Is this a tubeless tire wheel?

These wheels are on my bike and there are no tubes in the tires. Are these wheels made for tubeless tires?


Thanks!

The tire is a bitch to try to get off, it is on there good.

That looks like a tube rim to me. The non-tube rims have extra ridges in the center area of the rim to hold the bead in place. I have attached a couple of pics the first is a tubeless rim and the second is a tube rim. Hope this helps.

Oh, I'm sure its a tubed rim also, but just making sure. And to think the morons I bought the bike from used to drag race it like that without tubes in the tires.:S

.

So how crazy would you have to be to TIG weld two beads around the rim to "create" a tubeless tire from a tubetype mag rim?

mtbspeedfreak wrote: So how crazy would you have to be to TIG weld two beads around the rim to "create" a tubeless tire from a tubetype mag rim?

You would make it immensely more difficult to mount a tire at least.

In addition to having the two ridges, tubeless wheels also have a deeper center section to allow the tire to slide in and clear the other side.

Look at the two pics above and you'll see the difference.

The only time the difference comes into play is when you have a flat. The tubeless is designed to TRY and prevent the tire from coming off the rim when flat. I used to run tubeless tires on tubed rims all the time in the older days, and never had a problem. Heck, at one time bikes used to have rim locks on them to hold the tires on. If you use a tire on a tubeless rim that is larger than specified, than the designation is a mute point anyway. The tire will come of the rim regardless, and a lot of the guys here do that.

The only time the difference comes into play is when you have a flat

If that's the case, then why don't the tube type rims have that same ridge? They do go flat sometimes.

It's really not rocket science, just spend a couple of minutes thinking about what happens when the air pressure gets low due to a leak, and say you catch the edge of a pothole that pushes in the sidewall.
Tubeless tire on a tube type rim may have the bead pushed back with resulting immediate loss of all air pressure. Tube type with a tube, the tube just pushes the tire bead back against the rim.

Is that really that hard to grasp?


Rim locks were never about holding the tire on the rim, they were about keeping the tire from spinning on the rim and ripping the valve stem out of the tube.


Do whatever you like, it's your butt on the line, not mine.

If absolutely 100% positive that will never ever hit a pothole while leaned over in a curve, with perhaps not quite enough air pressure in the tire . . . :huh:

Good Fortune!

Patton wrote: If absolutely 100% positive that will never ever hit a pothole while leaned over in a curve, with perhaps not quite enough air pressure in the tire . . . :huh:

Good Fortune!

If that happens, I don't think that a tubless rim will happen much. :whistle: I have clocked close to a quarter million miles between my bikes over the years and never had a problem with wheels or rims that were cast. Only spoked wheels have I ever had a flat on.

Here's what happens when a tire comes off a wheel. This is a 1979 Ford 3/4T van with original wheels. I would bet anything in 1979 these vans ran a tubeless wheel tire? Well this company van has had many a tire on it and it appears a tube type wheel? Nobody has ever told me to use a tube in this wheel. The van has been sitting for quite some time. I came outside one day and the tire had decided to demount just sitting there. That wouldn't be pretty on a motorcycle at speed, actually not in a van at speed either.:lol: