Flashing tape as tubeless tape: 12 month review

Last year I setup my gravel bike tubeless and decided to use construction flashing tape for the rims. I generally have rolls of these tapes from work and figured it would work just as well.

12 months and 3k miles later, I’ve had zero issues. Based on the material properties and adhesives, it’s not much of a surprise but a fun experiment nonetheless. I wouldn’t necessarily recommend this over conventional tubeless rim tapes due to cost but the flashing tape has tons of other use cases.

One major pro of this method is the customization of the tape width/length. I generally cut it just the width needed to run wall to wall on the inner rim width. Straight end and a razor knife. The black tape is Huber’s Zip system; the yellow tape is Georgia Pacific’s Forcefield premium.

Now I’m setting up a new pair of wheels for my gravel bike and have used the flashing tape again. I’m moving to a hooked carbon rim from aluminum hookless rims; I anticipate this will further reduce any possibility of issues. The surface area around the spoke holes is pretty generous so I expect the tape to seal very well. I had been running 47mm Specialized Pathfinder Pros but will be changing to 45mm Gravelking SS. Thanks y’all.