Tubeless tyres - always so hard to fit??

Morning all,
I'm about to start Round 2 of the big fight - trying to fit a Maxxis Medusa 2.1 UST tyre onto a Mavic Crossland wheel. I know it's freezing cold and I wouldn't claim to have the strongest fingers but I had to give up last night amidst a lot of swearing.

Try as I might, there was no way that the last 10cm was going on to the rim. After snapping one tyre lever I gave up for the night and headed upstairs to warm up and calm down.

So, are tubeless tyres always such a tight fit on the rim, or is Mavic/Maxxis notorious for it. I got the tyre cheap from a friend and the Crossland wheels are UST ready so I thought I'd give it a go, but it seems like a load of hassle, quite frankly.

Any top tips to make the job easier?

Cheers, Gareth.

washing up liquid , and put an inner tube first , blow it up a bit .

I've never really had a problem but as stated washing up liquid to act as lubrication usually works wonders,also try not to use tyre levers as this can damage the bead making it harder to obtain a seal.After they've been on once and inflated they are much easier to mount again.
I'd also recommend adding some liquid latex,Stans or Joes etc,to pretty much eliminate punctures.

I was just going to post the very same topic - spooky!!!

Trying to fit Maxxis Minion to a CrossMax SX rear wheel - front went on perfectly (High Roller), the back however has already had two punctures due to tyre levers, lots of grunting, three queeny strops, several tools being thrown around in hissy fits and lots of swearing. It's damned hard to do with a fractured left thumb too.

Meh!!!!

Don't forget to start fitting the bead opposite the valve hole working around to do the bit at the valve hole last. Also make sure that you push the bead right into the well of the rim.

I've noticed that the tyre/rim combination makes a difference to the ease of fitting. I had a Mavic 819 UST rim and tried a few different tyres on it. The easiest to fit were some Kenda tyres. Went on as easily as a normal tyre and then I managed to pump them up with a mini pump! The next tyres I had were Hutchinsons and they were a bitch to fit and I had to use a compressor to get them pumped up. The last set were some Bontragers and they went on OK but they exploded as they aren't UST compatible (something I only found out afterwards) despite the fact that they say tubeless ready on the side.

Basically you just have to try various tyres out and see which are the best.

Personally I've gone back to standard tyres/tubes as tubeless really isn't any advantage unless you're downhilling or free riding.

Seconding Xesh here. Get good tyres and good inner tubes and you'll save just as much weight, have a nice rolling feel and avoid all the sealant faff and gorilla thumb requirements. Remembar that once we all had tyres and rims the manufacturers ran out of stuff to sell us so had to introduce this new means of propping up the tyre lever industry

success at last!

Round 2 was aborted early last night in favour of a trip to the pub. What I did instead was fit the tyre with a tube to a normal rim (a Mavic X223 in this case) and left it inflated to 60psi overnight. Then I sat down just now, applied washing-up liquid quite liberally, and for the first time started working towards - rather than away from - the valve stem. It was still a tight fit but went on relatively easily, far more easily than I had any reason to expect.

So, I don't know if the overnight treatment stretched out the casing a bit or if it's all down to the trick of working towards the valve, but it's all good now. Gratifyingly the tyre bedded in right away and I got it up to 40pis with no trouble. I'll try it as it is first since there were no obvious leaks, but can always pick up some sealant over the weekend.

Thanks again for the tips!

Re: success at last!

garethrl":3gbdo3z3 said:

I'll try it as it is first since there were no obvious leaks, but can always pick up some sealant over the weekend.

Thanks again for the tips!

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I tried using tubeless without sealant and, while there seemed to be no detectable leaks, I found that I was still pumping the tyres up every other day. The sealant made them stay at pressure for longer.

It's also a myth that tubeless tyres are lighter than standard ones. They have to have thicker sidewalls for strength so what you lose on the inner tube you gain on the tyre. The only advantages that tubeless give you are resistance to pinch flats and the ability to run much lower pressures. Other than that there's no reason to use them.

My Kenda tyre and tube combination is lighter than the lightest tubeless tyre anyway.