DOS

Just came across this thread from a couple months ago. How fat do the 28s blow up on the wheel? I have been running 25mm pro ones for a couple of years and they blow up to almost 30mm on my HED Belgium+ (21mm internal width) rims. I just blew out a tire (sharp rock, big hole) and wound up replacing with 23mm because they were cheaper for some reason (also seeking aero benefit but thats secondary). But even those blow up to almost 28mm, which I think is fat enough for me as my 25s barely fit on the bike.

Related question, when determining air pressure, in addition to trial error approch OP uses, do folks tend to base things on stated tire width or do you go with actual measurement (so for my 23mm tires, I should inflate based on 28mm measurement rather that 23mm written on the sidewall?

JohnJ80

depends on both the tire and the rim width. IIRC, the wider the rim (at least to a degree) the higher the tire goes. I have those same rims and just put on the Schwalbe Pro-1 in a 28mm and on an Enve fork, I have 1-2mm clearance with the brakes. So I think the Schwalbe's are a little on the pudgy side so I may back them off to a 25mm which is probably closer to what a 28mm would normally be. I had been running 25mm tubulars and I suspect those are pretty close to or under 25mm.

But the ride is really nice - almost doesn't feel real.

J.

bruce19

I went from Ksyrium Elite clinchers with Vittoria tires (320 tpi) to Ksyrium Elite USTs about a month ago. As has been said, there is no going back. They are lighter, so much more comfortable and the rolling resistance is lower than clinchers or tubulars according to GCN testing. FWIW my clinchers were 25 and so are my tubeless. I love riding these things.

DOS

Late to this I know, but fwiw, just about all sealing issues with tubeless can be easily addressed with rim tape, either replacing old tape or adding a second layer.

JohnJ80

Exactly. It's just not that complicated. There are only three places that can leak air - the rim tape, the stem, or the tire bead. After that, the benefits far, far outweigh the downsides.

And, once you get the tire on and sealed, then I find that tubeless set ups need to be aired up less than a tubed wheel set. I think that has something to do with the sealant sort of sealing the interior of the tire from air permeability.

I have been riding tubulars for about 10 years. The tubulars I've been riding are tubeless (Tufo or Donnelly/Clement) and I have gone from 6-8 punctures in 3000 miles to less than 1 in about 5000-7000 miles. I wear out tires before I get a flat. That because the primary cause of punctures for me was pinch flats from road defects and tubular tires eliminated that. The tubeless tubulars are like riding tubeless clinchers when it comes to punctures and they have sealant too. That virtually eliminates flats from punctures. The only flats I've had in that time have been from valve problems, tires being cut, or from being too cheap to change a tire when it needed changing.

Now, after switching to tubeless clinchers, I find I get virtually the same performance and it's simpler especially when touring or traveling. The downside is my rims are now about 200g heavier because of the flange on the clincher rims. The tires, lack of tube, and the sealant are about a wash either way.

It's really nice to not be wasting all that riding time on changing tubes anymore.

johngwheeler

On the stock Giant PR2 rims with 17mm internal width, the 28mm Schwalbe Pro Ones inflate to almost exactly 30mm (maybe 0.1-.0.2mm under). I suspect they would be a fair bit fatter on your HED rims, which actually answers a question that I've just posted! I found that it's not the width, but the height that is most likely to cause problems on my bike (Giant TCR), particularly under the fork crown and between the rear tire and the seat tube - I only have about 3mm clearance. Out of interest, have you had the Schwalbe tires on narrower rims, and if so, how much the tire height change when you moved to the HED Belgium+?

Regarding you second question, I generally use the actual tire width as a starting point for tire pressures, rather than the manufacturer's specs. The volume is dependent on the rim, and this is what determines the appropriate pressure. If you're running tubeless, it really doesn't matter unless you go really low (possible "belching" and air loss, or damage to rims over bumps) or really high (where the tire could blow of the rim, i.e. bad). I go on feel and have a look at the tire deformation when I have my weight on the bike. The most obvious sign is when riding out of the saddle with a lot of weight on the front wheel. It it feel "squirmy" or I can see a lot of deflection, then I know I've gone too low. For my c.70kg weight I've settled on 70psi on the front and 75psi on the rear.

