Share the Wisdom Wednesdays (on Thursdays): Part Two

Week two already of  Share the Wisdom Wednesdays (on Thursdays)?  Maybe I'll make it to three...

Anyways.

Setting up tires tubeless.  I've had to resort to every trick in the book over my fourteen years of piddling with it.  My first tubeless experience was back in 2001, when on the Friday night before Memorial Day weekend, I had THE STAN KOZIATEK standing in my garage covered in his own juice... both of our ears ringing, wrangling with a Continental Survivor Pro and a Sun DS1 rim. 

Oh, those were the days.  I often wonder if Stan remembers.  He wasn't THE Stan yet, and I was still not THE Dick even.  If I were to ever fall in love with an older man... it would probably be Kevin Costner.

But if he turned me down, Stan is next on the list.

This has a point.  Since that fateful night in my garage, I've tried every tubeless setup enabler that I've read about on the forums.  Building up the rim bed with more tape, the application of soap or bead wax, pinching the tire all around, holding the wheel off the ground, inserting/inflating a tube to get one bead in place before final inflation... pretty sure I've done it all.

The best thing I've ever done is buy a compressor.  A long time back, Jerry the Cat had told me that every man needs a compressor.  I don't think he was being misogynistic in his statement.  I think he meant "man" as in "not beast," as a yak or platypus would have limited use for such a tool.  It took me years to figure out that I should just buy one, and since its acquisition, it's been put to use in more ways than I can remember.  I love blowing dirty bearing grease out... into my eye.  Life is good.

But unfortunately, I still have issues from time to time.

I even do the whole "remove the valve core and inflate with the rubber nozzled blow gun" in order to get more air in more faster for more better more good.

The other night, it wasn't happening.  Multiple attempts.  Squeezy tire thing tried.  I never got around to making the webbing strap I planned on creating months ago.  Way too late to try go through the hassle of adding a layer of tape (which I've told myself to do over and over and over)... what to do?

Then the solution dawned on me.  I removed the rubber tip from the blow gun, and wouldn't you know it?  The threaded hole fits right over the presta valve.  The first attempt was a fail, as the air escaped because the fit was loose, but then I remembered the bag of o-rings I collected from the gutter on 3rd street (an entire case of assorted o-rings had fallen off a contractor's truck).  Found the right size...

(valve core still inserted as I was too lazy to remove it for this dramatic reenactment)

and voila!

The air flow was fantastic, and despite the loose fit, it inflated like I had filled it with ether and lit it on fire.


Maybe you already have the perfect rim/tire combos and don't have need for such a tip.  Perhaps friends don't show up at your house with folded kevlar beaded tires under their arms and wheels in hand (and usually no Stan's juice of their own).  Your life is perfect.  You probably never have to hide your Stan's, lest someone ask to "borrow" it.

But if you occasionally have to deal with the demons of a difficult setup, and don't wanna pace around the room murmuring expletives, controlling your urge to just take a blow torch to the whole thing...

This works pretty damn well.

Wow.  Two weeks straight with a theme.  I feel like I have a purpose more than just "don't gain excessive weight" right now.  It feels like hugging myself.