Cyclist03511

I just received my new tubeless wheel+tire and I am about to give it a first try... I watched and read a bunch of tutorials online and before doing anything stupid with the sealant and ruin everything, I wanted to give it a try without it. But is it even possible?? I am using a floor pump and of course all the air that I am trying to put in the tire is directly coming out. Do I need to pour the sealant in the tire to make it work? Or is it a bad sign that what I am doing is not going to work even with the sealant?

Russ Roth

A lot depends on the rim/tire combination. My bike with a Stan's rim and tubeless tire couldn't be done without compressed air. The rim bed is so tight to the bead groove that its often difficult to push the tire away from the rim edge, interestingly this combination was also awful at not losing air or burping the tires and I gave up on being tubeless with it. My wife's bike could be set up with a regular pump with no trouble without sealant and stayed sealed for several hours without sealant. From setting them up in a shop setting, an air compressor was needed more often then not and just made like easier.

dsaul

I have tubeless tires on every bike I own. Some of them inflate easier than others, but I wouldn't even try to inflate one with a floor pump. I use a compressor and remove the valve core to get the most air volume into the tire. It needs a sudden rush of air that exceeds the leakage to force the bead to seat on the rim.

mack_turtle

I feel much better about a tubeless tire/rim combo if i can make it seat with just a floor pump, that that's not been possible on many tires. my approach:

1. install the tire dry so that the tire pops onto the rim and seats there.
2. remove valve core and let the air back out. the tire should stay locked onto the rim. if it doesn't, you don't have a sufficient seal on the rim/tire.
3. push sealant in through the open valve using a squeeze bottle or syringe
4. put the valve back in and reinflate

the whole process takes an additional 60 seconds per tire.

if the tire does not pop onto the rim with a floor pump, you need a faster, high-volume air blast. you can do this with an ordinary air compressor tank if you have one, you can you can buy or make one. there are several floor pumps on the market that have pressurized tanks to do this but they are not cheap. I've been using a two-liter soda bottle just like the one below for several years and it's never failed me. cost exactly $0.00 if you have some tubing, a bottle, and some old tubes from which to harvest valves.

base2 

I have found that an air compressor can help, but if you do have a flat that loses the bead on the trail, you may very well be hosed. At the mountain bike park may be one thing, 25 miles from the nearest paved road is another.

An extra few layers of rim tape to lessen the air loss until the bead gets set isn't going to hurt anything.

Personally, I think a tubeless should be able to be set with little more than a floor pump. At least then, you'll know it's tight enough you stand a chance with a CO2 cartridge when out on the trail.

I would never run a setup an air compressor won't inflate. Doing so is a sure mark for setting yourself up for failure.

Cyclist03511

Thank you all for the explanations. I do not know how to make sure that the tire is sitting correctly in the rim... It's complicated to know when you've never done it! Anyway, I don't think that I'll be able to do it myself with my floor pump. I tried a couple of times (without the sealant to get trained) and there's no way I will pump faster than the leakage. It such a pain to realize that once I received this new bike! I should have pay more attention when I put the order.
I guess I'll go to the bike shop and ask them to do it for me. I will learn how to do it myself once I have a air compressor.

Brett A

All tires have to seat without the help of sealant. The question is how long will they hold air without it? I've never actually tried to ride w/o sealant in the wheel, but if you get a good dry seal, you might be able to for a few minutes. But maybe not. You won't know until you actually try it.

FWIW, I've had a floor pump work once out of maybe eight tire changes so far. I have to go put a dollar in the coin-op inflator at the gas station and use a brass presta/schrader adapter

Personally, I hate setting up tubeless wheels and barely think it's worth the hassle. I still carry a spare tube and pump on trail rides, so nothing saved there. And I'd never notice the ride quality if it wasn't mentioned.

One thing that has made mounting them slightly less unpleasant was having valves with removable cores and buying a syringe to put the sealant in through the vale stem after the tire is seated.

Anther piece of advice is to plan on it taking a couple hours the first couple times you do it.

jadocs

My advice is to pair up with someone that is familiar with tubeless tires. Going in blind then forming an opinion based on going in blind with limited knowledge will not yield the best experience.

For example, you are getting advice on using compressors before we even know if you are set up correctly. What kind of wheel/tire you are using. Does your need tape? If it has tape, is it buggered up to the point of being ineffective? (that will make it lose air for sure). If your tire is losing that much air that quickly...trying to correct it with sealant is not the answer.

mack_turtle

it's actually very simple. when the tire seats onto the rim fully, you'll hear it pop a few times as the tire snaps into place. I pump my tires to no more than 40 psi to get them to seat. if it takes more pressure than that, most rims risk the tire blowing right off the rim (BOOM! SPLATTER! TIRE DAMAGE!). after you hear a few pops, visually inspect the tire/rim interface. by that, I mean take 10 seconds to look at it to make sure the tire is exposed evenly all the way around the wheel on both sides. this is identical to the procedure you would do with a tubed tire, so this should be nothing new. if the tire is evenly seated on the rim, you're ready to squirt some sealant in.

a few things that will help:

• are the rim and tire designed to be tubeless? what rim and tire are you using? (some rims can be converted but it's a crapshoot sometimes. not all tires will work well, or sometimes not at all)
• does the rim have TUBELESS specific tape wrapped around it, sealing all the holes? (seems obvious but it's a common mistake)
• don't use a tire lever to install a tire, EVER. i've fitted some of the tightest combinations you can imagine and I always get it to work without a tire lever. it's 95% technique, 4% persistence, and 1% brute force to do this.
• "lube" the tire/rim interface with soapy water. if the interface is too dry, it can become too sticky to let the tire slip into place. there are several videos that show this technique online.
• have you fit the tire such that the bead is over the valve? (I did this wrong the other day and the air just blew directly out into my face)
• one last trick: install the tire with a tube. when the bead is seated and pops onto the rim, deflate and remove the tube from one side of the tire. leave the other side seated on the rim. (it should stay put or else you have a big problem with a tire that's never going to hold air.) no re-inflate the tire and it should be easier because you only have to get half of the tire to seal as the other half is already seated and sealed.

this is really not much different from seating a tubed tire. there's 1.5 extra step that will become second nature after you have done it twice.

don't waste time or money on making a shop do this. you need to learn to do it yourself because you can't always go running to a shop. arm yourself with experience and knowledge so you're not a helpless noob! you've go this.
you don't need an air compressor either. I've never owned one and never needed it after a decade of tubeless tires.

Cyclist03511

The wheel and tire are tubeless compatible. They arrived with the bike but deflated. The tire is already on the wheel and seems ready to go. But when I pump it, nothing happens... That's why I am reluctant to pour any sealant for now. I think I am missing a step.

I agree that I should not waste any more money going to a bike shop but unfortunately I do not know any friends who is familiar with tubeless tire to help me...

mack_turtle

you don't need a friend with a similar tubeless setup, just any tubeless setup. they're all basically the same thing. in fact, you don't need any one to help you at all. this is a simple process that requires three extra brain cells to figure out. be persistent and you'll get past the learning curve.

the rim might be manufactured to be tubeless compatible, but are you 100% certain that it's been fitted with tubeless tape and not just a regular rim strip?

tyrion

Definitely DO NOT put in sealant until you've seated the bead. Some tires are easier than others to bead-seat. Sometimes you can pull the sidewall and beads outwards to get it almost-seated, then hopefully you can pump faster than it leaks. You have to work to almost-seat the bead all the way around the tire - I do it with the wheel in the bike, bike in the work stand.

mack_turtle

this can also be helpful. the idea is that if the tire is on the ground, it's being compressed in a way that might not allow it to seal. suspend the wheel in the tire somehow (hang it from a tree branch, mount it in your upside-down bike, a hook on the wall, on your handlebar grip, etc. get creative with a broom handle and a chair if you need to) so that you're not fighting gravity and the tire. with it suspended in the air, the tire has more space to spread out.

alo

No doubt you have read the other responses.

