Stans Crest, Stans tape and valves, tubeless ready Nobby Nics and a modded garden sprayer for inflation left me cursing and resorting to inner tubes. 😥

DT Swiss X430, 1″ Gorilla tape and the same Stans Valve and a Continental X King, and would you believe it, the tyre has gone up first time with a track pump and has sealed without any sealant. 😯

So I’ve learned that those Nobby Nics were terribly tight (pulled off the beads tight) and that Gorilla tape is MUCH better than Stans, and only £2.50 a roll too.

Anyone else had a similar experience?

I started using tubeless ten years ago, never had any issues, but then I never tried the whole Ghetto Tubeless thing, I went straight in with new wheels built using Mavic X3, or whatever they were called.
Valves with removable cores are essential; you put the tyres on the rims, then squirt the sealant into the tyre, and pump up with a regular track pump.
Works for me, has done for a decade.

On Friday got a new tyre (just a normal one) out of the box, took a wheel (with Stans strip already attached). Turned on my compressor.

Put the tyre onto the rim (needed tyre levers as it was cold and quite a stiff bead). Attached the airline and wiggled the tyre a bit as it pumped up. Got it seated at about 30psi.

Let out all the air, levered a small section of bead off and put in 50ml of Stans fluid. Put the bead back on and pumped the tyre up until the beads ‘snapped’.

Came back in morning, tyre still up.

🙂

Why anyone pi55es around with ghetto and pumps I’ll never know.

Too tight tyres burp easy. its the tyres way of telling you not to bother.

It’s the faff you get when you get punctures that bothers me more than faff fitting tubless

finally went tubeless on friday night after a couple of beers

Id fitted them tubed the night b4

Hans Dampf tubless ready, Nobby nic non tubeless,wtb tubeless rims-already taped :-), stans valves and fluid, whipped out the tube, added fluid, got the tyres mounted, pumped with track pump (core removed)
the hans dampf was a bit messy but seated eventually the nobby nic went up well easy

dunno why I didnt do it years ago!

My point really is that I tried to do everything right and it just did not work. Then a mix of just trying it with a mix of right and bodge and it works fine. I suspect it was just the tyres; even after a few weeks of inflation they were still so tight as to pull off the rim on one side. But even the Stans Valves didn’t seal well on Crest rims with Stans tape!

Gorilla tape for me from now on. It just went on so much better than Stans. It was all so easy, I didn’t even need to remove the valve core to inflate the X Kings.

Different rims have different tyre seating diameters*. Different tyres have different tyre seating diameters*. Only a fraction here or there, but when you get a ‘big’ rim and a ‘small’ tyre you won’t get that combo to work.

My tubeless tyres have all gone on easy in the past, except Bonty Jones onto DT5.1D and Rocket Rons onto AC Race rims. Yet Maxxis tyres fit the former and Spesh tyres fit the latter no problem.

*According to the AC importers

Recently put a pair of Racing Ralph’s on a 29er crest rim with Stan’s tape and a coke bottle inflator. A bugger to get on the first time but left them a couple of days with a tube in there before going tubeless and they were then fine to get off and back on. Other than getting the tyre on for the first time, I’ve had a problem with any Stan’s rim with Maxxis or Schwalbe tyres and I’ve done quite a few.

What’s the problem with the yellow tape? Never tried Gorilla tape but then never had a problem with the yellow tape (can’t imagine gorilla tape is that much easier as the yellow tape is pretty simple.)

The gorilla tape is wider and it fits the cross sectional profile much better – rather than act like a rim strip, it seats wight up to the bead hook. I think the extra cross sectional adhesion will help with airtightness.

And it is black so looks good 😉 . And it is 25% of the price.