Preparing to go tubeless on my road bike. I have Reynolds AR41c carbon wheels and was greeted with the sight in the photos when I took off the rear tire and tube. I am pretty sure this is tubeless rim tape, but it's kinda mangled and in some places (second photo) doesn't extend all the way to the edge. Can I proceed with the tubeless install or do I need new tape first?
by valsidalv
8 Comments
Yes it’s tubeless tape, but it’s a mess and I would retape it.
Past tense, maybe it was tubeless ready. Hardly looks tube ready now.
Definitely need new tape.
FWIW, for road tubeless I haven’t had great luck with anything less than *perfectly* applied and adhered rim tape. You practically need it to look visually flawless, because any “visual” flaw – a wrinkle, a tiny bit of lifted tape, etc – is also likely a path for the seal to break at some point.
On MTB you could sometimes fudge it a bit because of the low pressures involved, but when you’re running 65-70psi and hitting 30-40mph+ I wouldn’t risk anything.
It was
It is tubeless tape but it doesn’t look very ready.
Not anymore
The tubeless tape on my wheels looks a lot like that, just a different colour, and doesn’t hold air.
I got lazy and put a tube in.
The reason it’s got folds in the middle like that is that it’s too wide.
Measure the distance between the rim walls and add 2-4 mm (depending on the depth of the middle section) to find the tape width you need.