I melt a hole in the tape for the valve with a hot bradle… …as there are no splits to potentially develop

Top tip, thanks Poopscoop

The Muc Off sealant and glue remover spray is really good for getting the gunk off when re taping a rim. I too have all sorts of problems when taping a rim, I gave up and have gone back to the Specialized 2Bliss Ready Rim Strips £4 each so cheaper than tape and meant I was able to change tyres on saturday morning and go straight out riding. I have a 29er with 30mm rims and the 29 x31mm fits fine.

Ghetto ftw.

I have tried 3 or 4 different tubeless tapes, cheap, reasonable and expensive and I have never successfully got both wheels to stay up first time. That is after cleaning with IPA, warming the rim, warming the tape, doing it slowly and thoroughly and giving it time to settle afterwards.

Then I discovered gorilla tape and I now blow the worst of the dirt off the rim, whack some tape around the rim, add some Stans and inflate. It just works, each and every time. All for under £3.

Read on here sometime back about rocking the tape side to side while pulling tight to help get it down into the channel of the rim. It works really well with stans and tessa tape.

I’ll also go with £3 Gorilla handy pack and sod the eventual mess. Easy.

Clear is better, I’ll agree, but CBA to trim it.

Gorilla cloth tape’s just got no place anywhere near a bike tbh. I still want to hunt down and murder everyone that ever recommended it to me.

pdw
Free Member

I’d always run it the full width of the rim. You don’t have to worry about how well the tape is stuck to the rim because the only exposed edge is where the tape overlaps itself. It’s very hard to screw up the taping if the tape is wide enough.

Eh, no, there are two exposed edges that go right around the entire wheel. And once a tyre’s been on the tape for long enough it can get pretty much glued to it by sealant. It’s ime the number one way tubeless tape fails when applied well- nothing to do with screwing it up because it only happens after you’ve been succesfully using it for some time.

Whereas if you can avoid that issue completely, why would you not? Taping the centre only on a wide rim means you’re sealed where you need it, there’s literally no downside.

Stans or similar tape. Pull 25-30cm out, pull it tight at a shallow angle and use your other thumb to smooth it into the well of the wheel under tension. Roll the rim round a bit and repeat. Make sure your double layer overlap covers the valve hole and use a point rather than a blade to piece the hole for the valve itself. Never had an issue with this.

The thing about making the hole- with a point, or a scalpel, or a soldering iron, or that pointy conical grindy thing that all dremel tools come with that nobody knows what it’s for but which crumbles instantly into pink dust if you ever try and actually grind anything with it… The thing is, there’s at least 5 different easy methods that work great. And people still find ways to screw it up. And still, videos and guides recommend the bloody stupid cross method.

(scalpel for me but it does need the tape to be really well conformed to the rim, if it’s not totally stuck down then you’re going to have a bad time)

Bikeshop worker here and probably do 2 tubeless jobs a week for the last 13 years . Rarely clean the rim, use stans tape that is as wide as the rim. Pull tape tight , put value in , put tyre on,put Stans in before both beads are seated . Put the last bit of bead on the rim , pump up to 40psi to make sure it seats fully . Give it a shake and spin . Job done in about 10 minutes per wheel .

Just done a new pair of wheels today. Thanks for the recommendation to rough the surface a bit, which made a difference to adhesion, but otherwise as @RamseyNeil says I’m not sure what all the fuss is about. Done loads over the years with Stans/Tesa and one or two with insulation tape or a reinforced clear tape which I think is the gorilla tape recommended. Stans/Tesa has not yet failed me. Only disadvantage I see is the need to put a bit of elbow grease into the stretch. I do double thickness then just inflate tubeless and ride. The doubling up may be unnecessary but the last roll I bought is 66m long so it’ll outlast me whatever. I’ve now got about 4 rolls of eBay Tesa in widths up to 35mm.

Pre-taped wheels from Bird did fail me though, kinda. The tape was a bit on the narrow side and taped a couple of times to cover the width – as a result some edges lifted when removing tyres. Not while riding though. Replaced with Tesa at rim width.

In my view, the tape needs to be wide enough to avoid the above scenario, although if it’s as inelastic as Tesa this might not matter. I think tape to full rim width is advantageous too in the event that bit of extra diameter might help create a seal during initial inflation, but maybe that’s immaterial. Not yet had a problem with seating the tyre that taking the valve core out hasn’t solved, but normally I don’t bother.

I’ve tried various methods and while I feel gorilla tape is probably easier to apply, it doesn’t last long as I have always had the tape edges sticking to the tyre when I try to do a tyre swap. This ends up with the whole tape peeling off the rim bed. Proper tubeless tape is more hassle to apply correctly but I never have issues swapping tyres. I’m never going back to gorilla tape.

it doesn’t last long as I have always had the tape edges sticking to the tyre when I try to do a tyre swap

I’ve got 8 wheels in my garage that would disagree with you, most have tyre changes twice a year and some are 3 or more years old. I’m yet to have one fail and if they do, I have a roll of £3 tape waiting to redo it.

i’m back on tubes.

i know (i thought), i’ll put new sealant in my tyres.

so i bought some new sealant, and started (front tyre first) …

But when i’d finished, i couldn’t get the tyre re-inflated, so i bought a special tubeless inflator tank. The problem was obviously my old ghetto inflator bomb.

Nope, the new inflator was useless – that was £60 well spent.

so i bought a new tyre, the problem was obviously the old tyre, it was a bit ‘flappy’.

nope, the new tyre, and the new inflator refused to work together, and i’m nearly out of new sealant. – i’m now up to £110 well spent.

so i found an old tube, put it in, and pumped it up. it worked!

I hate tubeless – tubeless owes me a hundred quid. And at some point i’ll have to address the old sealant in the rear tyre – do i spend £50 on a new tyre and sealant, or just put an old tube in?

(tubeless owes me an hundred quid)

Why not just take the valve core out and syringe some more stans in?

1, it’s a bit late for that.

2, i thought i’d do it ‘properly’, start clean, check the tyre for holes, thorns, glass, etc.

(i even bought some new rubbery-superglue for the job)

3, the reason i’m in this mess, is that the sealant didn’t work. i pulled a small bit of glass out of the tyre = sealant all over the place and a completely flat tyre. i thought it must have got ‘old’ , or something…

4, if i take the core out, the tyre goes flat* – and the problem i’m having is that i can’t re-inflate the tyre, or even the new tyre (*or am i doing it wrong?)

it’s a tubeless rim, it’s a new tubeless tyre, i’ve added about 4 or 5 hundred layers of tape, to make it tight (god it’s tight), i’ve got a new ‘proper’ inflator tank, i bent the handle on my track pump getting it up to 160psi, the tyre won’t inflate.

(yes, i take the core out, to help it go up the first time – even that doesn’t work)

if it’s this hard (it is this hard), i can see why people don’t bother.

i’ll put new sealant in my tyres.

Which sealant? I won’t buy anything other than Stans or Orange seal, not worth the hassle.

Stans.

Depending how big the piece of glass is, it should have sealed. If too big, you can try an anchovie thing

As for why the rest wont work, hard to say without seeing it. The valve isn’t clogged with dried sealant is it? Have you cleaned the wheel itself so see there is no dried sealant stopping the tyre bead from seating?

Also, taking the valve core out will make the tyre go flat but it shouldn’t come off the bead so it can be inflated with a track pump as normal.

Good luck.

The valve isn’t clogged with dried sealant is it?

no, and it’s a schraeder valve, which i chose because the hole is bigger – allowing for more of a ‘whoosh’…

Have you cleaned the wheel itself

yes.

taking the valve core out will make the tyre go flat but it shouldn’t come off the bead so it can be inflated with a track pump as normal.

i’ve never managed that, i’ve always needed my ghetto bomb to get the first bit of air to hold…

good luck

thanks, but really, tubeless has been around for more than a decade, and we’re still relying on luck to get it to work?

(we don’t wish people luck when they’re fitting a new stem)

i fully accept that i’m doing it wrong, but i honestly can’t see where!

Too many wraps of tape. You only need a couple

It was easy peasy, no trouble at all and pumped with a track pump. Three strokes and the tyres’ walls were slammed tight. Alex/Goma