These methods are the professional spoked wheel options I know of available in the UK. In the US Woody’s Wheel Works have been sealing rims for years, but even they admit it’s a tricky business. All will probably insist your supplied rim has a safety ‘MT’ bead.
Based in Netherlands, Haan seal handbuilt wheels using Excel MT rims and their own CNC’d hubs (below left). They wrap the spoke nipples in a tape which allows tension adjustments (good for racers), then apply their secret sealant. It’s about £1500 for an Africa Twin wheel set. They also cater for retro-fitting spoke TL rims for looks, ie: replacing a bike’s perfectly good stock cast wheels which are tubeless anyway.
BARTubeless polymer band
I was one of the first in the UK to try this in late 2015 on my CB500X: permanent rim sealing by BARTubeless in Italy (left). They come with a 4-year guarantee. A polymer is applied and sets hard in the well of the wheel, which has been heated by steam. The tyre was a Golden Tyre GT 201 tubeless on the back and a similar K60 on the front. More here and here. One thing with Bart and similar thick linings is that they take up a bit of well depth in the rim which reduces the slack needed for easy tyre fitting or removing. I recall the rear GT tyre was hard to fit.
I thought I had no air loss but tbh I don’t think I checked much, and over a couple of months there was quite a lot of leakage. Could have been the tyre bead, the valve, even the alloy rim might be porous. At an MoT weeks later they noticed the pressures were well down, but the stiff TL tyres disguised this, as they so often do. Note in the picture top left the label says not to drop below 1.6bar (21psi) because the rims used by RR then did not have MT safety lips. They probably offer safety-bead rims now; certainly on the Africa Twin Bart rims they now sell. In the UK, wheel specialists Central Wheel Services near Birmingham will BARTubeless two wheels for you. Balance the cost of either of these proprietary rim sealings with the many hours but modest cost and possible satisfaction of doing it yourself.
CWC Airtight Central Wheel Components in the UK do a version of the Haan sealing band. They call it Airtight. and again, as far as I know, I was among the first to try it on my Himalayan ride to Western Sahara in 2019. It cost £120 a wheel then but it’s done in the UK (by ATS Euromaster, a UK tyre outlet owned by Michelin).
A hooped band whose size matches the wheel rim is fitted to the rim and heated to vulcanise in two stages over two days. Alternatively, on narrow front wheels liquid rubber is applied in three stages and cures in air but takes four days.
Airtight new style
More on this page. Because the band version is vulcanised – a form of chemically assisted rubber ‘heat welding’ – rather than just glued like tapes or sealants, you’d hope the seal will be more secure and permanent, certainly more than tape which can come away when it gets hot. I had this system on the rear wheel of my Himalayan on an Excel rim with the safety lip and fitted with a Michelin Anakee Wild 130/80-17 M/C 65R TL plus a splash of Slime. In Morocco I’d guess it lost a pound or two psi a week judging by the readings off my TPMS – though with elevation and temperature changes it was hard to evaluate accurately. This was with Slime plus a small nail in the back which I chose not to remove. I prefer Airtight over the BARTubeless as the rubber may be lighter, would flex with the wheel and it takes less long. In late 2024 a mate Airtighted his Ducati Desert X, but a tyre swap in Marrakech revealed quite a messy application with some new woven covering mine didn’t have. It looked a right mess but didn’t leak.
Messy. Fraying from going too fast?
Alpina sealed spoke nipples The Italian Alpina system individually seals each spoke nipple with a rubber o-ring, and is sold for many road bikes and so must be considered road legal. The benefits of this system is that spoke tension can be adjusted while maintaining the tubeless seal. But how often do you do that on a decent rim? The permanently sealed bonding systems above may not work so well doing this, but as we know we’re usually talking very small turns of the nipple to adjust tension, and should a leak develop it can be re-sealed. Also, there are 36 potential leak points. It seems a way over-complicated way of doing it compared to a single band like Airtight or BARTubeless inside the well.
Kineo wheels Beautifully forged after-market Italian Kineo tubeless rims, popular with custom builders. They’re the only ones I know of and for a Transalp will be at least €1000 each. You’re welcome.
