Stan's Dead, Jim

I was airing up the tires on my gravel bike before a ride and one of them exploded. I had an idea what the issue might be. After pulling the tire I was right: the Stan's rim strip failed. It had rotted and split due to old age.

If you don't remember these, I don't blame you. Back in olden times when tubeless was just hitting the scene, we used these strips to convert non-tubeless rims. They looked like this:

My Deore XT/Mavic TN719 wheels date back to 2011 and they were used on various mountain bikes until I built the gravel bike in 2018. With an internal width of 19mm, they are narrow even by modern gravel standards.

One of the reasons I used this method over rim tape in 2018 was the Mavic TN719 rims are drilled for Schrader valves but used a plastic insert for Presta.

There was no way to seal a presta tubeless valve against the rim due to the split in the adapter. Here is the doodad removed:

I tried to find replacement strips, but they have pretty much gone extinct, especially in the narrow size I needed. Then it occurred to me there was a more modern solution for these very old rims.

I was already using Schrader tubeless valves on a couple bikes, so I decided to give it a go on the gravel wheels.

With a new layer of DT Swiss tape and valves installed, the old tires mounted up OK. Since the tires are well over seven years old and likely stretched out a bit, it took a little work, but not much. The increased airflow of Schrader valves certainly helped them seat.

These tires really need to be replaced, but I was hesitant to remove them because I knew the Stan's strips were likely to fall apart if I did. Now that I have a solution, I will look for some new tires.

Later.