I converted my Babyshoe Pass EL's on Pacenti SL23 rims to tubeless yesterday. So my 58cm 650B Homer is running SMOOTH. Everything is great so far, I'll followup with a long term report after some more miles. Some preliminary observations:
>From what I had read, I was expecting a battle; but seating the tires was actually quite easy. I didn't want water inside the tires, so I used no soapy water or lubricant of any kind. I had an injector for the Orange Seal sealant, so I added the sealant AFTER the tires were seated. In short, the tires were seated while completely dry. Here is how I did it. First, I seated the tires in the normal manner with an inner tube. Then I broke ONE bead and removed the inner tube. I installed the tubeless tire stem. Then I worked my way around the rim and pulled the loose bead outward on the rim to seat it as best as I could. It wasn't fully seated of course, but somewhat close. Then I just pumped the tire up and seated it, didn't even remove the valve core (as some recommend for faster air flow) because my pump fit the valve stem better with the core in. It was actually quite easy to seat the tire with my floor pump! Full disclosure, I have the high volume Lezyne Dirt Floor Drive Pump, but really I think any floor pump would have worked. My daughter seated one of the tires and I seated the other. Easy both times. I think the key is to have one bead completely on and the second bead pulled in close like I did. So far I'm quite satisfied with tubeless. My goal was to avoid having to use a heavy commuter tire because I really love the ride of the Babyshoe Pass EL's. I see no weight savings with tubeless and I don't care. If there is a difference in performance I can't tell. I was already using Schwalbe SV14 light (130 gram) inner tubes and the ride was sweet (when I didn't flat). I'm interested only in flat protection because with all the goat heads and other thorns around here flats were annoyingly common with tubes. I probably used more Orange Seal than necessary, but we will see. I'll probably carry two inner tubes and a patch kit as emergency backup, so again...no weight savings. But if I don't get flats, it will be worth it. I use my bike to commute to work. It is only 5 miles each direction, but I get up early and extend my morning commute somewhere fun to get a 90 minute or so morning ride. I don't want to be fixing a flat out in the boonies at dawn before work. Been there, done that! So hopefully tubeless will be the answer for me...time will tell. Doug -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
