How To Convert Your MTB Wheels To Tubeless Mountain Bike Tubeless Setup

Upgrading your mountain bike to tubeless tires is definitely one of the better upgrades that you can do, because firstly, you can save a bit of weight, and more importantly, it vastly reduces the chance of suffering from punctures as you're riding your bike. Today, I'm going to show you all the things that you need to convert your mountain bike to tubeless using a tubeless conversion kit. Okay, so let's get into the tools for the job. Firstly, clearly, you're going to need a bicycle that wants some upgrading of your tires. Now, it's up to you how you do this. You could use your existing tires on the bike if they're tubeless ready, it will say on the sidewalls, but bear in mind, the longer that you've used those tires, the less effective they will be when you set them up tubeless. The reason for that is you could have deterioration in the casing. There could be loads of fine cuts already. They're going to prevent the tubeless sealant inside doing a good job. If you don't want to upgrade those tires just yet, maybe you should wait until you've worn them out. However, if you don't like those particular tires, now is your opportunity to invest in some new tires, maybe sell those old ones and go tubeless at the same time. Try and avoid unnecessary waste of money. Now, you're going to need a few tools. You're clearly going to need some tire levers to help you get the tires on and off. Always try and use plastic or nylon ones. Avoid metal ones like the Plague. The reason for that is they can damage the tire and worse, they can damage the rim itself. They can bend and distort the rim. Next up, you want to get some sort of valve core remover. There's lots of different options available on the market. The reason for this is when you convert to tubeless, the tubeless valves that they come with, you can remove the cores from them. That gives you the option of putting sealant directly into the tire when the tire is already on the wheel. It can avoid mess. It's a really good way of doing it when you just want to top up the sealant from time to time. Now, a little top tip here is some brands of tubeless valves actually have a cap that has a core remover built in. That could save you on forking out for a specific one. However, the full-size ones are easier to use. Next up is the rim tape. Now, you can see here on this existing wheel from the Canyon that we're doing this to today, it's got rim tape already on it. However, this is not for tubeless setup. This is standard rim tape. The job of this is to cover up the holes in the rim that enable the nipples to go through to build those wheels because the holes in the rim could basically slice the inner tube that is fitted here by the factory. That is what the purpose of that tape is. The tubeless specific tape is designed to seal the rim bed up completely. Now, there's lots of different options available on the market. I'm going to use this one by Muc-Off. It's up to you if you want to chance it and do something like using a gorilla tape or something like that. As always, we always tell you the best tool for the job is the one that's going to work and the one that is designed for the job. Next up are your tubeless valves. Now, these come in a couple of different lengths according to the thickness of the rim that you have. Now, something that's quite cool about these ones from Muc-Off is the fact, like I mentioned earlier, they come with a valve core remover built onto an additional valve cover here. That is optional if you want to run that. Also, more importantly, they come with different options with rubber sealing bungs. Not all rims have the same shape or the same profile internally. If you're going to have a leak anywhere, it's most likely to come from somewhere around the valve. Air does escape through there. Try and get the ones that fit the rims of your bike the best. If you're using your old tires or perhaps you've had tubeless before before doing this, then you're going to need to clean the rims of your bike and also the inside of the tires. Something like a disc brake cleaner or an isopropyl alcohol can be good for cleaning the rims on there. There are such things as a dedicated sealant remover. That is more for the people that have used tubeless in the past. Next up is a proper floor pump. You can do this with a mini pump. Of course, if you really had to, you could use a CO2 cartridge. Although something important to say is, well, firstly, it'd be quite wasteful to just use CO2 cartridges to pump your tires up. Also, CO2 doesn't always play very well with some brands of tire sealant. Try not to use them unnecessarily, but if you're really stuck, there can be a way to help you seat the tires. This floor pump I'm using has a charging canister built in. Essentially, I pump this up until it's full and I can release all the air from this in one go. They're not essential, but they do make life a lot easier. If you're working on your bikes quite a lot, it's a sensible upgrade to have. There's a lot of different models on the market. I'm using the Topeak one here. You can get Bontrager. There's various ones around. Alternatively, if you already have a floor standing pump, you can buy just the canisters themselves to charge up and then inflate directly from there. Finally, a bucket with some warm soapy water, just put some washing up liquid in there, and a brush so you can smear this around your tires. I'll explain why, but it will make your life a lot easier. This is quite a simple process. There are a lot of steps to it and some things that can go wrong. I'll highlight those as we go there. First off, obviously, remove the wheels from your bike. I'm using a work stand to make it easier, but you don't have to do that. You can put your bike upside down. Be careful if you've got any controls or computers or lights on the bars because you can scratch them. It's a good idea to put something soft down on the