u235

I just got some new wheels, they were cheap (I paid a small fraction of the $499 listed price) but decent for what they are.
https://www.vueltausa.com/vuelta-whe...-10-speed.html
They are marketed as tubeless ready but... they have four holes around where they are pinned and the same four holes on the opposite side. The holes are right up against the edge and I can't see tape providing enough coverage over that area unless I wrap it up the wall. WTF.... Are any other wheels/rims like this? None of my other wheels have those holes. They are dead straight and even, roll smooth, and tentioned almost perfect out of the box but those holes give me a tubeless concern.

chas58

that is odd. I would contact them.

I've seen (Bontrager) wheels that have plastic inserts that clip in to make a wheel tubeless, but I wouldn't trust rim tape to cover those holes permanently.

Elvo

Yeah those are right at the edge of the tape, I wouldn't run this tubeless

DrIsotope

I have a set of wheels that are definitely not tubeless-ready, and they have pinning holes identical to those. You would be extremely fortunate to get tape to seal those.

In the item description it says welded-- so as far as I know those holes shouldn't be there.

redlude97

You could always epoxy them shut, then tape over

u235

Got a reply from them. A generic response that I need to use tubeless rim tape if I want to use them tubeless.... That was useless. I got them for $135 shipped and sold by Amazon. It was one of those cases where they only had one of something in stock sitting around for a while and the price just kept going down and down until it got sold. I can send them back with no hassle but I think I'll try some epoxy.

chas58

Yeah, I was thinking I would do epoxy or silicon possibly.

You can always return them at Kohl's if you got them from amazon. Cheaper than shipping wheels!

u235

Sent pictures to them, They said yes that is very odd and waiting to hear back..

I taped up one of them and it held so far. I used some Tyvek around the areas with those holes and up the sides and my normal tape process of Scotch 898 filament strapping tape around the center and Scotch 8898 around the rim once on top of that. It is doing fine after a few days of just sitting around, pumped up to 50 and maybe around 45 right now. The process sounds overly complicated but it only took me about 5 minutes. Put a tube in first and pumped it up to get a good seal on the tape before putting in sealant.
Tyvek is SUPER sticky and very thin, it works great but it can't be stretched, the filament strapping tape provides some support over the spoke holes to prevent the other tapes from getting pushed in and weak. The only cases where I do not use the filament layer first is if I use Gorilla tape, it is strong enough by itself. I've never been a fan of multiple layers of one wide tape over the whole rim. If the bottom layer isn't tight, additional layers on top do not help. There are 1000 ways to go tubeless. So far so good on this..

chas58

I use "skinny strippers" and they would work well in this situation. Its basically a strip of latex that goes around your rim bed. It prevents burps, keeps the latex off your rim, makes seating the tire super easy, and seals all holes (except valve stem). After a week or so it bonds (weakly) to your tire making it almost a tubular type tire (tire can hold some air without being mounted).

rosefarts

And they are a great company who will personally email you to make sure things worked well and give you any ideas if you need them.

They seem like cool people to sit and have a beer with.

The products work perfectly too.

u235

Follow-up. The one I did earlier with the Scotch tape gave out, even before using it on the bike. I started over and sealed up those random holes with a gel based super glue (Loctite version). Smoothed it out with a buffer wheel and Dremel tool. Used real Stan's tape (25 mm tape on a 19 ID rim) and holding perfect so far after a few rides. These wheels must be smaller than all my other ones. My tire beads do not "lock" in. If I let the air out right now no doubt it will just flop around and completely unseat. Every other wheel/tire combo I've done is a tighter fit and requires some level of effort to break down. Not sure if that is a good or bad thing.