Tubelss Road...

[AndreZA]

I got yhis from Velonews and thought some of you would be interested.

 

Tubes, tubulars or NoTubes?
Dear Lennard,
I'm currently running Campy 10-speed and am interested in running Hutchinson Tubeless Tires. It appears that the only officially approved system is the Shimano Dura-Ace wheelset, which is obviously not an option for me. My question is will a wheelset with rims that do not have pierced spoke holes on the interior (like the Mavic Ksyrium SL, Campy Shamal Ultra or Fulcrum Racing Zero) suffice and is there anything special that has to be done to make them work?
Phil

Dear Phil,
I?m riding Hutchinson Fusion2 Road Tubeless tires with Stan?s NoTubes sealant in them on a pair of Ksyrium ES wheels, and they work great. I just rode them Sunday on the gnarliest mountain road ride around Boulder ? lots of fast downhill switchbacks on steep pavement and lots of really rough, rocky dirt roads (Flagstaff to Gross Reservoir to Magnolia via CR68 and back to Boulder Canyon). I was tentative on them at first, since I have had bad experiences with standard road clinchers set up tubeless this way blowing off of the rim, but now I?m totally confident with them. No worries on the dirt about thorns, no worries on the rocks about pinch flats and now no worries on the fast corners about the tire blowing off of the rim. I?m using the NoTubes valve stem with removable core in order to squirt in the sealant.

I think the key is that the Hutchinson carbon-fiber tire bead is so tight and unstretchable that it hooks in and stays hooked in. The Shimano rim is specifically designed to fit the tire bead and sealing flap, but there are other hook-bead rims that seem to fit the outer profile of that tire bead as well. A sealed rim like my ES and the others you mentioned makes it easy to set up, but you can get sealing tape from NoTubes so that you can do this on any road rim.
Lennard

BTW, Specialized has also got some tubeless road stuff available.

 

http://www.cyclingnews.com/tech.php?id=tech/2008/features/specialized_road_intro_08

 

 

[Racer X]

Very cool, maybe Bigben shuold try stretch a 26 inch tube over a roadrim and tell us what happens