DirtRag’s Rimstrips Review
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Dirt Rag Magazine (a great mountain bike magazine btw) did an article a while back reviewing the different options in rimstrips. Plastic rimstrips are pretty essential to some tubeless setups, so it was a great read that shows what options are available.
Mavic plans its own Road Tubeless wheelset
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After posting about the Shimano/Hutchinson wheelset, I came across Mavic’s work on a new road tubeless wheelset. I’ve heard that some riders rode these on this year’s Tour de France.
Bicycling.com’s article on the Mavic tubeless wheelset.
Tubeless comes Standard on Mongoose Canaan Team
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It’s about time we start seeing more tubeless options on bikes sold by the major bike manufacturers. Well Pacific Cycle has outfitted their high-end Mongoose Canaan Team with weight-weenie Stan’s NoTubes ZTR Olympic Disc rims on Ringle Dirt Flea hubs. Hotness.
Read more here: Mongoose Canaan Elite/Team review at Bicycling.com
Stans announces Road Tubeless Conversion Kit at Interbike
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At Interbike 2007, Stan’s introduces a tubeless conversion kit for clincher wheelsets. Basically it is the same setup as with his mountain bike tubeless conversion kit. Run a tubeless valve stem, 60 ml of Stan’s sealant, and Hutchinson’s new Fusion 2 Road Tubeless clincher on a solid rim wall wheel like the Mavic Kysrium or Fulcrum wheelsets. Some wheelset will require Stan’s sealing tape. Stan says the key is the new non-stretching carbon fiber bead in the Fusion 2 tire. He cites better air retention and near-instant sealing repair as the main benefits. Reported by Cyclingnews.com
Keith Bontrager testifies for riding Tubeless
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I just found this surfing around and thought it was pretty amazing. Keith Bontrager, one of the most significant people to the mountain biking sport and industry, recently rode in the multi-stage endurance mtb race, TransScotland 2007. He gives his straight up look at everything related to the race, the food, and of course his equipment. You really need to read what he says about why he rides tubeless. It makes a lot of sense.
KB’s testimony on cyclingnews.com
Road Tubeless: A look at Shimano Dura-Ace / Hutchinson combo
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Outside magazine has an online feature about the new Shimano Dura-Ace wheelset that can run Hutchinson’s new tubeless tire, the Fusion 2 Road Tubeless.
It sounds really good:
As expected, things were noticeably smoother. Cornering was also more stable than I’m used to, since the lower pressure leaves more tire in contact with the road. I would love to have had a power meter to see if the rolling resistance was really comparable to my normal setup. But in purely subjective terms, I didn’t feel like I was working any harder. The wheels wind up quickly, hold their speed, and are race-day stiff, while the tires offer noticeable handling improvements.
At a claimed weight of 1,560 grams per pair, the 7801’s are about 100 grams heavier than comparable standard wheels. But you more than make up for that by leaving the pump and spare tubes at home. The tires weigh about the same as a standard tire and tube combined, so weight there isn’t a concern. The Fast Air cans are a necessity, though. Without them, the tires lose air in a matter of hours. But with them, you won’t even have to think about your tires.
Read the rest of the article.
Ways to go tubeless: A Roadmap
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The tubeless industry has literally exploded since Mavic’s introduction of the UST rim in 1999. Conversions, sealants, UST-specific rims and wheelsets have given the tubeless rider more options than ever. With so many choices, here’s a brief summary of what’s available.
Tubeless specific wheelsets and wheelgoods
UST wheelsets - Mavic’s Universal Standard for Tubeless (UST) design in their CrossMax, CrossTrail, CrossLand, and DeeMax wheelsets is probably one of the easiest ways to go tubeless. It’s as simple as buying a new set of wheels. Tubeless use requires UST specific tires which are generally heavier than tubed tires. Thicker sidewalls and a strong bead allow these tires to be ridden without any sealant. Using tubed tires on these wheels can be done by putting in a tube or a conversion kit.
