My Battle with Tubeless Tires

A Lesson in Hierarchal Maintenance

I’m in my garage on a January afternoon. The weather is oddly warm, but still cold enough to begin to numb my fingers and toes. I’ve been working in the garage for the past hour on my bike. More specifically, I’m working on a tubeless conversion. 

I’ve read the articles, I’ve watched the videos, I’ve spoken to the mechanic at the local bike shop — and the necessary parts have been acquired. I’ve even cleaned both rims and tires, and allowed for them to adequately dry. Everything is prepped.

The bright pink rim tape is wrapped tightly around the cleaned rims and the tubeless presta valves have each been stuck firmly through the valve hole. Seeing the presta valve reminds me of the last time I got a puncture. I was eight miles into a serene ride in the middle of the forest. I don’t know what had caused the piercing, but for the next 30 minutes I trialed over patching the tube with cold fingers and remounting the cold, muddy rear wheel on the rear triangle of my mountain bike. For the next 10 minutes or so, I walked the bike to the nearest forest road. I had just enough CO2 to shoot into the rear tire to get me back to the car — an eight mile ride. The CO2 made the presta valve white and flaky. 

Inner tubes have worked well for me in the past. I once tried converting my hardtail’s wheels to tubeless and failed. So I’ve only run tubes because I know them, I understand them.

Going tubeless seems like a Rubik’s Cube that, so far, I’ve avoided to solve.

Getting that flat, in the middle of the woods, was the straw that broke this camel’s back. And I was going to crack this code, on my own — no matter what. The clock was ticking, too. I was set to leave on a mountain biking trip to the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia in two weeks.

In the garage, my fingers get more numb as I mount the tires on the rim of the front wheel. I see my breath; it’s getting colder. I take a deep breath. The tire is mounted. I try inflating the tire with a floor pump, the valve core removed. Damn. I pushed too hard on the presta valve with my floor pump nozzle and pushed the presta back into the rim. I have to remove the tire again, make sure the presta valve is snug. 

OK. Again. 

The valve gets pressed in again. What the actual fu — Alright. Whatever. I’ll do it again. My toes have caught up to my fingers’ numbness. 

OK. Let’s try again. That thing is pressed in there super snug now. The videos and advice didn’t say anything about making valve stems snug. Pretty sure it’s snug this time. Great. That worked. We’re on. 

I pump. And pump. And pump. And pump. I hear a pop. Good. Keep pumping. Another pop. Good. I keep pumping. Just like the video. No more pops, we’re at 40 psi, the max for these tires. I take off the nozzle, put my finger over the de-cored valve. I hear a hiss. 

Son of a — Alright. Whatever. I’ll do it again. No problem. Just restart, just be patient. 

Pump, pump, pop, pump, pump. Pop. Good. This time I don’t hear a hiss when I place my finger over the valve stem. Cool. I let out all the air. Screw in the valve core to verify the air will still hold. The valve core is screwed in tight, the ring is tight. I hear a hiss. 

You’ve got to be kidding me. What am I doing wrong? I decide to take a break. I go inside and warm up. Inside, I’m reminded of Robert Pirsig’s theory of hierarchies within motorcycle maintenance, as it is eloquently outlined in his classic “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.”

An untrained observer will see only physical labor and often get the idea that physical labor is mainly what the mechanic does. Actually the physical labor is the smallest and easiest part of what the mechanic does. By far the greatest part of his work is careful observation and precise thinking. That is why mechanics sometimes seem so taciturn and withdrawn when performing tests. They don’t like it when you talk to them because they are concentrating on mental images, hierarchies, and not really looking at you or the physical motorcycle at all. They are using the experiment as part of a program to expand their hierarchy of knowledge of the faulty motorcycle and compare it to the correct hierarchy in their mind. They are looking at underlying form.

I don’t have a motorcycle. But the principle makes sense to me. Thus far, I’ve been applying general rules of tubeless conversion to mine, thinking there must be something wrong with the rules I’m following than my own process, and how that process applies to my specific tire and rim combo. I’ve assumed the videos I’ve watched on the subject are fool proof instead of just studying my tire and my rim and my tape and my process to better understand how it all fits together.

