What is this ghetto tubeless thing anyway?
So, normal
bike tyres use a rubber inner tube, the inner tube sits inside the tyre and is
a cheap and easy way to keep air inside your tyres (you know this already). A ghetto tubeless setup does away with the regular inner tube, instead relying on the tyre itself to hold air, and a narrow strip of a BMX inner tube to seal the rim. Being ghetto, this is of course done at minimal cost and with your existing hardware.
You can buy ready-to-go rims ("UST") which are airtight
(and expensive) and tyres that work on these rims without sealant (heavy, also
expensive)... but then why would you be reading this guide to doing it on the
cheap?
 |
| Look how happy the Michelin Man is with his tubeless tyre. |
Regular tubes vs ghetto tubeless
Regular inner tubes work ok. For road bikes they work pretty good.
On a mountain bike you have less pressure in the tyres, and as a result you are much more likely
to have pinch flats ("snakebites") where the tube is cut by the rim itself as the rim bangs up against something solid. Plus, you tend to ride over
rough ground in the great outdoors - with a lot of spiky stones and thorns and other sharp things. Result = punctures.
A ghetto tubeless setup relies on having liquid latex sealant slosh around inside the tyres. When you get a puncture from a thorn or (small!) stone the latex sealant will be able to seal the puncture, a lot of times without you even noticing. Instantly, 90% of your previous puncture problems vanish. That's the promise, anyway.