UST compatible rims - Mavic and several other rim manufacturers produce UST rims giving you the choice of going tubeless with your next wheel build. Like the above UST wheelsets these require UST tires.
Conversion Kits
DT Swiss tubeless conversion kit - allows you to convert a DT Swiss rim into a UST compatible rim. It requires the use of a sealant and a specialized rim strip.
Bontrager’s Tubeless Ready - Keith Bontrager’s at it again, bringing tubeless to the masses with Tubeless Ready line of products. This is a conversion kit with specialized rim strip and Super Juice tire sealant. The key difference is that Tubeless Ready wheels are designed with thinner sidewalls to save weight but requires the use of the Super Juice sealant.
Stan’s NoTubes - Stan’s conversion kits give riders a possibly inexpensive way to go tubeless by letting them use their existing wheels and tires. If the
wheels and tires are compatible. Fortunately, Stans is compatible with the widest set of rims and tire manufacturers. They have several models of rimstrips for a variety of rim designs including XC, Freeride, Downhill, and 29′er. Stan’s can use standard tires with sealant. Stan also seems to be a weight weenie at heart with many weight saving rim, rimstrip and tire options.
Ghetto tubeless - A homemade tubeless conversion kit made of sacrificed BMX tubes and modeling latex for sealant. One of the cheapest ways to go tubeless but no manufacturer to complain to or get support from if things go wrong.
Have something to add or did we miss something? Join the discussion
Fight Breast Cancer, Win a bike the ladies will love
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Ladies love hot bikes. Ladies love pink. So a pink bike is good for anyone. This year’s Speedgoat Bicycle raffle features a decked out custom pink ride with tons of custom colored parts. All proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Fund. Each ticket is $10, so buy your chance today.
This year’s bike features a custom XC frame from BMC, Fox’s 32 Float 100RLC fork and rear shock, pink Chris King hubs, and a SRAM X.0 drivetrain. Other parts were donated by Hope, Oury, Thomson, RaceFace, and Velocity. All in all it will be a incredibly sweet ride for anyone. Just don’t forget to convert those Velocity rims to tubeless. 
I only wish the color was closer to the CK hubs rather than Pepto Bismol.
Would you ride it if you won it?
Andy Murrel rides tubeless!
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Check out Andy Murrel’s sweet tubeless 29er ride, a Niner Air 9.
The advantages of running 28psi pressure on tyres converted to tubeless using Notubes rims has been borne out already, with riders puncturing all around me at a recent race on the flinty twisty Pro-Cup course at Mapledurham while I floated over the rocks without a care.
Weighing in at 21.1 lbs and running Stan’s NoTubes rims, it’s a very nice light geared hardtail that shows a lot of thought was put into each component. Nice work Andy. More specs on the Niner Air 9
Cape Epic 2007: Ride tubeless, please
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BikeMagic had this great article about the Cape Epic. Riders, Loan Burger and Reynard Van straaten, decide to tackle the eight day grueling race across South Africa. Racing on a wide variety of terrains, Loan rides tubeless, but Reynard doesn’t. Until Loan gets tired of changing flats that is.
We had a nice chat up the hill and so managed to climb the monster - we passed the last water point and only had the “Ou Wa Pad” left to climb. Then it happened. A puncture! Reynard was not riding tubeless, and it was at this stage that he understood why I insisted that he invests in some before the race. He had his first of what would be three punctures during this year’s Epic.
Day two had similar events occur:
Day two was to be the longest stage of this years Cape Epic. And as luck would have it, right on the start line Reynard had his second puncture. So when all the other riders went off we were sitting next to the start line fixing yet another tube. We eventually got going, but had some work to do.
Day three, Reynard gets converted to tubeless:
This time I made sure Reynard was properly prepared, having given him my spare set of tubeless wheels to use. We’re not planning on having another puncture today.
With only one more puncture over the next 5 days, the pair finished a great race. Congratulations!
Read Loan Burger’s full story. Check out his 2007 machine too. Nice.
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