ground to do that. Remove the wheels, remove those tires. I'm not using the original tires that came on this bike. I'm not going to use the inner tube. However, it's a good idea to roll these up like this. Keep one in your riding bag and keep one as a spare because they will come in handy at some point, if not for yourself, for a riding friend. Next up, of course, is to inspect the rims. This is a brand new rim, so I don't really need to do that. I just need to remove the old rim tape. It's worth keeping for a spare just in case. I don't think I'm ever going to use this, but I might know someone that will, so keep that for another day. Obviously, without the rim tape on, you can see why you have to seal this off. The air would escape through all of these holes. Just before I put the rim tape in, I'm going to check the fit of the valve cores I'm using just to make sure the profile fits with that as neatly as possible. This is what you're looking for. This one has got quite a concave indent on here. I'm going to be one of the fitments that's going to be quite similar to this. I think I'm going to change it because I've seen that there is one that's got a concave profile I think would sit on there almost perfectly. In fact, yes, so I'm going to opt for that one. Now, I'm going to go ahead and fit the rim tape on the bike. Of course, these rims are brand new. They're nice and clean. There's no residue on them. All you need to do is run it around basically and stick it in place. Now, if you're unsure here about the particular fit of your tires or the rims, a good idea is to try putting the tires on first just to check you can get them on. Now, I've done this a lot of times. I am familiar in this case, so I'm going to put the tape straight on. It can help you if you're unsure about the process because if your tire by any chance is a loose fit on the rim, you have to put more rim tape on to make the fit a bit tighter. Now, it's really key to make sure it sticks correctly in the center. Take your time. There's no rush with this and feed it all the way around. Like I said, the rim tape comes in different sizes. This one is actually on the limit for this rim, but it fits in nicely under the bead. We're going to go with this option. Stretching it in place really helps get a good fit as well. Run your thumb around it as you're doing it. Make sure that the tape sticks to the center of the rim. Obviously, you want to try and avoid any air bubbles if you can. It's not the end of the world if you get some, but makes it a lot neater if you can get a good fit. Now, once you've gone around and you've stuck it all down completely, make sure, of course, you overlap where you are. The whole point is to create a seal all the way around that rim. You're going to need to make a hole for the valve core to go through. Some people make a tiny cross. This is fine, but personally, I'd be worried about splitting the rim tape. I'm just going to make the smallest hole possible and then push the valve through. Then, of course, you need to locate the valve core on there, put the rubber grommet in place, and screw it down. Now's the time to put your tire on the rim. You've got a few options here of how you want to do things. Firstly, you want to pay attention to the rotational direction of the tire. It's normally printed on the sidewall of the tire there. Of course, that correlates to the direction the wheel travels when it's on the bike. The reason for that is most tires are directional to give you specific control elements. Get that right to start with. Next up is you may want to line up, if you're that way inclined, the logos on the tires with logos on the rims, or perhaps the logo on the tire with where the valve core is going to be, so it all looks nice and neat. If you want to take photos for Bike Cave and stuff like that, it all lines up. Now, there are a few options here. The best and safest option is to do a dry inflate. What I mean by that is not putting the sealant in at this stage. I would recommend putting the tire on both sides and inflating it. The reason for that is you can double-check that the tire is going to inflate correctly because it's not too late at this stage to put some more tape on if you need to. If you put the sealant in, it all becomes a bit messy a bit early here. I do recommend trying that. Although it's called a dry inflate, you still want to make the most of having this warm, soapy water. This is what it's for. With that brush, basically just brush it all the way around the sidewalls of the tire. The reason for that is brand new tires can be quite rubbery and actually stick to the inside of the rim, meaning that they don't always pop into place when you pump them up. This is a good little top tip to have. It doesn't look very soapy, but I promise you this is quite soapy water. I'm just going to inflate this using the regular part of the pump. I'm not going to be using the charger for this piece. You want to keep pumping until you hear it pop. The popping noise you'll hear is the beading on the tire, just like that, popping into the hook in the rim. Of course, this has no sealant in it yet, but that is inflated. It's holding the air. I can't hear any air coming out, so we're ready to put the sealant in. When it comes to putting the sealant in, there's two options. You can go in through the valve core by removing that and pouring it straight in, in which case you don't need to basically take the tire off again after this process. A lot of people like that option. The other option is, of course, to put the sealant straight into the tire and then fold it back in again. For this method, I'm going to be putting the sealant in through the valve itself. I'm just going to take the valve core out. All the air will rush out and then it's going to be nice and easy to get the air back in again afterwards. Best of all, I didn't hear the beading pop, which means it's going to seal straight away. Note that I'm leaving the valve