The key is to have a large blast of air quickly. This will push the tire out and create a seal.

I have been thinking of going tubeless, but I think I wont, because it is too difficult to seal the bead if you are away from home, or don't have the right equipment. So I think I will stick to tubes.

mack_turtle

a blast from a CO2 cartridge will usually do the job in the field. if that fails, you just put a tube in it. that means you get to enjoy the ride quality and general flat protection of tubeless setup 99.99% of the time and fall back on a tube for that extremely rare, obscure case that you need to stick a tube in it. I always carry a tube and after a decade and thousands of miles of riding tubeless, I've only had to do this twice. I've had to use tubes many other times on other ridres' bikes when their tube failed and they just ran out of patches.

when I have to take my tubeless tires off, I find dozens of pinholes and sealant boogers from small thorns that would have resulted in punctured tubes. every one of those small punctures that tubeless sealant mitigated is a moment that I avoided stopping during a ride to patch and replace tubes.

Cyclist03511

I was able to put about 20 PSI (using my floor pump) in the tire but it is not sitting evenly on the rim. I am getting there... Once I master these steps, I'll put the sealant :-)

mack_turtle

keep pumping. do it outside. consider wearing hearing protection as it might be loud. warn anyone who lives with you that your tire is about to make a few loud pops. the tire should seat evenly with 40 psi or so. there are dozens of videos on the internet demonstrating this so watch those so you know what to expect.

Cyclist03511

thanks for the tips mack_turtle!

yannisg

I've been using tubeless road tires since 2011.
Shimano rims with Hutchinson tubeless fusion tires and Stan's sealant.
I use this tubeless setup on races and Brevets.
Without an escort on a race if I get a flat I'm finished. Flatting with tubeless is less likely. I have never flatted on a race with tubeless.
I used race 5 times a year. Now I'm down to 2.
I used tubeless on Brevets because I hate repairing a flat in the cold, rain or at night.
In all these years most of the small holes self-sealed themselves. In one occasion it didn't because of insufficient sealant (my fault).
Most of my flats were from tire slits either in the sidewall or tread. I don't know if they could all be repaired with a plug, but in my case I added a boot and inner tube which was a hassle.
The valve needs a small leatherman type pliers to unscrew because it's been tightened not to leak, and cannot be unscrewed by hand.
The sealant is a mess, and usually the tubeless tire is difficult to mount with a tube.
It's definitely more involved than replacing an inner tube.
I have no experience using a plug, but I'm going to try it in the future.
My latest flat was caused by corrosion around the valve hole that the sealant could seal; a plug wouldn't have helped.
Stan's sealant definitely corrodes Shimano rims, even the ones with the new alloy.
Stan says its sealant is non-corrosive, and that the alloy is at fault, and Shimano says the sealant is corrosive. The fact is the rims corrode.

The other problem is when you remove the tires from the rim to clean the setup that I do once a year it is very difficult to re-seal the used tire back on the rim even using a compressor. Sometimes I have to replace the tire with a new one even though the used one is not worn.
I don't know if this is due to the combination of tires to specific rim that I'm using.
Maybe, using a pump with an air cylinder would solve this problem.
If the cleaning would coincide with replacing the tires for wear this would not be a problem. So maybe, I should have using the tubeless setup consistently.
Since my races have dwindled down to 2 per year, and my Brevets are less than 300k, and the weather has to be decent maybe it's an overkill using tubeless road tires.
Also, I think that the quality of the regular road tires has improved over the years. I don't seem to be getting many flats even though the roads are deteriorating.
I will definitely continue using tubeless tires on my Mtn bike.
So I am still in a dilemma.
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