DOS

[QUOTEOut of interest, have you had the Schwalbe tires on narrower rims, and if so, how much the tire height change when you moved to the HED Belgium+?.[/QUOTE]

I never used the Schwalbe on narrower wheels so I haven’t measured. I suspect you are right about the height. I have plenty of clearance side to side; its between the brake bridge and top of tire that things get tight, but seems to me I can use fatter tires on my wide rims than I thought would have been possible when I was running skinnier wheels. My understanding was that my frame could accommodate 25s but no wider yet 25s that blow up to almost 30mm work fine.

JohnJ80

You both got me thinking about the measurements.

I just mounted the 28mm Schwalbe Pro1 tires to my HED Belgium+ tubeless rims day before yesterday. I have them on a custom frame so the clearances are different obviously, but they are set up with Ultegra calipers. Anyhow, I dragged my vernier calipers out and measured the width and height. The width, surprisingly, was at about 30.21mm and the height - also surprisingly - was at about 26.5mm. I'm less confident in the height measurement just because it's a bit more of a subjective measurement than the width and doing so with vernier calipers. The clearance in the front is the tightest where it's the Ultegra brake mounted to an Enve road fork. There, I have between 1-2mm of clearance which should be ok.

I would also guess these will stretch a bit with time. So far, I've had them pumped up to 95psi sitting there for 48 hours. It may make sense to go to an the 25mm version of this on the front wheel depending on how the stretch goes (if any).

When the weather straightens out here tomorrow (been in a big Northeaster with high winds, pouring rain and temps in the mid '40's), I'll take them out for a ride and see how it goes. I'll be dropping the pressure probably to around 80psi for riding or so (at least on the front).

FWIW, the 28mm tires were decidedly more difficult to mount than the 30mm G-1 speeds I normally run on these rims (on another bike). Took an air compressor for sure and a soapy solution. They were also pretty snug on these rims so get some good tire levers. I did notice that when tire pressure is lost, these beads do then again require a compressor to seat. That wasn't the case on the 30mm tires. Don't know if that's going to be an issue or not.

J.

DOS

30mm is a little narrower than I would have expected, since my 25mm blow up to just around 29mm, but not by much. I guess I would have expected 31-31.5.

As for mounting, yes I need a blast from an air canister to get my 25 and 23mm pro ones to mount to my HED rims.Its easier after the tires wear a bit but just using a floor pump in insufficient. With new tires, replacing the rim tape helps with sealing the first time. For a while I used a coke bottle compressor hack, which worked,but recently bought an airshot canister because I feared coke bottle explosions.

But I have not had an issue with tires staying seated. The tires stay locked to the rim even when completely deflated. In fact, whenever I have deflated a tire to remove it, it takes considerable pressure to get the bead to disengage from the rim. I also can get tires to mount without levers, although its not easy. Levers make things easier, and since there is no worry of pinching a tube, I usually use one.

JohnJ80

As far as unpressured bead seating - I'll have to see how it goes after the tires have been mounted a while. I had seated the beads, then deflated them to insert sealant and the beads did pop loose. I did have to reseat them with the compressor after adding the sealant. The whole thing did seal up super tight pretty fast though and I'm happy with the mounting.

FWIW, these were a pair of 28's I'd bought more than a year ago and never got around to mounting. I'm wondering if newer manufactured ones do a better job of staying locked to the rim.

J.

Seattle Forrest

Pro Ones that says 28 mm on the box measure to 33.1 mm on my 25 mm internal rims.

WhyFi

I've run across one tire/rim combo that does that, where the beads unseat when there's no pressure. It makes me a little uneasy, to be honest. Those wheels/tires don't get much use at all (they're the foul-weather wheels for my 'good' bike, but I have a whole 'nother bike that I usually use for that), but if they did, I'd probably throw another layer of tape on the rim and see if it would help keep the beads in place.

DOS

I find that once the bead seats initially, pumping the tire up to 100psi or so and just letting it sit for a while does the trick. Even without sealant, once seated, my pro ones hold air pretty well so keeping the pressure on the bead for a couple of hours gets the bead to lock in tight.Also, as @WhyFi suggests, adding a layer of tape or just replacing the tape that is already on the rim can fix a lot of tubeless troubles.

johngwheeler

That's pretty wide! What is the tire height above the rim? Which rims are you using?

johngwheeler

Thanks for the measurements. I'll need to measure my tire height when I get home. The HED Belgium+ has a 21mm internal / 25mm external width, right? So there is about 2.5mm of tire extending outside the rim profile on each side. I'm not sure how much of an effect this would have on aerodynamics, but it's probably not very significant at my level of cycling :-)

johngwheeler

My 28mm Schwalbe Pro-Ones on the stock Giant 17mm (internal) rims were also about 26.5mm tall, so it's interesting to note that you measured the same on the much wider (21mm internal) HED Belgium+. Probably due to the depth of the bead seating hooks, but it does sound like I could go to wider rim if I wanted. Worst case, I'd have to drop down to 25mm Schwalbes, which would inflate to almost what I have now (c. 30mm width, 26.5mm height).

