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Just got a pair of Tubeless clincher rims.  I ride in So Cal so no snow or heavy mud. Any suggestions on good cross tires.  Mostly ride Aliso Creek, Irvine Lake and  on grass in local cross races.  Suggestions?   My Tufo's are warning down.

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which rims did you get? the michelin mud makes a good conversion tire, and the kenda kommando and vittoria xg also convert well. the stans raven tire is fast and high volume - good unless you have a lot of loose surfaces where you need a ton of traction.

be sure to see CXM's many articles on tubeless.

good luck!
Personally I only go with a tubeless specific tire; Hutchinson Bulldog or Piranha
The Hutchinson tires are great tubeless with a Stans rim, but not reliable as conversions or with road tubeless rims. Other tires, with tighter beads, are better conversion targets, despite not being designated tubeless ready.

Which rims did you get Troy? Unless you have the Stans rim tire choice matters quite a bit.

Hutchinson is changing their bead - we're looking forward to testing that.
I have Shimano Ultegra 6700 Tubless Clincher rims. On the Hutchinson what is the difference between Bulldog and Piranha. Are they designated for front and rear use? How wide? I have 700x30 Tufo's now but they are a little worn. Raced on Continental Twisters the other night in a local mtb race the worked okay for soft dirt but sketchy on hard surfaces and cornering.
Hey Troy,

that's a good road tubeless rim but it's not great as is for 'cross tubeless. to get it too work well you'll need a strip or several layers of tape and a tighter bead rim, like a michelin, panaracer, kenda, vittoria or stans tire.

piranha is more of a semi-slick. they are listed as 34c tires and run truer than most to actual width.
Troy, what is your experience with the 6700's? Personally I purchased these wheels a few months ago and mounted Bulldog's with a little stan's sealant. Just to test them out for this cross season I have beat the hell out of them in local MTB races and they have been fine, so I plan to use them this cx season.

Secondly, my brother works for Hutchinson and he says that Hutchinson tires, both road and cx are specified for Shimano tubeless wheels, for example the 6700's or the 7850's. I know of a few people that have used this setup last year with no problems. So I am wondering if your statement about the 6700's being only a good road wheel is based on an opinion or some kind of industry fact?

Persoanlly, I would avoid any situation where you have to build up the rim with tape. It seems that the cleaner/less material the better.
Although I'm not Troy, I rode the Hutchinson tires with the 7850s and Alex tubeless road wheels and suffered a lot of burping. The Redline team had similar problems, and folks at Shimano and Hutchinson and several shops have all admitted to us there being a lot of room for improvement, whether that's the Shimano blue tape, a new bead, a stan's strip, etc. There's a reason Redline doesn't even spec the Hutchinson tires anymore.

You can certainly get this combination to be burp-free, just not at the low pressures that make tubeless beneficial. I can ride inner tubes at lower pressure more reliably than I could with the road (Shimano/Alex/Hutchinson) tubeless setup. We have not tried the new carbon bead and will shortly, and are interested in seeing if that will be tighter. It's not bead stiffness that's the issue on the current tires - it's that it's loose. Road tubeless was designed for high pressure and works great. But low pressure has different demands and it's really hard to design a system that works well for both. The Hutchinson tire mounts pretty easily on a road tubeless rim without tools (it needs to, since the bead is stiff to not flex at high pressure) - and that's a bad sign for cyclocross. Mr. President had a hell of a time getting them on a Stans rim, and that's a good sign. That's why that setup is more reliable.

I've done a ton of experimentation, and can definitely say whatever material you use, whether tape, rubber, stans strip, etc., if it helps make the bead tighter to the rim, there's less chance of burping. If at 22 psi you can burp it with your hand by squeezing the sides of the tire, it's going to be susceptible to burping in riding conditions.

From Cyclocross Magazine's Tubeless part III article:
This may also be the one downside to the road tubeless system when applied to cyclocross. The Hutchinson tires’ road tubeless bead is designed to be very stiff so that it will not blow off the rim under the high pressures required by road tire. As a result, it’s likely the safest choice for a high-pressure cyclocross tubeless tire, and may be the only safe choice for tubeless if you often ride your ‘cross bike with ‘cross tires on the road (at the high pressures of road tires, you never want to try to convert a conventional tire because its bead will stretch).

But the whole goal is to ride lower pressures without flatting, right? Our experience has been that because the road tubeless bead is so stiff, it has a slightly looser fit in order to fit over the sidewall of a rim without stretching and without requiring tools.


I admire Hutchinson and Shimano for introducing tubeless to 'cross. Hopefully with a few iterations it'll be reliable for everyone at low pressure.
Sorry for the name mix up Andrew. Thanks for the great info. The difference for me then is that so many races I did last year were in dry-fast conditions so I ran 40lbs. much of the time and didn't have the burping problem. Thanks again, Royce
Good info, I wish I'd read this stuff before I built my wheels and bought tires. I have some Piranhas that I was planning to use with Velocity A23 rims. If I use Stans strips, and maybe add an additional layer of Velox or something, to make the beads quite tight, am I likely to be able to run fairly low pressures? I'm 180 lb, so I probably can't go too low without denting the rims, anyway.
hey david,

well, if you want to use your piranhas (assume that they are the older bead) I think you'll need to make the bead tighter. a rubber rim strip that fills the entire rim, or a stan's strip, should be good. not a big fan of velox in that situation - just because the cloth seems to absorb sealant - but i could be wrong about that - maybe it's polyester but I thought there's some cotton in there.

anyway, hutchinson has a new carbon bead in their cyclocross tires, both the bulldog and the piranha. from what we can tell, it seems to be an improvement. stay tuned for our full review online shortly. note, the profile is "optimized" for road tubeless rims...

try some type of rubber strip, sealant, and start at 30psi and go down from there. the hand and burp test should be a good proxy unless you have super strong or weak hands. post back what you end up doing and how it works out!
I assume that they're the new Piranhas, and the sidewalls say Tubeless Ready on them. The beads look like my Hutchinson road tubeless tires. I can pick up the Stan's Cyclocross strip kit locally, but with these wider A23 rims, I was thinking I might need the 29er rim strip kit. I'm not sure how much the strip is supposed to extend up the inner sidewalls. Any ideas?

I'd like to run a 28 mm or wider tubeless road tire on these for winter training, too, but I'm not aware of any. The Hutchinson Intensives aren't very wide, or durable.
it's hard to tell the new bead. i couldn't just by looking at it. it's materials only. there's a few minor differences in printing/imprinting but only hutchinson probably knows the way to tell. I'll see if I can find out.

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