Soldato
After various punctures and pinchflats over the past year, plus a general lack of grip compared to my mates I want to make the move to tubeless and get some all round better tyres.
I've done a bit of reading up, spoke to some mates and then done a whole load more reading and am just finding myself buried in a slippery slope of contrasting opinions and facts. Not to mentioned I've now got lost in talk about different standards of rim/beading combinations and really complex discussion around tyre compounds and tread patterns. Can anyone give me a bit of direction?
Currently I'm riding a Boardman ProFS 2014 and bar minor tweaks like a dropper coast it's still standard. It's a 650B bike with Mavic XM319 rims, which aren't tubeless ready. So the first question is, is a DIY conversion worth doing or are they more trouble than they're worth? Would it feel like a worthwhile upgrade?
Moving on a little, I believe they are 19mm internal width and from looking around general consensus seems to be you want something bigger when tubeless, more support and less likely pop off the rim - so I took a look around at new rims. Only to then find out there appears to be different standards on the rim/beading design. A mate recommended Stands No Tubes as he's got them and gets on well, but as well as being pricey (in comparison to my bike certainly) I spot that they are BST (Bead Socket Tech) standard, whilst looking elsewhere there are also UST (Universal System for Tubeless) and TCS (Tubeless Compatible System). In some cases it seems that these are just manufacture brand names, but then I find contradicting comments on whether they're compatible and this then started throwing question marks over what tyres I'd want. I'd certainly not want to throw hundreds of pounds at some rims only to find they don't play nice with the tyres I want.
So basically I'm back to square one and completely lost at where to go and looking at prices that start low and can easily go well beyond the value of my bike...
On the whole I like the low rolling resistance of the oem Nobbly Nics; but regularly find I'm low on grip on rocky ground, especially at certain angles on the bike there seems to be a bit of a deadzone I have to lean through. I mostly ride rocky/gravelly all weather trials in the UK but am also going to Andorra with friends later in the year.
Can anyone share a bit of their own experiences on moving to tubeless and/or point me towards some recommended setups?
I've done a bit of reading up, spoke to some mates and then done a whole load more reading and am just finding myself buried in a slippery slope of contrasting opinions and facts. Not to mentioned I've now got lost in talk about different standards of rim/beading combinations and really complex discussion around tyre compounds and tread patterns. Can anyone give me a bit of direction?
Currently I'm riding a Boardman ProFS 2014 and bar minor tweaks like a dropper coast it's still standard. It's a 650B bike with Mavic XM319 rims, which aren't tubeless ready. So the first question is, is a DIY conversion worth doing or are they more trouble than they're worth? Would it feel like a worthwhile upgrade?
Moving on a little, I believe they are 19mm internal width and from looking around general consensus seems to be you want something bigger when tubeless, more support and less likely pop off the rim - so I took a look around at new rims. Only to then find out there appears to be different standards on the rim/beading design. A mate recommended Stands No Tubes as he's got them and gets on well, but as well as being pricey (in comparison to my bike certainly) I spot that they are BST (Bead Socket Tech) standard, whilst looking elsewhere there are also UST (Universal System for Tubeless) and TCS (Tubeless Compatible System). In some cases it seems that these are just manufacture brand names, but then I find contradicting comments on whether they're compatible and this then started throwing question marks over what tyres I'd want. I'd certainly not want to throw hundreds of pounds at some rims only to find they don't play nice with the tyres I want.
So basically I'm back to square one and completely lost at where to go and looking at prices that start low and can easily go well beyond the value of my bike...
On the whole I like the low rolling resistance of the oem Nobbly Nics; but regularly find I'm low on grip on rocky ground, especially at certain angles on the bike there seems to be a bit of a deadzone I have to lean through. I mostly ride rocky/gravelly all weather trials in the UK but am also going to Andorra with friends later in the year.
Can anyone share a bit of their own experiences on moving to tubeless and/or point me towards some recommended setups?