Tour de Tech: Going Tubeless at the Tour
So what’s up with tubeless tires these days? A fair amount, actually. There are now three teams riding tubeless road tires at the Tour de France. As in the past, teams that have both Mavic and Hutchinson as sponsors are in a position to use them, but now, teams that have both Shimano as a wheel sponsor and Hutchinson tires could ride them as well. Shimano, it seems has joined the group of companies sharing the technology and working together on the project. That group is now Shimano, Mavic, Hutchinson and Michelin, but no Michelin-sponsored teams are racing on them. Mavic’s Chris Zigmont
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By Lennard Zinn
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So what’s up with tubeless tires these days?
A fair amount, actually. There are now three teams riding tubeless road tires at the Tour de France.
As in the past, teams that have both Mavic and Hutchinson as sponsors are in a position to use them, but now, teams that have both Shimano as a wheel sponsor and Hutchinson tires could ride them as well. Shimano, it seems has joined the group of companies sharing the technology and working together on the project.
That group is now Shimano, Mavic, Hutchinson and Michelin, but no Michelin-sponsored teams are racing on them. Mavic’s Chris Zigmont says it has a lot to do with Michelin’s conservative approach to technical issues.
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“Michelin takes a perfectionist attitude and won’t let them be used in races until all of the bugs are worked out,” Zigmont said. “Hutchinson is a bit more uhhh… loosey-goosey and willing to try things in races.”
Zigmont said the road rims are shaped quite like their UST mountain counterparts, but added that there were still concerns regarding the width of the “rim valley” and whether it is wide enough for mounting the tires.
“Well, that is exactly the problem,” he said. “The tires work great, but they are very hard to mount and only pro mechanics with the tools and ability to do it are mounting them. They really can’t be sold to the public yet.”
As for the ride, it is supposed to be great; Zigmont says that riders using them really like them. Hutchinson’s Adam Micklin explains the improved cornering performance and reduced rolling resistance over clinchers based on greater suppleness of the casing by virtue of not having an inner tube adding to the stiffness of the tire and scrubbing energy from it when moving independently of the tire. Micklin also claims that a flat tire is less catastrophic because it leaks down more slowly and because it is locked to the rim and can’t come off the rim when riding it flat.
The teams using the Hutchinson tubeless tires in the Tour are Saeco and Brioches La Boulangére, on Mavic wheels, and R.A.G.T. Semences-MG Rover on Shimano wheels.
The photos here show R.A.G.T. rider Frédéric Finot’s rear Shimano tubeless wheel and Hutchinson tire. You might notice that each spoke is surrounded by a reinforced area on the rim. There is a square-drive nipple at the hub and a spline-drive nipple at the rim.
Perhaps the rim reinforcements are welded-on threaded inserts for the splined nipples, which could be threaded on the outside similar to Mavic Ksyrium nipples. They could screw into the reinforcements and eliminate the need for a through-hole in the inner rim wall and consequent air leakage problems. Zigmont would not comment on Shimano’s design, and I have not talked to Shimano about it.
Apparently Shimano is in now accord with the other three companies on the mountain bike side as well or it is at least making mountain bike wheels to accept UST tires without being part of the UST group.
“That’s all worked out,” Zigmont said. “We have come to an agreement. That’s about all I will say.”