core on the tool itself. It just means it's easier just to fit in one go afterwards. Now, of course, there's different types of sealant available to you. There's more latex-based ones, like this one says it's a prevention latex sealant. I'm going to go for a pink one because it clashes today. This is a Muc-Off one and it's got an applicator on here. Now, something important to say is the amount of sealant that you put in will vary depending on where you ride, the conditions you ride, and the size of the tires. Now, if you've got a massive 2.8 tire, you might need up to 200 milliliters in there. Of course, if you're in exceptionally dry conditions, some sealants like the latex ones will dry out faster than the more water-based ones. It's especially simple the first time because it's nice and new, which means it's less chance of anything clogging up in the future. There we go. I've got a little key on the side of the bottle here, and I should be able to just pay attention to that as it's going in. Nearly at 100. Okay, happy with that. That's enough sealant in there. Valve core goes back in there, and it's time to inflate. I'm just using the regular part of the pump here. The charge aspect, all you simply do would be to twist this, and when you're pumping, it actually just charges up the big canister, and when you want, you can release all the air in a single hit. Again, I don't need to on this, and that proves the point that you don't always need them. However, they are an invaluable tool to have. Now, I actually like to pump mine up to around 35 to 40 PSI, slosh them around a bit so there's a good covering of the sealant on the inside of the tires, and then leave it overnight just to make sure that they're fully sealed. Some people just want to go and ride straight away, and to be fair, it usually works just fine. I like to be on the cautious side though. The valve is going to be tightened up. We're going to put the valve cap on there that has the core remover. Give it a slosh around. Looking good. Of course, repeat the process. There you go. Setting up tubeless really can be that easy. Clearly, I used two different examples there, and I also showed you inflating just using the pump, and of course, using the canister-style charging device on there. It just goes to show you can do it both ways. If you're going to do this, you also can run into some problems. Now, the typical things that tend to happen are perhaps if the air is leaking from the valve, and that can happen for a couple of reasons. The main one is it doesn't fit the rim properly. That's why I said to you it's really important to make sure when you select the tubeless valves that you're going to buy, make sure that the rubber grommet that comes with them fits the profile of your rim. They're all slightly different. There is no uniform standard there. Once you've got that, the next option here is the O-ring. Now, if yours have an O-ring on it, it minimizes the chance of air escaping, but what it does also is the fact that you can crank up the nut on there and make a real good seal. Now, if yours doesn't have an O-ring on a system you're using, it's even more important to make sure the fit of the grommet that goes into the rim is the correct fitting. This way, you can get away both ways, but also, it means it's a really good fitting. Now, the next option with things that can happen are sometimes if you have an unlucky tire or perhaps a cheaper tire if you couldn't afford a really good tire, is sometimes the air can still escape through the sidewalls of the tire, even if you have a tubeless ready tire. We've heard that from time to time. Now, generally, the way to get around that is put a bit more sealant on, leave it overnight, inflate again, and it does tend to seal after a while. Now, you've got to think that the more latex-based sealants available on the market, the idea is just they coat the inside of the tire and therefore forming a skin. That's going to stop the air escaping. That's really what you want to do, which is why I do recommend leaving them overnight. You can even go as far as leaving the tire and the wheel on one side, give it a shake around, flip it to the other side. It's got a nice good coating on there. Now, of course, there's still going to be a few other rarities. You might be really unlucky. You might have found that somehow the sealant has got under the rim tape and the sealant starts escaping through the nipple holes. Also, we have heard as well that some rims, particular on the more budget ends, the ones that are welded together, they're never going to leak. The ones that are pinned together, sometimes the cheaper ones, the gap between the actual rim itself is so microscopic that air can get out of that. Again, it will seal with a bit more sealant on the inside. It just might require a bit of perseverance from your part. I promise you, going tubeless is 100% worth it. It really can make things a lot easier, and they seal up all the small punctures as you're riding. It's great stuff. Now, we're going to make some more tubeless-based videos because there's a lot of stuff to cover. We've made a lot of older videos, and I think it's time to renew, rejuvenate those videos, give you some better solutions. We're going to make some videos on how you fix punctures on tubeless tires, how you deal with all those annoying things. Also, we're going to show what's happened if you managed to slash one of your tires because you don't necessarily have to throw those things away. Now, if there's anything you particularly want to know about going tubeless, selecting your tires, the rims, all that sort of stuff, let us know in those comments. We might do a video dedicated to it, or we might do an ask dedicated to tubeless setup. As always, don't forget to give us a huge thumbs up here at GMBN Tech. Hit that subscribe button. Give us some love in the comments. Hit the bell for notifications, and there's a couple of videos for you there and there.