We often get asked what tyres fit easily onto the NoTubes rims, and there are some combinations which just won’t work together. So we got together a big pile of NoTubes rims and Maxxis High Roller tyres, and spent an afternoon fitting and removing tyres.

Some of the new NoTubes rims (Crest, Alpine and Podium) have the “2nd generation bead socket” and are designed to be a tighter fit to the tyre. This improves tubeless performance but it means you’ll struggle to get UST tyres on – and with the Podium, it’s impossible.

The 2.35 single ply went onto Flow rims easily

Most tyres fitted easily to the Flow – the 14mm wide central channel easily accomodates both beads of the tyre when you’re trying to fit it. Most of the other rims have an 11mm channel, while the Alpine’s 10mm channel makes it just that bit harder to fit the tyre, especially as it’s combined with the new bead socket design.

Anyway, here are the results. The numbers show how hard it was to fit the tyre to the rim, as judged by me, using the best technique I could muster. All are High Roller, 60 to 70A compounds.

1: easy hand fit, 2: medium hand fit, 3: difficult hand fit
4: easy with tyre lever, 5: medium with tyre lever, 6: hard even with a tyre lever
X: did not fit.

Remember that an easy fit is not necessarily good. For tyres to work well tubeless, they need to be a reasonably tight fit.

white ZTR355 rims

New from NoTubes are these white powder coated ZTR355 rims. They are extremely limited edition at the moment, we were only allowed one pair and I had to ask very nicely but it was worth the effort. They are also expecting to have some Olympic and Flow rims in white some time this summer, and we will be getting a few if they do. Price is likely to be around 25% more than for standard black rims and they weigh about 7-10g each more.

We’ll build these up onto an Industry Nine build and see how they look…

UPDATE : 06 May 2009 – other white rims are starting to come in and the prices are about the same as black rims.

Specialized Roval rim

NoTubes race 7000 rim

Specialized Roval front

NoTubes race rim front

It’s been brewing for a while but now it’s official, NoTubes have filed a lawsuit against Specialized alleging that their Roval wheels infringe NoTubes’ patent on their rims.

This might not come as a surprise to anyone who’s looked carefully at both Stan’s and Roval wheels, in fact we’ve had customers comment on the similarities. The news will be welcome to many in the US biking world where Specialized have, shall we say, a bit of a reputation for being trigger-happy with their lawyers.

We don’t normally put up press releases but here’s one from NoTubes:

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NoTubes.com Files Lawsuit

against Specialized Bicycle Components Inc.

BIG FLATS, N.Y. – Nov 12, 2008 – On September 15, 2008, NoTubes.com® filed a lawsuit against Specialized Bicycle Components Inc. (”Specialized”) alleging that certain rims and wheels of Specialized infringe U.S. Patent No. 7,334,846 (the “˜846 patent”). This lawsuit, styled K.G. Motors, Inc. v. Specialized Bicycle Components, Inc., is currently pending in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York.

As set forth in NoTubes™s complaint, Specialized is alleged to infringe the ˜846 patent by making, using, selling, offering for sale, and/or importing into the United States certain tubeless wheels and rims, including without limitation Specialized™s Roval brand wheels. The technology disclosed and claimed in the ˜846 patent was invented by NoTubes™s founder and owner, Stan Koziatek, while pursuing a better solution for tubeless bicycle wheels and rims.

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