A friend has asked me to tubeless her wheels on her new bike, Specialized Stumpjumper with Roval rims. I took the tyres off and found a Roval branded rim strip in there.

It’s a pretty decent rim strip to be fair, doesn’t look permeable, sits the full width of the rim, actually it does go up the side wall a bit. The advertising reads as “tubeless ready”. Is the rim strip a tubeless one or does it need to come off and Stans, or in this case Tesa, tape applied? It’s not stuck down, it looks like Gorilla tape.

I’ve never had a new full bike before, I’ve always built things up from components, so what comes on a new bike is new to me.

Any suggestions?

Mine were basically stans copies- remove fitted “tape”, add proper tubeless tape. There’s a roval specific tape but it’s really just the same stuff. But “roval” is pretty meaningless these days, it used to be their premium brand but now they stick it on anything so yours could be different

Just done mine on carbon roval traverse wheels on a Stumpjumper and they were already taped. Just needed to fit valves and add some fluid.

Just need to add valves and some sealant and should be good to go. Have you looked in the bits bag as every Specialized we have had has always had tubeless valves in with the other spare bits

Am a huge fan of Specialized’s out of the box provision of tubeless rim tape, setting up a Spesh tubeless is an absolute doddle.

There’s no need to remove the rim tape, the Roval rim strip is (IMHO) pretty bloody good and will be a pleasant surprise if you’re used to bodging tubeless like I am and using electrical tape or Gorilla Tape.

If you’ve done it before, then you know the drill. If you need some assistance then PM me and I’ll talk you through.

Thanks for the advice, peeps.

I’m not a tubeless virgin, I’ve had the swearing match on numerous occasions, I’ve done a fair few, from completely ghetto to Hope 35W with gorilla tape and last week with Tessa tape (same as Stans).

Nothing in the box from Specialized, not even a box. Just I’ve never seen rim tape like the Roval stuff before. It’s only ever been cloth or plastic type cloth, and pretty narrow. Just about covers the spoke holes type stuff. The Roval tape is wall to wall and pretty tidy TBH.

just a word of warning. I’ve had the roval tape fold over at the edges. Make sure your tyre is sitting straight on it, as if the edges fold over, it won’t seal.

I’ve replaced mine with stans eventually though.

Tried mine on a new Enduro and couldn’t get them to seal with the rim strip provided. Re did it with proper rim tape and they went up straight away. I also tried some different valves but they wouldn’t seal either. I then found the supplied Roval valves and again they sealed no problem. I guess the Roval ones are designed for that particular shape of rim.

mine have got the supplied roval valve in the rear (after stints with a Stans and DT swiss) and a Stans in the front. I think, like most tubless set ups, it either goes up straight away with no issues, or it’s a PITA, and you have to swap bits about until it works.