy duty tyres… Heavy duty tubes helped but also talc, lots of talc, that pretty much sorted it. I also seem to remember presta or shcraeder was worse than the other, can’t remember which but if you are running only one sort, try the other! I think it’s the sheer amount of braking that drags the tyre round and the tube with it…

Sounds like a case of small rim and slack tyre, it can happen, no-ones fault, just tolerances working against you.

Fixing it though is harder, the best solution is a tyre that fits tightly on the rim, or build up the rim so the tyre bead locks against the rim and rim tape. I found the best option (with tubes) was Velox cloth rim tape, often stocked in bike shops on a huge roll. The cloth is sticky backed so holds put and can add friction to the tyre bead. You need to be wary of fitting too much though as you still need space for the tyre to lock under the rim hook, 2 full wraps at most id suggest.

But yeah tubeless is much better, though if your still back in the era of mavic 717 it might be a bit harder to switch all those old fashioned wheel sets, its more effort on those sorts of wheels than just a wrap of stans tape like some above seem to think.

I get the reluctance to convert 6 bikes.
The sealant does dry out so if you only use a bike a couple of times in 6 months then it’s going to be a pain.
Get a decent charger style pump (the ones with the reservoir) or an airshot of make your own out of a fire extinguisher (what I did!) and the hassle is massively reduced.

I’ve only recently converted the o/h’s wheels to tubeless and never had an issue with tyres slipping. You tried two different tyres so assuming they weren’t both baggy with very smooth beads I’d suggest a really good clean of the wheel rim and tyre bead, along with talc (as mentioned above) to stop the inner tube being pulled round.

Good luck!

Si

OP specifically asks people not to suggest tubeless. 7 people suggest tubeless 😐

FWIW I run tubes. No plans to switch.

Thanks for the suggestions, lots of talk was used, but the tyres were a loose fit on the rims, but that’s Mavic! I guess it was just down to dust and crap.

As for all the go tubeless comments, it’s not just a matter of valves tape and sealant to do properly! I’ve tried with the same Mavic rim and it was a nightmare, so eventually invested in proper TL rims. (The only TL bike in the collection) I Would not consider converting without the proper rims which is not a cheap option!

I Would not consider converting without the proper rims which is not a cheap option!

I did 719’s and 721’s with just tape, only one of my wheel sets (6) are tubeless rims

Great…. I should have known, if I mentioned an inner tube the ‘tubeless evangelists’ would pop up and hijack my post!
Wind yer necks in, sling yet hooks and go away if you have nothing useful to contribute to my original question!
TUBLESS IS NOT SUITABLE FOR MY SITUATION!

I Would not consider converting without the proper rims which is not a cheap

I’ve never used “proper” tubeless rims and they’ve all worked fine for me, even including Mavic 717’s with Michelin XC Dry 2.35 tyres. I used them for two summers in Greece with zero problems. They were ghetto converted with 20″ Schwalbe tubes.

Tubeless will prevent your alpine nightmare.

Surely you only need to convert the problem bike to tubeless? The other five can stay with tubes.

TUBLESS IS NOT SUITABLE FOR MY SITUATION!

Well I suggest you invest all those savings in tubes

Should probably change your username to Flouncie

I Would not consider converting without the proper rims which is not a cheap option!

out of all the bits to buy tubeless rims are a long way down the list!

Thicker rim tape. Gorilla tape 1″ is good.

Then you can cut the valves out of your punctured tubes, poke them through the tape, fit your tyres with some sealant and stop worrying about tubes 😉

Maxxis Minion DHF front and back, either in EXO, DD or 2ply depending on what weight you can live with. We run EXO as a good all year around compromise as I can’t be bothered with switching tyres all the time any more. Have set then up ghetto tubeless using Stans and split BMX tubes. It’s quick, simple and cheap to do. I have the joyous task of looking after all the bikes in the family and setting 4-5 bikes up this way and topping up with Stans every no and again is so much less faff and bother than changing punctures.

It took me a long time to try tubeless as I thought the faff of looking after everyone’s bikes would be a ball ache but it turned out to be much easier and less effort than keepin tubes.

Tom KP

I’ve done an Alps week with Mavic XC717, standard tubes & dual ply Maxxis Minion DHF front & rear (super tacky front) and never had a problem.

I’m surprised no ones mentioned you should go tubeless. In all the years I’ve gone tubeless I’ve only had one puncture that failed to seal (caused by a spike entering and exciting the tyre so no real chance for the tubeless to work). Out of a group of 13 of us that went to the Alps last year only those using tubes had punctures (several of them). I’m surprised people still use tubes these days as tubeless is much better, less faff than tubes and far more reliable. Any particular reason you’re against tubeless?

Did I mention tubeless is awesome and would solve your puncture problem?

Thing is, use “tubless evangelists” are evangelists precisely because tubeless just WORKS!

Sure, it’s a slight phaff to do if you aren’t running Tubeless Ready rims, but that slight phaff is easily forgotten and trades off against being able to just get on a ride your bike without any phaff when it counts!

Just talc the inside of the tyre.

Old problem, well tried solution

Sounds like a loose tyre. I had a similar problem with a chunky monkey and 3 tubes splitting at the valve. Bought a DH high roller 2 (annoying as I had a set at home) and didn’t have a puncture for the rest of the holiday.

We have six bikes in our household – two are tubeless, and they’re the two that are used for smashing rough downhills. The rest have tubes. It isn’t an all or nothing decision.

the tyres were a loose fit on the rims, but that’s Mavic!

Mavic are loose to install, as they have a deep central well to make it easy to push the tyre over the rim edge, but thats different to a slack tyre where it is stretched at the bead and hence not a good fit.

I wonder if it is as much to do with how you are riding as it is the fit of the tyres? Being honest with yourselves, are you maybe dragging the brakes and “covering them” just a bit much when not in the corners? I can see how that would make things much worse.

Mind you, last time I was in the PDS Alps, I was happily running High Roller front and Racing Ralph rear without any issues or punctures on reds/blues and the occasional black.

Rachel

My week in the Alps could have been a nightmare of punctures also. Over 20 holes in my rear hans d. Fortunately I was tubeless so suffered no inconvenience what so ever.

I’ve not read anything other than the opening post, but I had the same thing happen with Michelin tyres on Mavic 719 about 10 years ago in the Alps. Swapped for steel beaded minion dhf and the rotating stopped.

In the subsequent decade Ive gone tubeless. Like most people I think it is worth the hassle.