Ongoing Review: Hope 20Five Tubeless setup

Tubeless Easy? Well that depends on if you tape the rim correctly. I did not.

It took me 3 attempts to get the first wheel to seal.

1st Attempt

My first attempt was using Effetto Mariposa Caffélatex Tubeless Tape.

I ran 2 full revolutions of tape, poked a hole for the valve, inserted sealant and used my high volume track to pump them up.

The tyres pumped up, the beads popped in to place, and the tape failed to seal. The air came pouring out from around the valve hole. No amount of sealant would help to seal it.

I removed the tyre and noticed the sealant had gotten underneath the tape and it hadn’t adhered properly.

2nd Attempt

My second attempt was using Stan No Tubes Yellow Tape (25mm).

The second attempt split while trying to get the tape to sit in the deep rim bed of these rims.

3rd Attempt

I did a lot of research before my third attempt and found the following Youtube video from TheBikeCompany very helpful:

The Hope 20Five’s do have quite a deep rim bed, this technique was spot on and meant I did not have any of the tape split. I finally got the tyres to seal!

It took approximately 10 minutes to get every bead to seat properly, I used my track pump (and patience!) to keep the pressure between 50 and 70psi and eventually got a perfect seal. Once both wheels were set up, I rode the bike up the road and back to check everything was ok, then left it overnight to ensure the seal would hold.

It held and the following day, I did 20 miles and it was fantastic. The tyres were so supple and plush it felt like riding on air. The grip available was amazing even in the wet weather I rode through.

I’ll post again after I’ve put more miles on the tyres.