Anatomy of a road tubeless setup

Tubeless rim tape

Tubeless tape seals up the bed of a non-UST rim

Tubeless tape is an airtight rim tape that is applied to the bed of a rim to seal up spoke holes and rim joins.

There are a few variations of tape available, with some rated for both road and mountain bike use.

Tubeless valves

A tubeless valve is much like a regular Presta valve.

A tubeless valve is a Presta-style valve that is identical in function to a regular inner tube valve. It’s usually (though not always) fitted to a conical bung that sits in the valve hole.

When the lockring is tightened down, it deforms the bung around the valve hole and tape, creating an airtight seal.

Any good tubeless valve should have a removable core. This helps with initial inflation and seating and, should the valve core become clogged up with sealant, allows you to either clean or replace this easily without having to unseat the tyre.

Tubeless sealant

Tubeless sealant is usually based on liquid latex.

Tubeless sealant is a milky, most commonly latex-based liquid that will seal small holes in your tyre, usually before you’ve even noticed there’s a puncture at all.

An excellent explainer on how tubeless sealant works can be found in our guide to the best tubeless sealants. Stan’s No Tubes Race Sealant and Effetto Caffélatex are two of our favourites.

Tubeless wheels/rims

Mavic’s UST rims have a totally sealed bed

Like the tyre, tubeless-ready road rims are visually identical to a regular clincher rim.

However, closer inspection reveals that, like tubeless tyres, the profile of the hook of the rim (where the bead of the tyre interlocks with the rim) is subtly different. The well of the rim is often slightly deeper as well.

A select few rims – mostly from Mavic – are built to UST (Universal System Tubeless) standards. Among other things, this standard dictates that the rim must be sealable without tape, with the rim bed free of holes.

These are relatively few and far between and you’re much more likely to come across a rim with a regular drilled bed.

Road tubeless tyre

Road tubeless tyres are subtly, but critically, different to regular clincher tyres.

Tubeless road tyres may look the same as a regular clincher, but they are subtly and critically different.

The two key differences are the dimensions and profile of the bead; the bead is usually very slightly smaller (or, more accurately, made to tighter tolerances) than a clincher and the profile of the bead is designed specifically to interlock with the unique hook of a tubeless rim.

A little bit of jiggery-pokery can get most mountain bike tyres to go tubeless – though not always safely – but on the road, we absolutely recommend you only ever use proper tubeless tyres and rims as the pressures, speed and consequences of failure involved are very, very high.

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