Short version: Imo, none of these cores are suited to travel biking.
Systems like the US-made Tubliss liner are primarily made for dirt bikes running low-psi. They are not recommended for highway use in the US by the manufacturer, most probably due to homologation issues rather than safety. But I know people who’ve run Tubliss for years on the road with no problems. The main limitations: they’ll only seal properly on WM3 rims (2.15”) or narrower, and they only come in 21, 19 and 18-inch sizes. So like they say: most suited to dirt bikes where such rim widths and sizes are the norm.
Nuetech Prolock In 2025 Nuetech announced the Prolock system: half-a-dozen rubber-backed aluminium clamps you bolt to the rim like a rim lock, via several new holes. The rubber squidges out and seals the spoke nipples, while also sealing and pining the tyre bead in place, so there’s no need to run an MT rim, and low pressures ought to be doable. Each set weighs just under a kilo, but of course you lose a tube. It sure beats the need to run 100psi in the Tubliss system, but on a travel bike where you rarely run very low psi, I’m not sure it’s a huge benefits to simple spoke nipple sealing on an MT-type rim.
With nothing better available for a 21-inch wheel, in 2019 I reluctantly ran Tubliss on the front wheel of my Himalayan in Morocco. A few days in I’d noticed Slime coming out round the high-pressure core valve body which suggested it was getting from the tublessed tyre cavity past the Tubliss core seal. Then, after about two weeks riding at road pressures and having checked the Tubliss at 7.5 bar just two days earlier, the core went flat in the middle of Western Sahara. It would not hold air and so neither would the tyre. But by luck, the body of the collapsed Tubliss core kept the flat tyre on the rim, so I was able to ride slowly 250km to Laayoune on the coast, find and fit a tube.
Removing the Tubliss (left), it was hard to tell what was wrong as five hours riding at 30mph had probably pulled the valve out of the tube and anyway, I wasn’t planning on refitting it and bought an inner tube instead. I never was that keen on Tubliss for travelling as opposed to recreational dirt biking. Even though mates have used it on the road without problems, I’d not risk it again. Next time I’ll seal an MT rim.
Tubliss and similar work by fitting an inner tube-like ‘core’ (‘HPC’) which inflates up to 110 psi to expand and seal the bead of the tyre firmly against the rim and so sealing off the tyre’s air chamber from the spoke nipples where leakage occurs – the key to converting wire wheels to tubeless. The core is a thick, plastic highly pressurised non-elastic red casing, but it’s kept away from the tyre sidewall or tread where punctures come through.
Years ago I fitted a pair to a GS500R project bike running custom 19″ spoked rims. Click the link. Short version: lube the possibly hard-to-fit core with 303 Protectant (right: £15 a pint; same as Armor All in the US). It’s much slippier and longer-lasting than soapy water which is good for the HPC inside. Then run Slime, Stans or similar to ensure sealing (about the same price as 303 but you can MYO). Me, I wasn’t convinced they’re suited to long-range overlanding compared to other simpler systems because of the need to maintain the very high 110-psi pressures in the red HPC with humble mini-compressors. You also need to drill another hole in the rim for the HPC valve/rim lock; no one likes doing that. Long Tubliss thread on advrider; mostly dual-sporters. Some get on with it, some don’t. In 2019 I rather reluctantly fitted a Tubliss to the stock front steel rim of my Enfield Himalayan. But I’m on the lookout for a 21-inch alloy rim with the safety lips to seal myself with adhesive and tape.
The Swedish T-Lock system is very similar as far as I can tell: the same non-elastic core (blue, left) presses the tyre bead against the rim with very high pressure to seal the tyre’s pressured chamber from the leak-prone spoke nipples and securing the bead to the rim (MT rims not needed?)
The blue tube utilises the rim’s valve hole. This means that unlike Tubliss with its two valves, the tyre must be filled with Slime-like sealant before final mounting and then pressurised by spiking the tyre carcass with a needle valve attached to a Schrader, then letting the sealant plug that hole. This seems to imply you set the tyre pressures once. To modify the pressure you’d have to spike-and seal again. Even more than Tubliss, T-Locks are intended only for motocross use, as the website’s imagery implies. Clearly then, not at all suited to overlanding.
