Good Riddance to Rim Tape

[robt57]

Originally Posted by Bici-Sonora

Your post reminded me of seeing those ropes for the first time and wondering what crazy person installed them.

My first experience was seeing electric tape over the rope. Presumably the 'quick' flat fix as the rope rotted over the rusting nipples.

[Bici-Sonora]

I'm for sure thinking of the benefits of solid rim beds from the perspective of the end user rather than the wheel builder. Your system looks great and really fast--I built a fair number of wheels at the shops I worked at in the 80s-90s (Mavic MA40s and then Open pros were my favorite rims to build if that lets you know how long ago) on account of the double eyelets and out of the box roundness which sped up the building.

It would be interesting to see what tricks Light Bicycles and Farsports use in a production setting. In addition to having the steel stubs pre-threaded in the nipples, I wonder if they use something like a star shaped (with 20,24,28 points) template with magnets at each spoke hole to pull the nipples into place quickly?Or, some other tool/trick we are missing?

I can't imagine they do them one at a time loose on a work bench like the video shows, but maybe they do? As BikeTrike suggests, perhaps it's just cheap labor?

Originally Posted by RudAwkning

Holy crap. That seems like a nightmare for a wheel builder. Give me 2 wraps of DT rim tape and a Wheel Fanatyik nipple inserter and shuffler/tray and I'm good.

[bmeryman]

In case anyone plans to stick it out and use tubeless tape, I highly recommend Whisky brand tubeless tape. It's a bit stretchier than WTB or Stans, so it's a lot easier to apply in a uniform way.

I haven't tried the kapton tape though - maybe I'll give that a try next time. Nice that it's a fair bit cheaper though; "bicycle specific" tape has always been silly expensive.

[Bici-Sonora]

Originally Posted by bmeryman

In case anyone plans to stick it out and use tubeless tape, I highly recommend Whisky brand tubeless tape. It's a bit stretchier than WTB or Stans, so it's a lot easier to apply in a uniform way.

I haven't tried the kapton tape though - maybe I'll give that a try next time. Nice that it's a fair bit cheaper though; "bicycle specific" tape has always been silly expensive.

I like the Whisky tape too—but it’s as expensive as most of the other “bike specific” stuff. Analog cycles sells some bulk rolls for cheap: https://analogcycles.com/collections/tubeless


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[fourflys]

a slight thread drift, but anyone used the Continental rim strip on tubed wheels? As many, I've had super hard times trying to mount Conti and a few other tire brands to DT Swiss or Campy rims that have the Velox rim tape... the Conti rim strips seem super thin and are sized for internal rim width...
https://blobs.continental-tires.com/...ip-en-data.png