Tubeless or tubes, and do you need rim tape?

Close-up of a carbon rim on a black background, the tyre bed and rim wall in view

Every wheelset here is hooked and tubeless-ready, so you can run either. Tubeless is the better setup for most riders on most roads. Tubes are simpler, cheaper to start, and nothing to be ashamed of.

What tubeless actually buys you

Three things, in the order they matter:

  • Small punctures seal themselves. The sealant closes a thorn or a glass cut while you keep riding. Most of the time you find out later, from the little dried spot on the tyre.
  • No pinch flats. There is no tube to trap against the rim, so hitting an edge hard costs you a dent in your confidence rather than a roadside repair.
  • Lower pressure without penalty. That is where the comfort comes from, and on a 24 mm internal rim with a 28 mm tyre it is a meaningful drop.

What it costs you is an afternoon the first time, sealant that dries out and needs topping up every few months, and a messier roadside repair on the rare failure a sealant cannot close.

Hooked, and why that is the easy answer

These rims are a hook design. A hooked rim holds the tyre bead with a lip, which is the arrangement tyres have been built around for decades — so you are not checking a compatibility list before you buy a tyre, and you are not bound by the tighter pressure ceilings a hookless rim imposes.

Hookless rims are lighter and cheaper to make and they work, but they narrow what you may fit and how hard you may inflate it. Hooked takes that question off the table.

Rim tape, and the S series

Normally a tubeless rim needs tape over the spoke holes in the rim bed, because those holes would let air straight out. Tape is the part of a tubeless setup that goes wrong most often: too narrow, applied over dust, or nicked by a tyre lever, and the wheel will not hold air for reasons you cannot see.

The S series has no spoke holes in the rim bed at all. Farsports builds it with a sealed bed, so there is nothing to tape over. That removes the step and the most common way a tubeless setup leaks.

The C series and both EVO families use a conventional drilled bed, so they take tape in the usual way.

What you need either way

For tubeless: a tubeless-ready tyre, tubeless valves, sealant, and tape unless you are on the S series. A floor pump will seat most modern tyres on a hooked rim; an air canister or a tubeless pump makes the stubborn ones painless.

For tubes: a tube. That is the whole list, and it is a fair reason to start there and convert later. Nothing about the wheel has to change.

Carry a tube anyway

Even running tubeless. A gash the sealant cannot close is rare, and when it happens the fix is to pull the valve, put a tube in and ride home. A tube and a lever weigh nothing and turn the one bad day into a twenty-minute delay.

Before the tyres, the wheel

Tubeless is a decision you make after the wheel. The ones that come first: which rim depth, carbon or steel spokes, and which freehub your bike takes.

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Still asked

Can I start with tubes and switch to tubeless later?

Yes, and plenty of people should. The wheel is ready either way — converting later means buying valves, sealant and tape (or no tape on the S series) and spending an afternoon on it. Nothing about the wheel has to be changed or sent anywhere.

How often does sealant need topping up?

Every few months, sooner in a dry summer. It dries out whether you ride or not, and a tyre with no wet sealant left is just a tubeless tyre with no protection — it will still hold air, it simply will not seal a cut. Check it when you change your tyres and you will rarely be caught out.

What pressure should I run?

Lower than you think, and lower than you would with tubes. A 24 mm internal rim holds a 28 mm tyre out wide, and wide tyres want less pressure — most riders on 28s land somewhere in the 4 to 5 bar range depending on weight and road. Start there, drop until the bike feels vague in corners, then come back up a little.

Does tubeless need a special tyre?

Yes — it needs a tubeless-ready tyre, which almost every performance road tyre now is. A tyre that is not tubeless-ready has a casing that will weep sealant. Check the sidewall or the box; the manufacturers all label it.