My wife wants to start commuting to work on the bike a couple of days a week. She doesn't want to use her MTB as she's worried about leaving it in the bike racks at work, she works at a prison and the racks are outside the prison gates so open to the public and visitors.

I have purchased a flat bar road bike that was advertised on a local bike selling page on FB. It's second hand but clearly had not been ridden more than a couple of miles, not helped by the brakes binding and gears not being indexed, I'm guessing it was bought on-line.

She has now decided he's prefer to use the cycle track to keep off the roads as much as possible. The route in question contains a couple of unsurfaced sections and one very muddy bit. In addition there are always plenty of bits of thorn etc. from where they cut the hedges.

I would like to fit some cyclocross tyres and would want to run them tubeless to save any hassles with punctures. On the MTBs I use any tyre I fancy with sealant. My rims are usually Stans so I just use yellow tape over the spoke holes but on some non-Stans rims I've used the rims strips with the built in valves.

On road bikes with the higher pressures is it more involved? Do I have to use a dedicated tubeless tyre? Can I just cover the spoke holes with yellow tape to make the rim air tight or do I need the rim strip to convert it? Does the Stans rubber strip help to keep the tyre on a non-tubeless rim?

I might put cyclocross tyres on my disc braked commuter as well (Planet X London Road) which would then convert it into a gravel adventure bike and make me on-trend If only I could grow a decent beard and work out how to mount an axe on it I'll be supper hip

Depends what rims they are to how well they will or won't work tubeless...

Wtb nano races are a nice option tubeless

Previously, I would have said just treat it as your mountain bike and stick any tyre on you like. However, after my recent, tyre leaving the rim at 30mph incident, I'm more inclined to say, stick something on that's tubeless ready ... it is your nearest and dearest we're talking about.

Chances are that she won't be running road type pressures with cx tyres, so tape and sealant should work fine - although I have had issues with some rims refusing to work in the past ... which does make me wonder, could it have being the non-tubeless rim that caused my issue rather than the tyre?

Sorry, not much help really.

Perhaps for the wife's bike I'll go all out and get the stans strips and use tubeless tyres as I wouldn't want her to have an 'incident' caused by a tyre issue, I'd never hear the end of it Her rims are Alexrims Comp Disc.

On mine I'm more inclined to just use the yellow tape, Gipiemme Rocca Disc Equip rims, and tubeless tyres. As you say, the lower pressures for cyclocross tyres should mean it's not such and issue. I currently have 40c road tyres on my commuter and I only run 60psi in them, takes out the impact from the poor road surface and they still roll well.

You don't need Stans tape - Tesa tape (can't remember exactly which one though) is exactly the same but unbranded so cheaper

I bought a roll on ebay and have done 3 wheels with it already. Still got plenty left. It

That's what I use, couldn't remember the name so I just called it yellow tape, it does appear to be the same as the Stans stuff but a fraction of the cost. I've done 5 rims since I bought my roll and the roll doesn't seem to be any smaller yet

40C Nano's are nice tyres, good on gravel, but they are not good in mud.

Schwalbe X-one is 33C is a good all-round / mixed conditions tyre, but even they can get overwhelmed by lots of mud. I ran them tubeless at the 3-Peaks at 50 PSI and will do so again, given the chance.

Maxxis Mud Wrestler is also 33C, though it has less volume than the X-One. It's got a nice open tread pattern though, which clears mud much better than the X-One.

When I say 'mud' there's only 2 stretches of it, about 100m long each, but one of them also usually has standing water on top and is the full width of the track so an 'off' here would spoil the commute to work, well for one of us, I guess the other one who witnessed it would find it hilarious It would be impossible to get through on road tyres and other sections of the cycle path are gravel so they'd not be ideal there either, hence my thought of cyclocross tyres.

The other option would be to put some old 26" MTB wheels on it. It's disc braked and the hubs fit ok. I tried it with a 2.0 Continental Mountain King but it rubbed on the chainstays. There's plenty of room in the forks.



All the narrow MTB tyres I can find seem to be either semi slick/slick or a full mud tyre for XC racing?

SRS wrote:40C Nano's are nice tyres, good on gravel, but they are not good in mud.

Schwalbe X-one is 33C is a good all-round / mixed conditions tyre, but even they can get overwhelmed by lots of mud. I ran them tubeless at the 3-Peaks at 50 PSI and will do so again, given the chance.

Maxxis Mud Wrestler is also 33C, though it has less volume than the X-One. It's got a nice open tread pattern though, which clears mud much better than the X-One.

Nanos are a nice tyre, as SRS says not a mud tyre, but if the mud is limited to a couple of short sections then probably ok. I've used the mud wrestler too, it is a good CX mud tyre but the tread does not wear well at all on rough surfaces. I went through a pair very quickly. They are great for what they are intended for, but I'd be reluctant to recommend them for a mainly gravelly commute.

I'm using Maxxis Ramblers in 40c, tubeless ready, excellent tyre so far, had it for about 4 months, lots of use in mud/flinty conditions, no flats.

Can I just say - 'Tires'? There's 2,000 miles seperating tyre and tyre ... C'mon standards are slipping.

Now corrected, my apologies. That is the sort of thing that usually catches my eye but it is Monday and I'm back at work so not fully alert, well that's my excuse

Schwalbe Landcruiser plus are grippy and very puncture resistant and would remove any uncertainty from the tubeless setup.
Cheers
Phil

Landcruiser gets my vote. Very nearly as bombproof as tubeless but if something does go wrong much easier to sort out. Very cheap too and last forever. My go-to tyre for my commuter - and where I am from that is how it is spelt ;-)

Nanos

Panaracer Gravel King SK Have a look at Winstanleys for cheapest price.

Anyone tried Clement X'Plor USH tubeless?

Laurensdad wrote:Schwalbe Landcruiser plus are grippy and very puncture resistant and would remove any uncertainty from the tubeless setup.
Cheers
Phil

Land cruisers are a good shout. They will go up tubeless too. I rode them in the three peaks last year

mechanicaldope wrote:Anyone tried Clement X'Plor USH tubeless?

My Brother in Law uses them, fine once they were up.

I've used non tubeless 700x35c Schwalbe Rocket Ron's on non tubeless rims even though it's supposed to be one of the worst to setup tubeless. It took a bit of work though, adding sealant then having to keep removing the tyre and sealant to keep adding more layers of tape but percerverance payed off. If you build plenty of tape up on the rim bed to get the tyre as tight as possible and use lot's of soapy water & sealant I think it's possible to get most tyre & rim combo's to work tubeless. For cx racing though it's better to just use a dedicated tubeless setup to be able to get the advantage of using low pressures without the worry of burping/rolling a tyre but where it's not so important to have super low pressures then a ghetto setup is a viable one.

Another shout for WTB Nano from me. A good all rounder. I rode last year's BB200 on them and they handled everything with aplomb.