I soon feel ashamed of my lack of intellectual prowess compared to the inanimate object I have worked tediously over for the last hour. It’s embarrassing. Me against a physical object that does not possess the ability to do anything beyond what it was designed to do. A frikin’ tire. And right now this tire is defeating me. I feel like an idiot, but I also refuse to take the wheels to a bike shop with my tail between my legs like a pathetic loser.

Now, I should note here that there is absolutely nothing wrong with taking your mechanical issues to a bike shop. I’m just a hardheaded idiot when it comes to this stuff and I will literally miss a trip that’s been in the works for weeks before I pay $20 for someone to do it for me. I am not like this with other mechanical issues I’ve encountered. In fact, I’m a frequent flyer at two local shops and I love going there. For whatever arcane reason, I’ve decided I will not take this particular problem to the bike shop. It’s personal and it’s game on.

I start thinking about the underlying form of the tire and the mountain bike’s rim. There is the bead at the edge of the tire. I know that the bead is supposed to slip onto the rim’s lip (or hook?) and that that process is called “seating the tire.” Something must be happening during the seating process.

I form a hypothesis: Maybe, in my attempt to ensure there is no chance of air leaking from the rim by double taping the rims, the tape is preventing the tire to seat properly.

Now for the testing of the hypothesis. I go back outside. This time, I fire up the air compressor. My arms are tired from pumping. The air compressor will shoot enough air into the tire, quickly, to make the tire seat after taking off a layer of rim tape. The problem with this method is that I don’t own a gauge for my compressor — and so I don’t know how much air is being shot into the tire. I’ll have to use my senses of hearing, touch and sight.

I’m shooting air into the tire, carefully. I hear the pops. I back off, let some air out. OK, it’s working.

Again. This time I leave the air compressor on the tire as I see the tire expand and hear the popping around the rim. Good, goo— Explosion.

I hear ringing in my ears and I’m not breathing. The tire is not on the rim anymore. I’m not sure where it is. I stand up, look around. I kneel down. Pace a little. The air compressor is still running. I turn it off.

I feel a little pain in my left hand. But mostly I feel adrenaline. And the ringing in my ears is muffling another sound. It’s my wife. She’s asking me if everything is OK.

“I heard an explosion.”

I check my hand for blood. I look over my body for any signs of further injury. No injuries that I’m aware of. I think I’m in shock. I take a deep breath. The tire just exploded off the rim, and my face was six inches away. The pain in my left hand is a weird tingle. Three of my five fingers on my left hand are numb. On the right hand, just the index finger is numb. I squeeze them, thinking the pressure will make my sense of touch return.

“You OK?”

“I think so.”

I decide to turn in. Tire, 1. Me, 0.

A few days go by. I consult with a wise friend who has much more experience with bicycle maintenance and tubeless tire conversions. After I explain my troubles, he tells me:

“Put the sealant in and forget about it.” He tells me the sealant will fill any gaps in the presta valve and the tire will likely seat as it sits or rolls. Most folks, he tells me, ride the tire to seal it.

That’s what I do, minus the air compressor. I pump vigorously until I hear the pops, inject sealant, install the valve core, pump it up again and mounted it. Done.

Repeat. Done.

Just in time for a ride in Virginia’s Blue Ridge mountains for a weekend trip. The bike performed well for the 43ish miles I got in.

The only thing that still bothers me is a slight wobble in the front wheel, likely where the tire bead didn’t properly seat. But I didn’t lose pressure the entire weekend and it rolled smoothly. I’ll save that fix for another time.

Tire, 1. Me, 1. Tied game.

To be continued.

---

Thanks for reading, cycopaths. I realize we might all be at different levels of mechanic ability here. I am on the lower end of the spectrum, but I’m learning. I enjoy it, as long as nothing explodes in my face.

What mechanical issues have proven pesky for you? Let us all know in the comment section so we might share some wisdom with each other. Who knows … maybe that wisdom will direct us to just go to the dang bike shop.

Repairing a puncture in the middle of the December woods.