Swapping Tubeless

Enjoying the podcasts for years and the forum discussions are a great addition.

Jonathon recently mentioned he would swap out a tubeless tire for a race/event. I was starting to do this, more for storage over the winter, but would also want a newer or different tire occasionally but would later reuse the older tire.

I only tried this with one tire, and it was brutal to remove any dried sealant from the tire. It was easy removing sealant from the rim.

For winter storage I was thinking of getting a needle syringe and remove sealant so at least it would not dry in the tire, but would be nice to have a relatively easy way to swap tires. The syringe would keep the existing seal that has formed.

Any tips or suggestions?

Thanks for help.

It may depend on the type of sealant. I’ve mainly used Stan’s and Orange Seal on mountain bikes

Stan’s tends to clump up into a ball - so called “Stanimals” that are easy to pull out. Orange Seal tends to form more of a rubbery coating inside the rim. It can be a bit tougher to remove but you really don’t need to get every out. Some coating on the inside of the tire might actually be beneficial.

If I pop a tire that still has a lot of wet sealant, you can suck it up in a syringe and then reuse some of it. Otherwise I just use an old tower to wipe out the excess and clean things up. I then through the old towel out.

Take tyres off, hosepipe round the empty tyre and don’t worry about the dried up stuff on the inside. It does no harm.