Are this any good for off road? I would have said not at all, however on their website the company reccomand tubeless rims as they would improve performance due to lower weight and more complaince of the tyre with the ground!:huh Is that true? My questions are: what about air loss when you hit a rock or something that gives a quick movement of the tyre from the rim edge? How more trouble would this solution give in terms of punctures? And if these issues are neglegible would be a good idea to fit one of their tubeless kit on a Excel rims? Comments and experience are wanted Grazie Nic
I have not tried it yet, but it may vvork for the adventure segment as vve ride vvith highere tirepressure. Tubeless and lovv tirepressure vvould/could be fatal. Both for the rim and ofcourse loss of air. I´m still thinking of vvhich vvay to go on my ovvn bike.
It depends on what you consider "off road". Obviously BMW has used them on their big GS Adventures for years and I've seen some photos of those bikes in places I wouldn't attempt. I have a set of Woody's Caponard tubeless wheels on my 990; they're great and feel bombproof. I keep a set of Michelin Anakee's on them for commuting/light off road work. From my experience with tubeless wheels when I had a V-Strom and now on my 990, they'll do just about everything you want to do off road, considering you're not on knobby tires. You may not travel at the same speed but they will work, assuming the trail is dry. The sloppier the trail, the worse they work. Hitting rocks is really not much different from hitting a pothole on the highway. That being said, if I was planning a long off road trip where I didn't know the road/trail conditions, I'd put on my 21/18 set. Better safe than sorry.
They will probably be uber-pricey but the 21/19 combo on the new 1190 will be tubeless.... if you can wait that long.
Rims which lack a safety bead are unsafe for use with a conventional tubeless tire installation, because without a safety bead if the tire loses air pressure the tire bead can come off the part of the rim where the bead normally seats and fall into the "drop center" area of the rim. The result of this happening when the bike is moving is that the tire will wobble all over the place on the rim and the bike will be extremely difficult to control. The probability that the rider will lose control of the bike and crash is significant in this scenario. Read the thread below and look for the comment on "safety bead" which includes a photo. You will see that it is impossible to add a safety bead to a rim which was manufactured without a safety bead. http://www.apriliaforum.com/forums/showthread.php?184058-Going-Tubeless-on-a-Tube-Type-Rim-! A wheel assembly which was designed from the outset to be used without a tube and does include a safety bead can be used safely without a tube provided the tire mounted is itself tubeless by design. Have a look at this patent abstract if you want another view of the technical aspects of using a tubeless tire with a motorcycle wheel which uses conventional spokes. http://www.google.com/patents/EP0240241A2?cl=en If the rims you intend to use don't have a safety bead, it is best and safest to use a tube and thus use the rim as it was intended to be used by the professional engineers who designed it. When you make fundamental changes to a design you are experimenting with things which may or may not work as desired and the results are unknown. Does that even begin to sound like a good idea where motorcycle wheels are concerned ? .
If the Excel rim doesn't have a safety bead it would be a bad idea to attempt to convert it to tubeless, because even though it is relatively easy to make the wheel assembly air-tight using silicone seal etc. there is no safety bead and if the tire is punctured such that it loses a lot of air rapidly the tire bead can fall into the drop center area of the rim, and the consequences of that can be a loss of control of the bike, which could be disastrous, depending on where and when it occurs. .
But can't this happen just as easily with a tubed tire set-up? It did to me, and I don't see tubed or tubeless having made any difference?
They are not as expensive as you may think, £1000 a set, but also far too wide for dual sport and not proper tubless system, just a big rubber ring and strap to seal the spoke area. Alpinas use seals on the nipples and a special rim, BEHR (Coponord and BMW) use rims with the spokes outside of the tyre to achieve 100% sealed rim. Alpinas and BEHR have a safety bead, as does the new ADV wheels and the existing ADV rear.
Not sure it would be easy to reinflate a tubeless tire on an unseated bead trailside, using a small pump. Staring fluid works BUT DON'T TRY THIS UNLESS YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR DOING! Tubes are easy to repair and you can get by with a tire that is cut or a bent rim. I guess, is a small weight savings and alittle more heat buildup causing you problems now? Not sure it would be worth the aggravation for me. But that is for you to decide. I've had a few bad days where rocks have bent my rims on my dual sport. Hammer my rim semi straight,with said rock, and I've always made it home.
I'm thinking of possibly picking up a set of the Alpinas.... 21/18. What are the other tubeless tyre choices for 50/50 adventure use apart from the Heidenau K60? And that you could use a tube in if you had to. Thanks.
Sure it can also happen with a tubed tire setup. But I don't think that is a good reason to use a home-brewed tubeless setup with rims which lack a safety bead. If anything it is a reason to upgrade to rims which DO include a safety bead and then run tubeless tires. Tubeless tires with properly engineered wheels are the best solution currently available for a road bike. But the requirements of a road bike and a bike which will be used in serious off road riding are very different, so what works best for a road bike may not be the best real-world solution for an off road bike. Off road bikes are probably still best off with either tubes or a mousse if the operating restrictions inherent with a mousse can be followed, because off road bikes can end up with a dented rim which can make it impossible for a tubeless tire to seal against the rim. Some people like the Tubliss system, but to me it's just an additional failure point and you really need to carry a tube anyway so why not just stick with the tried- and-true setup which uses tubes. Or if you are racing and a flat means you lose the race then a mousse is probably the best choice assuming your race doesn't involve speeds which will result in overheating and destruction of the mousse. .