Gravel - going tubeless - where do I start?!!

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

Hi, hoping for some advice from seasoned gravellers on going tubeless. I've only ever used tubes before. I've just taken delivery of a new gravel bike (Specialized Diverge) which is all 'tubeless ready' - tyres and wheels and some spare valves.

I've had a look and there's a bewildering amount of sealant and puncture repair products out there, pretty much all of them with mixed reviews with the same sealant sealing a 6 inch slice in half a second, and failing to seal a pinhole.

I think I need:

Sealant / rim tape kit - any suggestions on best kit here?
Puncture / plug kit - is Dynaplug the go to here?

Anything else I need? Valve cores? Specific tools?

Happy to spend a bit up-front to minimise the chances of getting stranded / roadside repairs.

I'm hoping to avoid having to use some kind of air chamber to seat the tyres (Specialized Pathfinder Pro 42mm on DT Swiss G540 rims), and just use a track pump. Not sure if this is dependent on tyre / rim combo?

I weigh about 90kg, so generally have to run higher than average tyre pressures if that makes any difference.

Thanks in advance!

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

Thanks for all the replies so far. I live in the middle of rural Scotland, a good hour's round trip to a bike shop, so I'm going to give it a try myself. Took the new bike out for a (tubed) test ride on the road today and loving it so far.

Sounds like the inflator is a must have, although I had in my head that they were well over £100, so looking at the Giant one I've saved £60 already

Does the brand of sealant really matter? Sound like there are varying 'service intervals' for different ones, and it's generally not a good idea to mix them in the same tyre? My bike lives in a cold but dry garage, and a lot (probably all, living in Scotland!) of my rides will be in reasonably cold weather, but I'm not sure if temperature or conditions make any difference to how much effort it will be to maintain.

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

djone101 said:

Obviously everyone's experience will vary but mine was pretty painless.
Bought a Canyon Grizl which comes tubeless ready. Rode it on the supplied tubes for a while and then switched to tubeless.
Took out the old tubes, fitted new valves, poured the sealant in, refitted the tyre and pumped it up with a track pump, done.

I spent a lot longer watching YouTube videos about how to do it than it took to do.

This is more like it! Given that the bike is brand new and tubeless ready as standard, I'm hoping that the process will be fairly painless barring the standard swearing and frustration of fitting tyres.

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

Thanks for all of the advice and tips, some of which I'd never have thought of! I've ordered some Stan's sealant, valves, and all the other stuff I might need (including spare inner tubes!), so I'll give it a go next week when it arrives.

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

JEA1K said:

If someone hasn't suggested it already, put tubes in the new tyres, mount and inflate and leave for a few days so that the tyres 'shape'. Mounting tubeless after removing the tubes 'should' be a little easier.

This is good news as the tyres came with tubes in them and are currently inflated. I'll leave them pumped up until it's tubeless time.

[Gin and Ultrasonic]

Just a happy ending(ish) post to say that I managed to get the tyres set up tubeless really easily. The tyres seated with a normal track pump inflated at a fairly leisurely pace. Indeed, I had to pop them off and re-inflate them because it seemed too easy.

Only mechanic mistake I made was to tighten the valve core one too many turns and it unscrewed the whole valve, so I I had to start again.

This wasn't the biggest waste of sealant though* as I later received my karma from the god of tyre changes for it all being too easy.

• in a scene that would have been cut from Frank Spencer's interview for a Halford mechanic's job for being too unrealistic, I dropped the sealant lid down the middle of the pile of summer tyres I was using as a bike wheel rest. Obviously it landed on the floor, so I had to take the top tyre off to reach it. Once retrieved I proceeded to replace the tyre at the top of the pile, inadvertently knocking the bar stool I was using to rest the (now topless) sealant bottle on. The bottle obviously fell over on the stool, but not handily onto the garage floor, but instead just sat there spurting sealant towards the floor like an elephants c**shot.

And guess who had placed their new bike, upside down, on the floor right next to this, and could only watch in horror as the sealant poured directly into the underside of the shifters, whilst splashing the brake discs on the way down for good measure? Yeah, that was me! 10 minutes of bumping the bike to get sealant out of the shifters, and a full wipe down of the bike that took as long as the tubeless conversion, it's hopefully not done any lasting damage. I'll find out tomorrow on its maiden voyage hopefully!