Trying to change my Mavic Allroad Disc over to tubeless – they came with tubes fitted and this thick tape which seems pretty glued down. Do I need to remove this before fitting tubeless tape or just tape over the top? Thanks all! 🙌
by VelOxyDoc
Trying to change my Mavic Allroad Disc over to tubeless – they came with tubes fitted and this thick tape which seems pretty glued down. Do I need to remove this before fitting tubeless tape or just tape over the top? Thanks all! 🙌
by VelOxyDoc
5 Comments
If there’s tape in there, that’s likely tubeless tape already fitted.
I didn’t remove and didn’t apply any tape, worked perfectly. Only removed it when I changed tires, and then applied tape for the first time, whatever Mavic uses is better than tape.
Are there spoke holes in the bed of the rim underneath the tape? According to Mavic’s site these wheels have UST rims which do not require tape. My guess is you should remove the tape to run tubeless.
no need for tape
That is not Mavic’s tubeless tape. That’s a removable PVC rim strip. Mavic’s tubeless tape is transparent green.
It looks like you’ve got the “Allroad 1” wheels, which are a manufacturer spec wheel only (not sold to consumers as wheels). You can see a parts diagram here: [https://technicalmanual.mavic.com/tech-mavic/technical_manual/data/mavic_tech.php?display=product&family=1039&subfamily=1194¯onu=1000001125](https://technicalmanual.mavic.com/tech-mavic/technical_manual/data/mavic_tech.php?display=product&family=1039&subfamily=1194¯onu=1000001125) (or search your serial number at that tech manual site to confirm).
You’ll see Mavic lists their normal UST (tubeless) tape – part number V2620101. This is the transparent green stuff. There’s a decent chance the tubeless tape is under the PVC strip. Mavic would most likely have sold those wheels to your bike brand with the tape installed – but if the brand didn’t expect that, they might have spec’d a cheap rim strip, and then the rim strip got installed by the (likely subcontracted) bike assemblers. It’s a whole mess of broken telephones.
You can pry the PVC tape off by getting something like a flat screwdriver under the lip at the valve hole, and lifting – just be careful not to pry directly against the aluminum rim or you could mar the paint. Once it starts to lift, get a plastic tire lever under the edge and pry it off like a tire. The lever will prevent any damage to the rim, and the strip can always be reinstalled after.
If there is no tubeless tape under the strip, you need to install some 25-28mm tubeless tape. The Mavic stuff is great, but it’s punitively expensive, and hard to find. DT Swiss, Muc Off, Orange Seal and more all make decent tape. There’s also cheap stuff on AliExpress that is completely fine. Just be sure to use at least 25mm wide (but I’d go 28mm), and wrap two layers + ~20cm overlap.