Rim strip on rim without spoke holes?

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Treptay
Posts: 68
Joined: Sun Sep 06, 2020 11:23 am

by Treptay

Hello there.
I'm about to buy an aluminium rim brake wheelset, that has no spoke holes on the inside of the rim, where the inner tube sits.
I am going to use clincher tires with normal 100g butyle inner tubes.
Since there are no spoke holes, using the inner tubes without rim strip should be mostly fine, as far as I understand.

However, Continental states, that you should always use rim tape, to protect the tube from heat damage https://www.conti-tyres.co.uk/overheating
Is this really a concern? I am going to ride some big descents with them.
If yes, what is a good rim strip for a 20mm internal width rim?

by Weenie


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usr
Posts: 889
Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:58 pm

by usr

There are people who say "yes", but I don't believe that their claim has much merit. We cyclists seem to be quite eager to blame malfunctions on whatever the victim did different than us when we are in the position of the generous helper, despite not knowing at all if the difference was actually part of the cause. I'm afraid that "paid in smugness" is just how our camaraderie works. "That person has a technical, I don't, I'm helping them so my decisions must have been better than theirs", completely ignoring the fact that statistics for rare events don't really work that way.

Personally, I do all my mountainous riding without tape, and I'm >85 kg more often than I'd like, and the only air loss problems I had that might have been heat related were one time on a wheel with tape (not even ridden in any big mountains), and one at the valve hole edge where it's not unusual for tape to leave a small opening anyways (most tubes are very strong in that region, the tubolito not so much).

And yeah, I've also been on the helping side of disinflation events that were definitely caused by bad rim tape. So I might get a share of the smugness blame from the first paragraph myself.

dmbiscuit
Posts: 61
Joined: Fri Aug 27, 2021 4:10 pm

by dmbiscuit

You shouldn't need rim tape or strips.

warthog101
Posts: 872
Joined: Wed Sep 25, 2013 10:05 am

by warthog101

Never bothered with a strip on my Campag Zondas.

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robbosmans
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by robbosmans

Nope you don’t need any rim tape. The only reason you may want to use rim tape is when you have a loose fitting tubeless tire.

MikeD
Posts: 1000
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2014 9:55 pm

by MikeD

Probably some cloth tape like Velox would work best, but might make it harder to mount the tires. If you do long, steep descents with a ton of braking, there might be something there. I'm running latex tubes with no rim strips, but don't do riding on that type of terrain anymore.

usr
Posts: 889
Joined: Thu Mar 25, 2021 5:58 pm

by usr

When I go to be in the steep+high and happen to have the hirame with me (so that I don't mind the daily pressure top-up, otherwise I avoid latex) I restrict latex to the rear wheel

weightwennywood
Posts: 5
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2022 7:11 am

by weightwennywood

yes the rim strip should be recommend,the abrasion between rim inner wall and inner tube during riding could be avoild as well

baldy
Posts: 142
Joined: Fri Jan 13, 2006 6:01 pm

by baldy

If the rim is designed without spoke holes it is surely to avoid the use of a rim tape? Campag have been doing this for years and I have never thought to add one and have never had an issue with punctures, both on Zondas and Shamals. The rim tape is there to stop the tube from going into the spoke holes and puncturing on the spoke end. The heat build up on extended braking is not enough to do any damage to a butyl tube in my opinion.

ooo
Posts: 1590
Joined: Sat May 21, 2016 12:59 pm

by ooo

I have 6 year old carbon rim without holes (25mm external 17-18mm internal width)
Surface was not perfect, I was able to use 5 years with tube without rim tape.
After 5 years I have started to have problems - inner tube blows when I try to pump without rim tape.
I was not able to find exact spot on rim surface, I have to use 2+ layers of electrical tape to fix it
(1 layer was not enough, I was fixing it while I was far away from home)
I haven't used talcum powder initially, it may also contributed to this problem
'

tiz92
Posts: 190
Joined: Tue May 04, 2021 3:36 pm

by tiz92

I have 2 Farsports sets witout rim wholes and i dont use any rim tape.

MikeD
Posts: 1000
Joined: Thu Dec 11, 2014 9:55 pm

by MikeD

Way back when, on two occasions, I was using Air-B butylized latex tubes and Specialized red colored plastic rim strips. On a knarly downhill on my road bike, the rim strip melted at a spoke hole and the tube extruded into the hole and blew. On another occasion, mountain biking on a nasty, rocky, loose downhill, same thing happened. On both occasions, the tube was not damaged other than the starburst hole in it that I subsequently patched. So, I'm not sure that latex tubes are all that bad for high temperatures when I can get a rim strip to melt before the tubes get damaged, although maybe the butylized tubes were more heat resistent than regular latex was. I switched to Velox rim tape and won't use plastic rim strips with rim brakes and tubes again.

by Weenie


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Juanmoretime
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by Juanmoretime

[quote=tiz92 post_id=1756576 time=1657168338 user_id=102602]
I have 2 Farsports sets witout rim wholes and i dont use any rim tape.
[/quote]

I too have two sets of Farsports wheels without holes and ther oldest set is almost 3 years old. I don't use rim tape and I use Challenge latex tubes and Continental 5000S 25mm X 700C tires. The rims are 25mm wide and one set is 55mm and the other 38mm. I've had zero issues. If I get a valve stem that rattles I might put about 2" of Stans tape over the valve hole to elminate the rattle. It works.

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