I bought tires from Probikekit in England and only a couple days later they were on my doorstep. The rain was so heavy and prolonged that it is best to save the gravel riding for after a week of good weather and this weekend we expect another mild weather system. I expect that this is going to be a wet year since we're already at 400% of normal.

Installation of tubeless tires is composed of putting on a tubeless (airproof) rim liner, adding the tubeless filler valve tightly, installing the tires which is difficult enough but not that bad without innertubes, removing the filler valve and injecting the sealant. After that it normally requires a sharp blast of air from a CO2 cartridge to get the bead to seat. Sometime that tires fit well enough that you can use a normal pump. And some people put the sealant into the tire as they are mounting it. I don't like this because it gets all over the place.

As I've said before, I used them for three years before reverting to clinchers. Carbon wheels are especially not that well suited for tubeless because over-pressure on the tire causes the rims to delaminate.

There are no "better made wheels" that won't do that. Carbon rims are all made the same - in layers - and the strength of the laminate is dependent upon the resin and not the carbon fiber.

The carbon fiber to resin ratio is about 60% resin and that cannot be improved upon except under VERY high pressure molding which can improve it maybe to 50-50. This is controlled by the rule of area. But that molding process is extremely complicated and expensive. This is why only Trek uses it, as far as I know, to build their bikes. Since they give a lifetime warranty which implies "safety" they have to protect themselves.

Look uses the older method of balloon molding but they use extreme care and faultless QC. Would only other manufacturers use such care.

On Tuesday, October 26, 2021 at 8:26:42 AM UTC-7, Tom Kunich wrote:
> I bought tires from Probikekit in England and only a couple days later they were on my doorstep. The rain was so heavy and prolonged that it is best to save the gravel riding for after a week of good weather and this weekend we expect another mild weather system. I expect that this is going to be a wet year since we're already at 400% of normal.
>
> Installation of tubeless tires is composed of putting on a tubeless (airproof) rim liner, adding the tubeless filler valve tightly, installing the tires which is difficult enough but not that bad without innertubes, removing the filler valve and injecting the sealant. After that it normally requires a sharp blast of air from a CO2 cartridge to get the bead to seat. Sometime that tires fit well enough that you can use a normal pump. And some people put the sealant into the tire as they are mounting it. I don't like this because it gets all over the place.
>
> As I've said before, I used them for three years before reverting to clinchers. Carbon wheels are especially not that well suited for tubeless because over-pressure on the tire causes the rims to delaminate.
>
> There are no "better made wheels" that won't do that. Carbon rims are all made the same - in layers - and the strength of the laminate is dependent upon the resin and not the carbon fiber.
>
> The carbon fiber to resin ratio is about 60% resin and that cannot be improved upon except under VERY high pressure molding which can improve it maybe to 50-50. This is controlled by the rule of area. But that molding process is extremely complicated and expensive. This is why only Trek uses it, as far as I know, to build their bikes. Since they give a lifetime warranty which implies "safety" they have to protect themselves.
>
> Look uses the older method of balloon molding but they use extreme care and faultless QC. Would only other manufacturers use such care.

I just mounted the tubeless tires on my gravel bike and took it out for a short spin and turned in 10 miles. Rather nasty cold and the both tires went nearly flat. The rear halfway through the ride and the other a mile from my house so I rode it out. This is another advantage of aluminum wheels. This bike had Goodyear Eagle F1 tubeless tires mounted. I don't know if these tires ride very smoothly or if tubeless tires are very smooth riding in general but it was very noticeable. This might cause me to rethink the value of tubeless tires if the Goodyear tires on my other bike ride like normal clinchers.

I mounted the 28 mm Goodyear's on the Campy aluminum Sirocco rims and contrary to my previous experience mounting tubeless tires, it went pretty smoothly though that might have been from my previous experience.