Fat bikers….are 27.5 really a thing?

Well, took me five minutes! Decided on 500ml for a 4.8, poured it in straight into the tyre as I didn’t have a suitable adaptor for the valve. Re-fitted the tyre and pulled the bead into the rim channel and started pumping with a normal track pump, before pressure had got very high (5psi) there were a few satisfying “cracks” and it has sealed lovely! It appears to be holding pressure too. The only problem is that my topeak pressure gauge doesn’t give a reading anymore.

Beginners luck! The front tyre didn’t seal, sealant leaking from the rim cutouts and the pressure dropped overnight, took the tyre off and the rim tape had been creased when fitted, Sunringle/Kona? This meant the tape didn’t cover the whole bead seat on small portions of the tyre. I removed it, ironed it and replaced whereupon it resumed its faulty shape! Taped just the bead seat but it still leaked so back to a tube. Replacement tapes only available in Alaska it would appear. I’m beginning to think that I should have accepted Winstanleys offer of a replacement bike after I found numerous problems after I’d built it up. The shine is definitely off my first new bike since 2000. Anyone got a sunringle, or other 74mm tape?

My DT Swiss fat wheels are taped with three runs of 50mm electrical insulating tape – one left, one right, one down the middle. They’ve not missed a beat in almost five years.

500ml is, uh, a lot! I probably have 120mm in my 4.8s? I use oko though so it doesn’t dry out like stans does. IIRC they supplied the mulefut ready to tubeless and with 6 of the little bottles of stans sealant per pair 🙂

I have no experience of that exact wheel, but, I just use electric tape/pvc tape. I used to get a really wide roll and cut it down, but that’s kind of a faff, 80mm tape is available I think.

But last time I found some pvc tape that was wide enough to cover the cutouts (60mm possibly?) and laid that sticky side “up” to be the visible rim tape, which left a band of rim uncovered. Then I taped over that, which is a pain because you end up with 2 sides of sticky stuck together which is quite hard to manage and stretch on and such, but did mean it was taped to the rim rather than just being held on by the tyre. Easier to do than to describe!

Half a litre! You running tractor tyres?

Good luck getting it right. As others have said wide non specific tape is probably the best solution. I use clear gorilla tape. No idea why clear – must have read it was better at some point!

I’ve mentioned it before but clean the inside of the rim. Then clean it again. Maybe again! Isopropanol alcohol is your friend here.

My method, found on YouTube somewhere.

1. Install normal rim band of colour of you choice to match frame or whatever.
2. One wrap of gorilla sticky side out over the middle covering the rim band overlapping by 100mm or so
3. One wrap of gorilla stick side down to the left up to but not over the rim wall/hook overlapping by 100mm or so
4. Pause and squeeze out all the air pockets
5. One wrap of gorilla stick side down to the right up to but not over the rim wall/hook overlapping by 100mm or so
6. Pause and squeeze out all the air pockets
7. Then go over the air pockets again, then again.
8. Carefully pierce for the valve
9. Use a P nut – with my rims at least normal valve an nut combos just don’t cut it on flat single skin rims.

So there you have it – with my rims and Surly bud/lou combo actually inflating is a bit of a ballache with a compressor and a luggage strap as they are so baggy but you don’t seem to have this problem.

The above might sound a pain…and it is a bit…but promise it’s worth it.

If you don’t have any luck taping it and getting it to seal, you could look at fatty strippers – essentially a nicer version of a split tube/ghetto tubeless setup. Not sure if you can get them easily in the UK though.

I did my mulefat 80s with a 24 x 2.4″ split tube for a while this winter and it worked great!

Use a P nut – with my rims at least normal valve an nut combos just don’t cut it on flat single skin rims.

I had to use these too as the standard valve nut just wouldn’t tighten up enough on the single wall rim (I don’t think the valve was threaded all the way down). Other than that, tubeless went pretty smoothly for me and the JJs don’t seem to bleed air. FWIW I think I have 200ml of sealant per wheel.

Yah I had similiar issues with some valves, the “plug” basically has to pull a little bit through the rim to seal. It was a wee bit fiddly, I couldn’t just use a random washer, it had to not be flat against the valve hole for the same reason. Canti/sram brake washer worked out perfectly (the concave one)