dumb question about tubeless tyres on spoked rims

peanut

peanut

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i know this must sound like a bit of a dumb question but how safe is it to run a tubeless tyre with a tube on a spoked rim ?:)


I need to replace both the tyres on my spoked alloy rims but I am a little concerned about the lack of a tubeless tyre lip on the spoked rims .
I currently have 'King' ? tyres fitted, which came with the bike and I have no idea if they are tubeless tyres (they have tubes fitted ) there is no information on these tyres other than a rotation symbol and size

Nearly all the tyres I see for sale seem to be tubeless :umm:
 
Any "old" rim is less safe than new style rims with bead retainer ridges. Just one of the risks we take.
The retainer ridge is intended to keep the tire on the rim even if it goes flat. Gets ugly if the tire leaves the rim while you are moving. Longish story but I blew a tube tire on a Honda Shadow spoke rim at 70 MPH in truck traffic and survived, was happy the rim had the retainer ridges. Interesting that the Mikes rims do NOT have the safety ridges either. Sometimes what you don't know can bite you.
The safety rims came in to use gradually in the 80's and 90's
Some reading
http://www.xs650.com/threads/are-mags-tubeless.34728/
http://www.xs650.com/threads/tubeless.36721/#post-369891
 
I don't think you're going to have much choice in the matter. It's very hard, if not impossible, to find a "tube only" tire today. You may run across some marked "tube/tubeless", but there's probably little difference between them and ones only marked "tubeless".
 
so I'm worrying about nothing lol:)

Thanks for the reassuring answers I'll go ahead and order some tyres. I was a little concerned as I can ill-afford to throw away such a large amount of money now I'm an old age pensioner wink wink ;):laugh2:
 
When you run tubeless tires with a tube it decreases the speed rating by one click. The tubes make them run hotter so they are not good to as high a rate of speed. Other than that, there's nothing to be concerned with.
 
Apparently tubeless tyres are not constructed to work with tubes and consequently the inside of tubeless tyres have a rough surface which can result in increased tube and tyre temperature. Some tyre suppliers include a warning in their supply terms &conditions that they will not be held liable for tyre failures
 
Retro bikes, like my W800, run 'tubeless' tyres with tubes on wire-spoked wheels as standard with no problems. The recommended fitting is Dunlop Roadmasters but I run Avon RoadRiders and other people run other fittings such as Trail Wings and so on. Sounds like the tyre manufacturers are just trying to cover their backsides?
 
Raymondo said:
Retro bikes, like my W800, run 'tubeless' tyres with tubes on wire-spoked wheels as standard with no problems. The recommended fitting is Dunlop Roadmasters but I run Avon RoadRiders and other people run other fittings such as Trail Wings and so on. Sounds like the tyre manufacturers are just trying to cover their backsides?
Click to expand...

yes but the rims of the W800 are only 8 years old at most and are probably designed to use tubeless tyres ?
my 79 xs is now 40 years old and the rims were definitely not designed for use with tubeless tyres .

I have read a couple of references about this but I've mislaid the link I had from the tyre supplier who stated the caveat .
Basically it depends on whether or not the tyre has a ribbed interior or not . Also the shape of the rim is important too.You cannot fit a tubeless tyre to a WM type rim it must be a WT rim :).
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~outex/tubelesskitWMMT.htm
 
peanut said:
yes but the rims of the W800 are only 8 years old at most and are probably designed to use tubeless tyres ?
my 79 xs is now 40 years old and the rims were definitely not designed for use with tubeless tyres .

I have read a couple of references about this but I've mislaid the link I had from the tyre supplier who stated the caveat .
Basically it depends on whether or not the tyre has a ribbed interior or not . Also the shape of the rim is important too.You cannot fit a tubeless tyre to a WM type rim it must be a WT rim :).
http://www2s.biglobe.ne.jp/~outex/tubelesskitWMMT.htm
Click to expand...

Ah, I wan't fully aware of WM and MT rim profiles. From very imperfect memory, and I didn't inspect the rims to check for a hump, the W800 rims are more of the WM profile.

