Tubeless Wheels : Tubeless Bicycle Wheels Conversion Gallery

Tubeless Bicycle Wheels Conversion 22/09/2007

Bicycle wheels suffer from pinch flats when the innertube is pinched between the tyre and the rim in an impact. This ruined my Mountain Bike rides for years until I converted to tubeless in early 2007. On my last ride with innertubes I had 3 pinch flats on one circuit of Ae forest. Since then, in 12 months of riding in TransScotland, Single Speed World Champoinships 2007, Strathpuffer 24 Hours and countless Glentress weekends, I've had NO PUNCTURES AT ALL! This is a magic solution, and here's how to do it, nearly for free! Our mountainbikes and cyclocross bikes are all tubeless using this technique.

These photos are an Al's HalfTubes conversion of new wheels and tyres using BMX innertubes. The cost is about £5 per wheel.

Schwalbe 20" inner tubes: use these. They have removable valves (cheaper prestas don't). Even if you want to use Schraeder (aka car-type) valves, still use Schwalbe because their Schraeder stems have lock-rings. You NEED a lock-ring.
JRA Wheel milk: Works for me. This super-handy 100ml bottle does 2 tyres and has a thin spout that fits inside a stem with the valve removed. Under £3. Bargain.

Inflate the inner tube. Childsplay!

If you're using wire-bead (not foldable) tyres, do this. Turn the tyre inside-out and leave it like that for "a while". Like, as long as it takes to drink a beer. At least 10 minutes. This helps the bead seat on the outside of the rim when you're inflating later.

Stretch the inflated tube over the rim, and align it evenly all round. There's a seam running around the outside so use that for alignment.
It's important to get the valve lock-ringed tight to the rim before you attempt inflation, so do that now. Pull the stem out & tighten it as much as you can.