Tubeless rims are usually cast wheels with a lip or ridge (left) to help locate and seal the tyre bead securely on the rim. This lip is also considered a safety feature which stops any tyre coming off the rim should the tyre deflate on the move. In my experience, it works. You will feel the softened tubeless tyre long before it comes off the rim and can keep riding slowly without it coming off. These ridges have been a feature on the rear wheel only of some tubed motorcycles since the 1980s.
Unbranded, unstamped ‘WM’ no lip rimMT stamped Excel lipped rim
The ‘MT’ or ‘2H’ (‘H2’) rim code Spoked rims with the safety lip suited to TL tyres are often stamped ‘MT’ on the rim, as opposed to ‘WM‘ or nothing, but usually only by Asian rim brands like Excel Takasago, but not SM Pro. As said, even bikes running inner tubes may use an MT-type lipped rim (which questions the claim that ‘you can’t put a tube in a tubeless rim’). European brands may use ‘2H’ (‘2 hump’) to mean the same thing, as with the Motad wheel below right who now own the Akront brand.
But as AD comments, his 2005 KTM’s German Behr rim (no longer made) was stamped MT but has no lips, so … [not] all MT-code wheels have the safety lip. What’s more, other rim brands like Twenty (below left) may have the lips but don’t use any discernible code on the rim. The only way to know for sure is to verify the profile of the rim.
Twenty: no code but lippedMorad: ‘2H’ code for a lipped rim
This lip also makes removing and mounting the tyre difficult by the roadside if you need to repair an inner tube. It varies from bike to bike and tyre to tyre, but with tubeless you only need to remove a tyre to replace it when it is worn out (or destroyed), not to fix endless punctures. And unlike punctures, fitting a new tyre is usually done at a time of your choosing and in a tyre shop which has the know-how and tools, including a powerful compressor and lube to force the new tyre over the lips and into the rim’s groove with a nice ‘pop’. See this.
For years and years bikes running tubes also have this safety lip, but never on 21-inch wheels. Old Yamaha XTs like the one above had it on the rear wheel. Out of interest, this disproves another tubeless urban myth: you can only stick a tube in a TL rim to ‘get you home’ because it will eventually rub on the lip and explode with terrible consequences. Well, clearly not on a stock tubed ’86 Tenere with a lipped DID rim (above). I know because I remember putting that bike on a crate with the rear tyre removed, sticking it in gear and ‘hand-lathing’ off that safety lip with a chisel so that I’d not get stuck in the desert trying to break the bead to fix a flat. And as importantly, remounting it with – back then – just a bicycle pump. All this faffing is why we like tubeless!
2008 XT660Z, heavy MT rear wheel but came with tubes
But to convert spoked tube rims to tubeless, these lips are an important safety attribute. My 2008 Tenere (above) had them on the back wheel. The front rim was normal which is a risk when converting to tubeless. But can it be any worse than a tubed tyre puncturing? Tubed tyres deflate faster and therefore more dangerously than tubeless tyres, so even without the safety lips or humps on the front, with tubeless you’re already ahead. But, as I found, with no lips you may get slow leakage along the seal. These days I would not convert any spoked wheel which did not have these lips (usually OEM 21s), even if it gets expensive.
Pictured left: the top ‘WM’ rim has no sealing lip; the lower ‘MT’ rim does. Note also the angle of the tyre bead–rim interface; the lower rim with the lip is flat which helps make a better seal and keep the tyre bead in place. The upper lipless rim slopes into the well making it easy to mount by hand, but it won’t hold or seal a tubeless tyre half as well. My 2008 Tenere front-wheel sealing problems were because the rear wheel was like the lower rim – good for tubeless. The 21-inch front was like the upper rim; less good seal.