JohnJ80

That IS interesting. I would have expected them to be lower as well.

I put them on my road bike frame that has the tighter clearances and it was hard to tell if there was contact with the brakes while riding. I suspect it was partly due to the over-molding and especially the center line strip. Anyhow, I put them on my cross bike to put some miles on them and wear that off and to figure out the right tire inflation. Once I got the pressure dialed in to just under 70psi, I found them to feel quite fast and very plush. Nice tires!

I like these so much that I’m considering getting a 30mm pair (new tire this year) for touring. I think that would be an awesome tire for that purpose.

Anyhow, the plan now that I have about 100 miles on them is to put them back on the road bike and see how that goes. I’m hoping it works well. I also have a set of 25mm ones that I got from a guy and if this doesn’t work, they will if they follow the same pudgy characteristics of the 28.

J.

jbasirico

Some tubeless-only wheelsets are lighter than clinchers since they don't need the bead hook on the rim.

JohnJ80

How much does that typically save?

I have ridden tubeless tubulars (Tufo, Donnelly/Clement) for about 10 years now because of the weight and tubeless advantages. Just recently, I've been switching over to tubeless clincher wheels and tires because the weight penalty is much less and it's possible to build a set of alloy tubeless wheels with them being just about the same weight as a carbon set of tubeless clinchers (~1400-1500g) for about half the price of name brand carbon wheels. That's a pretty good value just in and of itself. When I look at the explosion of tubeless tires, the better ride quality and reliability, it's kind of a no brainer.

So I'm interesting in the further weight savings of going to a tubeless only rim over a tubeless ready rim.

J.

WhyFi

I can't imagine that it's meaningful and, that I've seen, they're primarily intended for wide and/or gravel-y type set-ups; most have significantly lower max PSI recommendations than typical road pressures.

JohnJ80

I’ve got a bunch more miles now on the 28mm Schwalbe Ones. I like them a lot - very plush and fast. My average speeds have gone up a little but it’s significant, stable and something I didn’t expect. I have them pumped up to about 67-70psi which seems to work really well for me.

I took one off the other day because I noticed that somehow I’d gotten the rotational direction backwards. Anyhow, the beads had very firmly set into the rims and I had to push them out to get them to release - so that’s good.

When I reinstalled them I pumped them up to about 100psi to make sure they sealed. I put them back on the bike and they had grown in size to where they no longer fit in my road bike. When I reduced pressure to my normal pressure they fit once again. So they’re a pretty stretchy tire since that meant they got bigger by almost 2mm in places. For me, that’s cause for concern if they stretch over time.

Anyhow, I’m a fan. Great tire.

bruce19

I have only recently gone to Mavic USTs on my road bikes so I don't have a great body of experience. My LBS is staffed by a lot of guys who have all ridden tubeless for years on Mtn. bikes. I was told that with tubeless I should check tire pressure frequently. Since I check and inflate all tires before every ride, it is no big deal. Yesterday afternoon around 3 pm I put a UST wheelset on my gf's bike. I inflated the front tire to 75 psi. Thanks to this post, I went out a few minutes ago (approx. 9:45 am) and checked it. It was 65 psi. That sounds similar to my road bikes. I'm OK with that.

Dean V

I have a set of Pro 1's set up tubeless and they are good but do not think they are any better than a good quality regular tyre/tube set up.
I don't run the pressure any lower, because then the bike handling gets squirmy (55f/65r).
More hassle with sealant, tyre seating etc.
I ride in an area where punctures are rare anyway so there is no benefit there either.

JohnJ80

With respect to ride quality, if you pump up your tires hard, it doesn't matter if you have tubes or not.

Dean V

Exactly, so if I can run them as soft as I want with tubes, tubeless is not gaining me anything in that department.