Mounting Continental Tubeless Tyres

[MudLark]

Okay, so I'm not sure if much has been posted on the topic already but I am working on the principle of "knowledge shared is knowledge gained", even if it is somewhat repetitive.

 

I recently decided I would try some Continental tyres – X-King and Mountain King, both in 2.4. The guys at CycleLab warned me firstly about the sidewalls (risk understood and accepted) and also told me that I was going to battle to get them sealed. They were quite right too about the latter point but I figured it out and I thought that I would share the information here.

 

First I tried mounting the tyres in the conventional manner using Stans Racing Sealant. Oh boy, did the things leak. Besides that, I battled like heck to get them to seat in the first place – the air seemed to leak out of everywhere – and I was using a compressor with the tank pressurised to 8 bar – so volume flow there was no shortage of! But eventually I got them seated, popped the Stands sealant in, spun them round, et cetera et cetera but even then they would be pretty much deflated after about two hours or so. 

 

So I did a bit of reading after that and learned that the Continental tyres apparently have an oily surface on them from some sort of releasing agent that is used in the moulding process. Presumably Continental leave it on as it also serves to help prolong the shelflife of the tyres. In any event, you need to get the stuff off. The other thing that I learned is that Continental tyres apparently work better with the Continental Revosealant than other off-the-shelf sealants.

 

So I took the tyres off the rims  again and when I did that, it was quite apparent that the Stans was not adhering anywhere on the inside. It had pretty much the appearance of a fluid sliding off an oily surface. I washed the Stans out of both tyres and then turned the carcasses inside out. I set up a tub of water with a bit of Sunlight dishwashing liquid in it and grabbed one of those 3M washing sponges. I washed the inside of the tyre carcasses (now turned inside-out for ease of access) thoroughly across the whole surface using the scouring side of the sponge but using it with some discretion and pretty gently. I also worked my way around the edge of both beads. Then I rinsed the tyres off and left them in the sun for about 20 minutes to dry out.

 

After mounting the tyres back on the rims, getting them to seat with the compressor was an absolute cinch – no problem at all; they inflated immediately and "pop-pop", they were seated. I then did the usual in terms of filling them with sealant using the Continental product. Spun them around in the usual manner and hey presto, promptly perfectly sealed. Popped them on the bike and went for a ride – no problem at all.

 

So the secret seems to be (a) wash them decently first to get whatever the oily stuff is off and (b) use the Continental sealant.

 

As to (a), Continental actually recommend scrubbing them out with Revosealant (there's a video somewhere on the Continental website) but from what I read in various corners of the web, people have used everything from methylated spirits to dishwashing liquid. I decided to use the latter as likely being the most benign and unlikely to affect the tyre compound (all it really does is reduce the surface tension of the water).

 

I hope this saves somebody else the frustration I experienced first time around, not to mention having to throw away a whole lot of perfectly good Stans sealant.

 

As an aside, I discovered that the high TPI count of the Continental tyres (240 on the tread and 180 on the side wall (compared to something like 60 for one of the Maxxis) does count for something – the reduced rolling resistance was immediately apparent (although the Continentals have a significantly more aggressive tread than my existing Maxxis). The downside is of course that your sidewalls are probably somewhat less resistant than something with a significantly lower TPI. I guess that like so many things in life, you choose your compromise...

 

[Piernas Flacas]

Thanks for sharing!

[Sidersky]

Thank you for sharing. Potentially daft question:

I am still on tubes and want to move to tubeless. I currently have fairly recently replaced Conti Mountain King tires, also from Cycle Lab. (although I just checked and these say 2.2) I was told I could not move to tubeless with these tires... So my question is, how do you know if they are or aren't suitable for tubeless conversion?

[Rigardt@Scott]

Thanks for sharing - very usefull info. But this post has abruptly halted any curiosity I had about Continental tyres. I'll stick to Maxxis and Onza - a low TPI count and easy tubeles mounting with any sealant and just a floor pump is what floats my boat.

[Alouette3]

Let us know what the air pressure is like in a couple days.

 

Just bought a 26x2.4 X-King for my rear, fitted on Thursday. Had no issues seating, went on great, bit did notice that Stan's was not adhering to the sides. Has lost some pressure standing the last couple days.

 

Only taken it on a short single track okay session, and the tire itself is great. Maybe I'll give it a wash and hope that it sorts out the losing pressure over time story.

[MudLark]

Thank you for sharing. Potentially daft question:

I am still on tubes and want to move to tubeless. I currently have fairly recently replaced Conti Mountain King tires, also from Cycle Lab. (although I just checked and these say 2.2) I was told I could not move to tubeless with these tires... So my question is, how do you know if they are or aren't suitable for tubeless conversion?

Hm. I have the Conti Mountain King 2.4 in front mounted tubeless as described above. Maybe they said that because of difficulties they have experienced with sealing them. Not sure.

[mecheng89]

This thread should incorporate how to mount Conti Gatorskins clinchers onto carbon wheels. 

Facking difficult!! 

[MudLark]

Let us know what the air pressure is like in a couple days.

 

 

 

Will do.

[MudLark]

Okay, two days later - no noticeable loss of pressure at all.

 

Sent from my SM-G935F using Tapatalk

[Alouette3]

Removed the tire and stans sealant, scrubbed the inside of the tire with sunlight and a bit of prepsol for luck, to remove the oily residue. Now holding pressure great and after a couple rides.

Even reused the sealant I removed.

[MudLark]

Very interesting. Thanks for that. In some youtube videos Stans is shown actually coming out through the the sidewalls. These are fairly old though and I suspect the compound may have changed since then. May also depend upon whether you have the Black Chili compound or one of the other compounds… Don't know.

 

For what it's worth, I am quite happy with the tyres I now have (X-King rear, Mountain King front) and feel that my bike is a lot more surefooted. I think there is something in the Black Chili thing although it is hard to be entirely sure that it is not simply a question of my own bias (wanting them to be better).