Genuine Innovations Tubeless Ready Kit - Review
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![Genuine Innovations Tubeless Ready Kit-reviewed-2014]()
Genuine Innovations, the folks who revolutionized racing with the first useful CO2 inflation devices for cyclists, have assembled all the necessary ingredients for converting a wheel to tubeless into one handy package. The Genuine Innovations Tubeless Ready Kit comes with two threaded 20-gram CO2 cartridges, a Microflate Nano inflation device, a pair of valve stems with removable cores, one Schrader-to-Presta adapter, an eight-ounce bottle of Slime Pro sealant, a pair of plastic tire levers, a tiny valve-core wrench, a measuring cup, and a roll of one-inch Gorilla Tape. The tape and sealant can prepare four wheels for tubeless conversion, while the included stems and cartridges will get two of them up and running if all goes well. The kit, which is trimmed out in Slime green, also offers instructions in a number of languages and costs around $59.99 at bike shops.
Genuine Innovations
![Genuine Innovations Tubeless Ready Kit-reviewed-2014]()
Pinkbike's Take:
Genuine Innovations put all the items you will need to get a tubeless-ready wheelset converted and sealed into one package.
Genuine Innovations, the folks who revolutionized racing with the first useful CO2 inflation devices for cyclists, have assembled all the necessary ingredients for converting a wheel to tubeless into one handy package. The Genuine Innovations Tubeless Ready Kit comes with two threaded 20-gram CO2 cartridges, a Microflate Nano inflation device, a pair of valve stems with removable cores, one Schrader-to-Presta adapter, an eight-ounce bottle of Slime Pro sealant, a pair of plastic tire levers, a tiny valve-core wrench, a measuring cup, and a roll of one-inch Gorilla Tape. The tape and sealant can prepare four wheels for tubeless conversion, while the included stems and cartridges will get two of them up and running if all goes well. The kit, which is trimmed out in Slime green, also offers instructions in a number of languages and costs around $59.99 at bike shops.
Genuine Innovations
Gorilla Tape is a proven winner for sealing rims. The one-inch tape in the kit can seal up to four rims, up to 24mm internal width. Slime's Pro tubeless sealant (right) could plug small pinholes, but did a poor job of plugging anything else.
Pinkbike's Take:
 | Adding up all the bits that come with Genuine Innovations' Tubeless Ready Kit reveals that its initially shocking $60 MSRP is actually a decent value for first-timers who do not have anything in their toolboxes to mount and seal a tubeless ready wheel. The one-inch wide Gorilla tape will handily seal four 29-inch rims and PB's experience with the stuff says that it is both long-lasting and reliable. The Microflate Nano device, paired with a 20-gram CO2 cartridge is a wasteful method of inflating a tire, but often, a blast of gas will get a stubborn tire mounted when a floor pump has failed. The inflation device is Innovation's most reliable version and its twist-type valve can be throttled on or off as needed. We mounted some Kenda tires to Novatec Diablo wheels, happily discovering that the included valve stems sealed well and that the tires aired up by hand without the need for a burst of pressurized carbon dioxide - but that is where the fun ended. Two ounces of Slime's Pro sealant did little to keep the air inside the fully inflated and mounted tires. Dribbling out from normal sized pores in the tire's sidewalls and hissing from unknown places, the pretty green fluid required a number of re-inflations and enough shaking and rolling of the wheels to give the impression that we were auditioning for a primal dance troupe before it sealed the tires well enough to ride them. Even then, though, the tires never did not hold full pressure longer than two hours. Yes, we shook the fluid. Yes, the tires were well seated to the bead wells and yes, there were no holes larger than those that a sewing needle would make in the sidewalls. We were thinking that the Genuine Innovations' kit would be a perfect emergency pack to bring to the races or for road trips, but after imagining the headaches such a poor performance could cause, we'd have to recommend that readers purchase the necessary items in the kit separately in order to avoid the Slime Pro sealant altogether. - RC |
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didn't follow through with the MBA I see...
And you can mix your own sealant for way cheaper. Liquid latex mold builder compound is an obvious base to use, but there's also liquid latex floor sealer sold by the gallons that's pretty much ready to go. Oh Notubes says there's has fillers added, but that's part of the lie of marketing.
RE: fillers, a friend who does a home-brew sealant uses bits of nylon rope, run through a coffee grinder. I also heard that the little packs you get in products to absorb moisture (the ones that say "do not eat", duh) can be crushed and make an ideal filler.
using stuff made by other companies in your kit is not much of an innovation.
Considering that "no tubes" as a brand name, was created out of thin air, on the basis of other people's ideas that existed long before Stan came along and claimed them as his own.
Seems like you might be fixated on the benefits you've been told you are getting rather than looking for better solutions. Just saying...
@Gnarbar, that seems reasonable I can figure it giving a more fluid feel to the tyre.
But hey..... different strokes for different folks. If your setup works awesome for you, rock on!
The trails I ride are quite rocky and litered with all kind of thorns during the warmer months. On my last ride a friend suffered one puncture and a pinch flat and having to change tubes mid-ride was a bit of a hassle. I've riden both tubes and tubeless and I prefer the feeling of a tubeless tyre. Also I've had better luck with tubeless setups compared to ading sealant to a tube when it comes to dealing with punctures. I still believe that tubeless is the best solution if you don't have to change tyres very often.
The inflators are so anyone can instantly seat the bead and go out for a ride and work the sealant into the tire.
Salime has a version of their stuff sold in canadian tire store for cheap. Its stickier than stans and seem to seal better from my tests.
All went together first time, without any problems
And if you have ever built up a few too many layers, try pulling the bead off after it ripped through the tire. Almost cut my finger off once the whole damn bead ripped out. Took an hour and a half to get it off the rim.
that said tubes work fine most of the time.
I think it is $2.99 for a 1" roll from Home Depot.
Next stop - Dick's Sporting goods for a box of CO2 cartridges...I think it was $15 for a box of 15 (non-treaded, 12g...even if you need 2 for a large tire, your still ahead)
I'd rather save the coin and use it at the bike shop on real bike parts and tires.
come on man.