21-inch spoke rims with safety lips
I spent weeks online tracking down a 21-inch alloy rim with the safety lip suited to converting to tubeless. They used to be rare, but not anymore it seems, as OEM spoked tubeless wheels become a ‘thing’ on adventure bikes. Taiwan-based Giant (or GLM) is the biggest bicycle and motorcycle rim manufacturer in the world. They make such a rim in ‘big bike’ 2.15 width with 36 holes (bigger BMWs have 40; lighter trials bikes have 32). In the UK Central Wheel Components sell them for £111 (2.15kg) + 24 quid to anodise. It may be branded SM Pro (see bottom of the page). Rally Raid use this rim on their own wheelsets with BARTubeless conversions for Africa Twins (left) at a staggering £1500 a pair.
A quote to build that rim onto my Himalayan hub and seal it with BARTubeless (done in Italy) came in at £420. A quote to do the same for my AT: new 2.15 GLM rim £135; S/S spoke set and wheel build £105; Airtight TL band £120; post £21 (£381). Some claim the GLM rim is a bit soft. More research unearthed Japanese Excel Takasago TL rims in 21-inch, but only a 1.60 size (left; p/n ICK408, and below) which is OK for dirt bikes but not adv twins. Talon in the UK import them at £165; I bought a pair in Italy for a lot less and have kept one for a rainy day. This rim has an unusually deep well which should make for easy tyre mounting, even after you’ve sealed it whichever way.
In 2018 there was talk of Excel making a wider 21 x 2.15 suited to bigger bikes and in 2019 it was produced, apparently. And in 2021 a mate bought a 2.15 x 21 SM PRO Platinum from Central Wheel for £135, as mentioned above. So these 21″ MT rims are out there now in black or gold.
Thinking of using these TL rims for your conversion? Be aware that on these rims spoke nipples are in the hub, not the rim. You’ll need to convert the whole wheel to fit your forks / discs / spacers and so on. Suddenly it’s all a bit complicated.
Many flagship travel bikes run ‘adventure-look’ spoked wheels, but OEM spoked + tubeless is only slowly catching on. Usually, they’re non-Japanese premium brands like BMW, Triumph or KTM. I updated a list here in 2023.
The original one-litre Africa Twin and Yamaha’s XT700were two bikes where you‘d have expected tubeless. The 2020 1100 AT featured tubeless (right). Front 21-inch wheels seem to be a problem, but it must well be a cost thing too. Spoked tubeless fronts in 19″ are much more common, even on Jap travel bikes. These days manufacturers use spoked wheels on adv bikes as a signifier of ‘off-road adventure’, as well as the perception of being repairable, lighter, stronger, more shock absorbent and cool looking. Meanwhile tubeless is just plain safer and infinitely easier to repair flats. On a CRF450R motocrosser running rim locks at 10psi, a tube is probably a better idea as the van’s nearby. On a quarter-ton Adv battleship halfway down Patagonia’s Ruta 40, getting a flat is a pain.
OEM spoked tubeless wheels
Making a spoked tubeless wheel rim is expensive but its been done for decades, right back to the mid-1980s Honda XL600M (left), and almost certainly before that.
Recent bikes that come with them stock include the BMW 1200GSA, the original Aprilia Caponord (below), Yamaha’s 225 and 250 Serow on the rer only, Suzuki V-Stroms, Yamaha XT1200Z, KTM V-twins, some Triumph Tigers, Explorers (top of the page) and 1200 Scramblers. Even Honda’s oddball X-ADV scooter (right) has small spoked TL wheels.
The picture below of a 2005 Caponord shows the main ways of designing a spoked tubeless rim. On the rear: spokes hook to ‘outboard’ flanges on the rim. The front uses a less well triangulated single ‘inboard flange’; V-Stroms (left) have paired inboard flanges up front. Note that the nipples (spokes tension adjustment) are at the hub, behind the rotors.
Yamaha Serow rear
BMWs, including the 850GS twin (below), run 40 straight-pull spokes directly into the protruding rim edge – there is no flange. I’ve noticed this relatively exposed edge can get scuffed about from stony terrain, although it would take a lot to damage the spoke mounts.
