I got the other tire about a week ago. It wouldn’t mount tubeless right out of the box. I inflated it with a tube (how it’s supposed to be since it is a
tube-type tire) and let it sit over a couple nights to let it “stretch” out. While it was doing that, I added sealant (Stan’s No Tubes) to the rear tire since it held up well as a dry setup.
Back to the new (front) tire, I tried it again. This time, it worked. I was able to mount it tubeless. I didn’t add any sealant to it, just to see how well it held air. Installed it on the bike and took the following pictures. The Sedona is now 100% tubeless, using the “ghetto” style using the split-tube method.
“Light” mode
“Dark” mode
I think the bike looks really spiffy with both new tires, especially in the dark with their reflective sidewalls.
Unfortunately, a couple problems. I couldn’t get the rear brakes re-installed because the cable had so much tension on it that I could not route it through the quick release mechanism. Second, the front brake was having problems as it kept rubbing on the little bits of excess tube that weren’t trimmed off because they were really close to the tire.
I decided to take the front wheel back off the bike and install sealant. It wouldn’t seal back up after deflating, so I had to remove and restretch the tire as some parts of the tire was fairly loose. After redoing it, it sealed up and I was able to install about 1.5 ounces of sealant. Then I deflated the tire back down to around 10 PSI to trim off the excess tube. Then I reinflated.
That brings me to today. I was able to finally get the rear brake situation fixed - I adjusted the tension and used some brute force to route the cable into its quick release holder. I’m not sure why, but ever since installing this new tire the rear brakes have been super tight and the cable has lots of tension on it. The tire is barely wider, and there is no spots where the tire is rubbing on the brakes. Anyhow, I got it fixed.
It snowed this week but thankfully tonight was fairly decent and a lot of the snow has melted/been treated on the sidewalks and roads. So I took the bike out for a spin. The Schwalbe Marathons rode very smooth - a night-and-day improvement over the stock tires that came with that bike. I’m not sure how much of the feel of the tire can be credited to the tubeless setup. I once again ran the tubeless setup through its paces - cornering, braking, even hitting a small curb. No burps and the tires held up fantastically.
