Mountain bike gear: are tubeless rims the best for your ride?

Gabriel    mountainbikingholidays, Pro Tips     bike gear, Mountain bike gear, mountain biking, Mountainbike, Mountainbike holidays, MTB, MTB tyres, tubeless rims, tubular tyres

Reading around the blogosphere, I see there is a lot of research on mountain bike gear and discussions on tubeless rims and which tyres to ride when mountain biking. That’s an important question – if you are a seasoned downhiller you’ll be riding on different rubber than if you were an apprenticing single-track newbie. But before we grace the question of tyres, I believe a more important question is what do you put them on? Are tubeless rims the best for your ride?

Are you rocking tubeless rims? Image: Flickr/thazit

Tyres and tubes are made of rubber and filled with air. When you think about it, there is a lot of rubber rolling on the ground at any given moment. What if you were to remove the inner tube? Interesting, lets look at the tubeless options available.

Don’t be confused between tubeless tyres and tubeless rims. Tubeless tyres are glued onto a special surface and are a one-piece air-chamber typically found on road bikes. Tubeless rims are a two-piece system consisting of a rim and tyre only. There is a sealed bond between the two and thus there is no need for an inner tube (more conventional wheels use a three-piece system: tyre, tube and rim).

For the serious mountain biking enthusiast, if you haven’t already switched to tubeless tyres, you may want to consider doing so. Of course, going tubeless means changing to tubeless rims which do cost more. However, they may be a better alternative to what you’re presently riding. Think of it: imagine how much lighter you’d be if you removed the tubes from your rims.

The first advantage is lower riding inflation pressure. Often when riding through mud, sand, snow or slippery branches, a lower inflation pressure equals more contact with the ground. That means better control of the bike and smoother sailing. Tubeless systems are less prone to pinch flats. With a typical tubed system, lowering the inflation pressure increases the risk of getting pinch flats. Finding that perfect ground between low pressure and a flat tyre is pretty tough. A tubeless system solves that.

Tubeless rims

The second advantage to leaving the tube behind, can be felt rolling over rocks. In a standard system, an inner tube can make for a bumpier ride when it buckles in the tyre. Take out the tube, and you have direct contact with obstacles making for a nicer ride and better control.

If you are fans of mountain biking holidays and want to know more about the bikes you’ll ride or just looking to upgrade your regular bike, there are a few inconveniences to using tubeless rims on mountain bikes. For example, the valve stem must be sealed into the valve hole on the rim with a sticky compound. Inflating the tyre requires a sudden burst of air so cartridges are necessary and pumps are worthless.

Keep in mind that tubeless systems aren’t for everybody: if you ride your bike once or twice a month, don’t bother. If you are an avid cyclist, I highly recommend investing in some well-made tubeless rim systems (like the ZTR Flow rims). They can cost twice as much as conventional rim systems do. But in the end, your performance will improve and you’ll leave the tube for the London streets.

About the author

Gabriel Del Rossi wrote 10 articles on this blog.

Gabriel is a professional tour guide and ski instructor. He has mountain-biked most of the trails in the French/Italian Alps and in New England in the US. When not outside, Gabe can be found writing for various on-line publications.

• Blog
• Twitter
• Facebook

Related posts:

1. Mountain bike gear review: MTB Tyres – Schwalbe Hans Dampf
2. New Bikes: Buying a Mountain Bike
3. If 26 were 29: Mountain bikes and choosing wheels

If you enjoyed this article please consider sharing it!