Such wheels can be heavier than same-sized cast wheels. Weight is saved by not using inner tubes, but the additional unsprung weight on any wheel is the last place you want it. It takes more force to get that mass turning, more braking to slow it and better suspension to control it.
Trials Tubeless
You could try and track down tubeless trials bike rims; they’re usually 32 spoke which will suit smaller Hondas, but no smaller than 18 inches. They do it with the usual inboard flange with hub-end nipples and straight-pull spokes, as below.
Jitsie Morad inboard flange
A 2017 KTM 1090 Adventure (left) has a similar a regular 21-inch Akront rim but with a band rather crudely vulcanised or otherwise glued into the well.
Most bigger road bikes run 36 spokes or more in the back. DID 36-hole TL rims do or did exist, but so far only in pictures or cruddy, corroded examples on ebay. When changing the spoked rim you’re constrained by the number of spoke holes in the stock hub because changing a hub is a much bigger faff. Fitting a new rim is dead easy. Missing out a few spokes to make a standard 36-spoke hub use a 32-spoke trials rim is a bodge too far, even for me ;-)
Branded or otherwise, it’s hard to find less expensive spoked TL rims off the shelf. The only ones I’ve seen are in China: Risun (Risen?) outboard tubeless rims in 17 or 18 inches only (left) and just $60 a shot. Problem is, you have to order a minimum of 200 units. And there is still the hub-nipple problem.
Especially with 21-inchers, finding an OEM TL rim is difficult or expensive. With 21s you may be better off buying a safety lipped rim (also rare) and sealing it by hand or using the processes described here.
While I was busy dodging the winter under the shady mangroves of the Coromandel peninsula, Simon-with-a-workshop quietly worked on my Himalayan, like a gnome chipping away in a pink rock-salt mine. The long list included:
Bolt-ons
Move the Oxford heated grips control module to an accessible position and rewire it to the ignition, not the battery, as the original owner had done.
Fitting ancillary leads off the battery for my heated jacket and Cycle Pump/battery optimiser.
Fitting a switch to kill all lights. Handy for battery saving as well as leaving the highway unnoticed for stealthy wild camping.
Refitting the cheap LED headlamp which came with the bike. It’s the same one I put on my XScrambleR. Never rode that bike in the full dark but although it saves watts (or is it amps?), I suspect the LED lamp looks better than it shines.
To monitor engine temperature a Trail Tech engine temperature sensor is more useful, accurate and quicker responding than relying on the stock ambient air temp sensor. At a cold start it will show ambient anyway, same as the stock in the dash, but once running, reading off the spark plug, the TTech soon shoots up. Even with the oil cooler and the ‘under piston oil sprays’ we read about, the low-tuned, air-cooled motor’s reading reaches a staggering 240°C at 65mph on the motorway, dropping to around 175°C in town. The spark plug is of course just about at the hottest point of an engine so basically it’s quite normal. ‘They all do that – sir‘. Under the seat the Himalayan’s ambient air temperature sensor got relocated anyway to a position less affected by the motor’s downwind heat flow so it gives a truer ambient reading once on the move. It’s a common mod.
Garmin Montana cradle fitted to left mirror stalk with RAM mounts and hardwired to the ignition. I thought they’d not fit for want of cable slack, but I was wrong and the adjustable Rox Risers have raised the stock bars a healthy 50mm. It required releasing a clip off the braided ABS brake line under the tank somewhere, and the barely needed cold start cable was also on the limit. With the raised seat it’s now easy to stand up and to not stoop once I’m up there. Halleluia.
My ancient Barkbuster Storms are now on their 7th outing since fitting to my XT660Z back in 2008. I should win some sort of recycling award. Simon had to make some simple mounts as for some reason, the curvy BTC 06 adaptors (right) which were recommended didn’t fit. Could be that a decade on, newer Barks have changed shape. The Barks require the slightly adjustable stock screen to be set fully forward, but riding back I can’t say the turbulence was any better or worse than in the original position. I think that at the speeds the REH can achieve, it’s all a bit academic. And as it is I’m sat on a motorbike out in the open air. There will be turbulence.
