Tubeless on the Paragon

For several years I have considered it and now, just a couple weeks before the Mohican 100, I have done it... no more tubes in the Paragon.  At lunch I went over to the shop and picked up Bontrager rim strips for my Mustang rims, Bontrager valve stems, and a bottle of Stan's NoTubes sealant.  Oh yeah, I splurged on an injector too.  Ryan had told me about the benefits of being able to inject sealant without breaking the bead on the tire.  He made a good sales pitch.

Ready to go tubeless.

I thought about taking some pictures of the process, but once I got started I just kept going to get it done.  I stripped my tires and tubes off the wheels and got to work stretching on the rim strip.  This took some effort but it went on solid.  And then... where are the valve stems?  Notice they are not in the picture above.  After looking everywhere I convinced myself I left them on my desk at work.  Doh, no finishing this project tonight.

Next day.

Walk into work, walk up to desk... no stems.  I decided they had to be in pants pocket from the previous day, even though I checked last night.  The suspense was killing me so I ran home for lunch, found the stems in the bottom, folded over tip of my pants pocket, and finished the job.

The beads on my Maxxis Ardent tires have always been tough to seat.  I used multiple application of dish soap water, my air compressor, and 70psi of force before having the bead fully seated all the way around.  "Ping!" as the bead seated.

Soap bubbles were popping around the whole circumference of the rim and maybe a little through the sidewall.  Was this really a good idea?  Per Stan's video instructions on the web site, I rotated and sloshed the tire.  I left each one sitting horizontally before going back to work.

Home from work, I found a couple places the beads were still not seated.  More soapy water, air out and air back in... "ping!"  Fully seated.  It also seemed no more air was leaking.  Tomorrow will be the first ride, hopefully they hold pressure over night!