Sorcerer

Speedy spaghetti, it might work!

It'll work out.

I'm no authority. So I've ridden many miles on non tubeless rims with non tubeless 26" tires and it's been alright, except that I'd have to keep them pumped up harder than I'd like to, and always kept a pump handy, as we should always do anyway.

Just the other day the tubeless Alex 26" rim I had on backorder arrived. It was around $35. I can't remember exactly, but it's a good rim and that's affordable.

​​​​​​I rebuilt the rear wheel of a certain bike that has been a favorite ride with that rim.

I was using a tubeless tire on the old rim. Regularly I squirted in loads of sealant to keep it holding air. The rim sort of bonded to the tire. But it wouldn't always stay sealed. Towards the end of long rides, 6 hours, it would most of the time start losing air and require pumping up a few times to make it back home.

It got so I stopped riding that bike.

Well to build the new wheel I had to take the tire off, a TLR Maxxis Crossmark, and it was no surprise at the amount of old sealant in there. It took a long time to scrape it out.

I have a wheelset on another bike that was built by a professional using the same Alex rims, I think they're called the Adventurer 2, and they have been everything I was hoping for. The Maxxis 26" tubeless tires have been tight at the pressure I want to run.

I suppose any tubeless specific tire would do the trick as well.

Recently I bought a tire I thought was tubeless on eBay, but it wasn't. It was for my wife's bike 27.5. I tried to get it to seat on a tubeless rim, but it wasn't going to work. It cost as much as the 26" rim I just got.

Well now we've got an emegency tire/tube to take on the road.

It's a pity, but it's hard to avoid making some bad purchases. Of course we try not to.


​​​​