Like so many bikes I’ve owned lately, I assumed the stock shock would be a budget keep-the-fender-off-the-wheel job, so I pre-emptively ordered the Thai-made YSS which took a few weeks. Some reports claim the stocker is too harsh, others say too soft, others just right. On the road it didn’t feel too bad – perhaps the usual mix of over-sprung and under-damped. It weighs over 4.8kg and half appears to be coil-bound, but in fact there’s a couple of mm gap in the coils (left) which adds some progressiveness.
It would have been good to evaluate it properly, but the shiny red YSS is sat there like a cream cake on cushion. Getting it fitted, I asked my LBS to check the linkage grease. Who knows if they did. I may also rivet on a flap to stop it getting plastered with crud spun off the back wheel.
The YSS is about a third lighter at 3.3kg, costs £290, is length adjustable by 10mm, has 35-click rebound damping and will work with an HPA which probably costs half as much as the shock. Out of the box rebound came at 20/35 clicks and with 12 threads exposed below the spring preload collar. Looks like a good place to start. On the short ride back from the LBS I did detect a little more compliance with small irregularities. Otherwise it felt the same. With most suspension upgrades, I’ve found you can’t tell much difference until road surfaces deteriorate or the speeds increase.
YSS fitting advice: The preload collar at the top of the YSS is now quite hard to access – removing the airbox lid on the LHS may help, as will a shorter, right-sized hex key, as opposed to the rod supplied. There is a tiny hex screw on the collar which locks it to the threads (hex key supplied). Either risk leaving it loose (collar may unwind), or make sure when fitting the shock that it’s in a position where you can get to and loosen it from the LHS – about ‘7 or 8 o’clock’ if 12 = forward. You will then probably need to wind or unwind the collar a full 360° to get the screw back in a lockable position.
A tenner’s worth of Chinese fork preloaders were also fitted on the front but are currently set at zero. The stock spacer inside the top of the fork needed to be shortened.
The steering head bearings got regreased. Along with swing-arm linkages, it’s a common precautionary requirement, and not just on inexpensive Indian bikes. My BMW XCountry’s head races were shot at just 6k.
My initial seat foam bodge proved to be poor, mostly because the foam I used had the springiness of Philadelphia cheese. A fellow Himaliste recommended some pre-cut stick-on foam seat pads on ebay (left; £15 each). At 20mm I bought two and rode home with them shoved under the Aero lambswool pad.
With the yellow backing still on, it all slithered around a bit and after only 120 miles the butt was sore, but I can definitely see the potential in raising the seat height. And I do wonder if the old lambswool pad makes things worse. Cool Covers sent me one of their durable aerated mesh seat covers to try. Like wool, the idea is that air circulation reduces heat and improves comfort, but with bike saddles, one man’s fur-lined throne is another man’s agony. Luckily, the Cool Cover just stretched over the two racing pads now glued to each other and the stock seat. The back edge of the top pad was crudely trimmed to level it off. In the picture below the seat looks like it’s sloping forward – not good – but it’s actually the taut cover over an air gap. The foam below is more level than it looks.
Let’s hope it makes a difference but bike saddles are usually more miss than hit. Seat foam apart, the combination of seating position, bars, footrests and the presence of a screen all have an influence, but it’s also down to tank range – in other words how long you sit riding uninterrupted. My CRF250L should have been the usual agony, but because I could only do 120 miles before reaching for the fuel can, the 5 minutes it took to do that rejuvenated the cheeks. One of the worst saddles ever was the BMW F650GS, probably because it easily did 200 miles between fill ups. One of the best was my GS500R Overlander. I never worked out why.
Wheels and Tubeless Tyres
Note: being a maddeningly illogical Imperial British standard, the ‘WM’ wheel rim width designation you commonly see (in the UK at least) doesn’t correlate with actual rim width in inches. But it is close – see table right. They say ‘MT’ is a modern, fully logical (but little seen) equivalent, where the MTxx number refers to the actual rim width in actual inches.