Can understand your concerns in the event of tyre losing pressure. It is pretty unusual but not impossible for a tube to lose pressure suddenly and you're concerned that the tyre might come off the rim?

Many years ago, about 1986-87, rear tyre suddenly lost pressure on a Kawasaki Z1. Puncture allowed tyre to slip around the rim as power was applied, ripping the tube at the valve. I actually felt the back end of the bike 'drop' as it let go. We were overtaking a column of cars at the time and the occupants were treated to the spectacle of a motorcycle going past sideways. Tried to lose speed but almost inevitably we fell off.

These things don't happen often . . .
 
sideways when overtaking:bike:.... :yikes: definitely focuses your attention lol:laugh2:

I had an episode earlier this year ,.... due to infrequent riding and lack of attention I inadvertently changed from second gear to 1st gear whilst accelerating hard Luckily I still had my fingers on the clutch lever ! there was an almighty bang as the rear wheel locked up and the bike suddenly went sideways at about 30+mph ........

I didn't know anything about the various rim profiles before doing a little google research yesterday. My main concern initially was not the tyre coming off the rim but spending $200 on tyres and then finding that they didn't fit the rim properly .:(
 
gene xs said:
When you run tubeless tires with a tube it decreases the speed rating by one click. The tubes make them run hotter so they are not good to as high a rate of speed. Other than that, there's nothing to be concerned with.
Click to expand...
So I take it unless you were planing on buying the absolutely cheapest tire you could find and then take you XS650 on a long run down the Autobahn you would probably be pretty safe?
 
There are differences between the bead shape of tube tires and tubeless tires. The rims are slightly different to match the bead profile.
How much this effects how well the tire works with a tube I can't say. I think that as long as you keep the tires properly inflated it won't be a problem.
On the tire running warmer with a tube may be from the stiffening effect on the sidewalls. With the proper pressure the sidewalls flex the proper amount to warm the tire. If you run a tire to hard or to soft this effects how the tire warms up.
Now adding a tube make the sidewalls thicker. This reduces the flew of a tire sidewalls. This reduces the heating of the tire.
If you had two wheels, the same, one with a tubeless tire and one with a tube and ran the wheels on your bike. Using the 10% cold to hot change to determine the correct pressure , would the tube tire need a different pressure to achieve the 10% increase?
Leo
 
XSLeo said:
Now adding a tube make the sidewalls thicker. This reduces the flew of a tire sidewalls. This reduces the heating of the tire.
If you had two wheels, the same, one with a tubeless tire and one with a tube and ran the wheels on your bike. Using the 10% cold to hot change to determine the correct pressure , would the tube tire need a different pressure to achieve the 10% increase?
Leo
Click to expand...

An interesting question. To do the experiment, you need to compare the same (type of) wheel and the same (type of) tyre on the same (type of) bike with ideally the same rider. What you need in fact is somebody who runs tubeless and is prepared to pull his tyre off, put a tube in there and run it that way for a while taking notes of pressures hot and cold.
 
Raymondo said:
What you need in fact is somebody who runs tubeless and is prepared to pull his tyre off, put a tube in there and run it that way for a while taking notes of pressures hot and cold.
Click to expand...

I know just the man for the job ,...........but he's got too many bikes lol :laugh2:

I suspect that a key element here would be the strengthening ribbing inside some tubeless tyres which would rub against a tube , The resultant friction would certainly raise the temperature of both tyre and tube and possibly cause early failure of the tube
 
Somewhere I saw a recomendation to run a heavy duty tube to go with the tubeless tires are rougher inside trope. I've worn out quite a few tubeless tires on spoke wheels. No issues.
Worth a mention; A rear blow out or any loss of control situation? Braking or even chopping the throttle can easily add to your woes. When the shadow rear tire blew I natcherally chopped the throttle to slow down and get the F away from the trucks on either side. This worsened the already floppy uneven ride. I was headed into a tank slapper, got back in the throttle and then very slowly decreased speed while herding the bike over towards the shoulder. I got lucky and 1/4 mile later at walking speed, had it in a rest area. Had to throw away a perfectly good pair of undies.
 

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