As confusingly, rim width in inches does not correlate with notional tyre width where, for example, a 120 section width (120mm; 4.7”) is converted to inches. But it is close-ish.
Stock REH rims are WM1 (MT1.85) on the front and WM3 (MT2.15 – need to check) on the back with a 120/90 17 tyre.
To enable easy puncture repairs I wanted reliable tubeless wheels which meant sealing the spoked rims. Along the way I was happy to ditch the steel rims in the hope of saving unsprung weight which I keep going on about. A mate had given me some ageing 18 and 21 Tubliss. The back was a bit too old to risk; a BNIB front got fitted and Slimed with the new Michelin (left). On the back, for the sake of simplicity I wanted an Excel 18-er with a new Tubliss (Tubliss don’t do 17 size). Then I was told max width for an 18-er Tubliss is 2.15” rim, like the stock, I think. The Anakee Wilds were recommended for a 2.5-inch rim. We’re talking a notional discrepancy of a third-of-an-inch here, but let’s try to do it by the book for once. Shame as an 18-er would have saved a couple of kilos in tyre and rim and greatly opened out the range of off-road tyres. But another problem is tubeless tyres (which do differ significantly from tube type) are rare in 18-inch size. Seventeen TL tyres are much more common.
It wasn’t on their website but CWC’s brochure mentions an Airtight™ vulcanised spoke-sealing band (left). It’s similar to the Italian BARTubeless polymer sealing I had on the Rally Raid CB500X of a couple of years back (and which CWC also offer). I’m always keen to try something new for my Ongoing Tubeless Saga, but not so fast, chum! CWC can only Airtight a 3-inch (WM5) or wider rim. Next problem: there were no 18-inch Excel rims in that width, so it was back to a 17-inch rim in WM5 to fit an Anakee Wild. Confused? So was I but we got there in the end.
Tyres were always planned to be Michelin Anakee Wilds, one of the few do-it-all travel bike tyres I’ve not yet tried. On hearing about my plans Michelin kindly supplied them for free, along with a couple of back-up tubes which I hope I won’t need. Rear is a 130/80-17 M/C 65R TL. The front gets the larger 90/90-21 M/C 54R TL to balance the lift on the back. And it all comes with lashings of Slime. Simon did some weighing before Sliming (add about 250g per wheel):
Stock front wheel with Pirelli MT60 90/90 + tube 13kg Front wheel with 90/90 Anakee Wild + Tubliss 14kg (Stock steel front rim 3.77kg – source)
So, a kilo gained on the front due to Tubliss and heavier Wild tyre; a kilo lost on the back despite the wider Excel being barely lighter than the steel stocker. I wonder if there’s an error somewhere, considering the new Michelin is 1.5kg heavier than the stock MT60 and tube. The whole ‘alloy is light’ thing can be a bit of a myth until you get to the exotic stuff. Look at MTB frames or an old, two-ton Range Rover or handlebars (below). But, although it’s been decades since I’ve had wheel problems, I’m pretty sure the CWC-built Excel will be stronger than the steel stocker.
At 7.5kg, the TL Anakee on the back is hefty. I rationalise that the added mass is down to the tougher tubeless carcass. If it’s anything like the punctured Anakee or Tourance I rode on last November, it’ll be stiff enough to cautiously ride airless while staying on the rim until I reach a village tyre menders. Here are some more dims regarding 18 or 17-inch Anakee Wild tyres:
Anakee Wild 120/80-18 M/C 62S TT Max sectional width 131mm, max diameter 663mm, weight 5kg, Recommended rim width 2.75”
Anakee Wild 130/80-17 M/C 65R TL Max sectional width 142mm, max diameter 654mm, weight 7.5kg (verified by SV), Recommended rim width 3.0”
Both will easily fit the width of the Himalayan’s swing arm, but at the front of the swing arm, clearance gets down to less than an inch with the taller 18. A bit of chain wear and you’re good to go. On the front the mudguard now looks fairly close to the new Wild, so for mud clearance I’ll lift it a bit as mentioned below. Riding back 120 miles, the fresh Anakees rode a lot more securely than some also-new K60s I’ve ridden with other bikes. No weirdness in bends and no vibration or noise (a common complaint) that I could tell.
Michelin have just brought out a new TPMS and sent me one to try out. It will be particularly welcome for keeping tabs on my untried tubeless set up. The unit is USB rechargeable and sits magnetically in a stuck-on dish. So it’s easy to remove or nick, and might fall out on rough ground without an extra method of adhesion.
The read-out (psi or bar) flips every few seconds between front (as shown below) and rear. It’s interesting to note how pressure climbs by up to 20% as the tyre warms up.
Fabrications and load carrying
Apart from some custom Bark mounts, all the Him needed made was a sand foot plate welded on the end of the sidestand.
Cheap and hefty
And Simon managed to hand bend and bolt on a pair of very nice unbraced Ear-racks (as I’ve decided to call them). I’d originally bought the RE pannier rack from India for only £77 (right), but while cheap, the thing weighed over 5kg. You don’t need all that metal unless you’re running alloy cabinets. Inset in the circle below, Simon pointed out a weak spot where the lower Ear-rack bolts to the pillion mount which is welded rather bolted to the subframe. But the unbraced rack has some give, plus the soft bags will also absorb impacts, so hopefully it will take quite a crash to break the mount. It actually wouldn’t be hard to brace from the upper curve of the Ear-rack to a point on the stock tail rack, just above the indicator.
Custom-made ‘Ear rack’
I forget that I’m an unsung Kriega Ambassador; they’ve just sent me a set of their new OS22 throwovers (below) to try out. I was a big fan of the OS32 on my WR250R a couple of years back. The OS22s feel very rugged and weight in at 2.5kg each. This time, to save weight I’ll fit them as throwovers without the platform, and use the tabs on the back to secure it to the Ear-rack with brilliant q/d RovaFlex cable ties (right).
They’re the same size but 40mm slimmer than the 32s which looks quite a lot, but the slack will be taken up on the front by the 6-litre Lomo Crash Bags (left). Hopefully I can get away without my 30-L Ortlieb Travel Zip which can make getting on an off a chore. I have a 10L Kriega Drypack (right) knocking about if I need more capacity.No six-megaton bashplate you say? On the tracks I ride these days they’re more useful at keeping flying gravel from damaging the engine paint. When it gets that gnarly, I’m down to walking pace, ready to deploy outriggers. The new tyres and firmer shock have raised the clearance a bit so the tinny, stock bashplate (below) will do fine for the moment.
Lifting the front mudguard is a good idea now that the fatter 90/90 Anakee Wild is closer to the plastic. One time on the Tenere in Morocco I rode onto recently rained on clay which jammed the front wheel solid. A right faff to clear with Moroccan farm workers milling around saying ‘Oi, you’re front wheel’s jammed, mate!’.
On the Him it’s easily done with slightly longer fork brace bolts (below) and some M6 spacers raising around 10mm, before the mudguard hits the downtube on full compression. It’s worth remembering these spacers (search ebay: ’15mm ø aluminum bushes M6 hole’; right) want to keep a broad contact between the brace and fork mounts as there’s some leverage stress here.
So there it is. Just about all done in one fell swoop, as they say in Simon’s neighbourhood. Riding back to London, initially the Him felt a bit odd as modified bikes always do. The jacked up shock and new Michelins have given the bike an altered stance, but despite the sliding seat pads I soon settled back in to it. It’s not fast, but somehow that’s not frustrating and I’ve yet to put my finger on exactly why. Am I still in the honeymoon period of enjoying the novelty and kidding myself it’s better than it is, as so many owners claim with their bikes? Or with the Himalayan, have Royal Enfield stumbled on some magical combination of looks, gearing, power delivery and value for money which, for the moment ay least, still makes this bike such an enjoyable ride? It’s getting trucked to southern Spain shortly – a liaison stage to Morocco which I’ve done enough times already. We’ll see how I feel once the shine has worn off after a month on the trails and backroads of southern Morocco.
Adventure Motorcycling Handbook 