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Never seen a wheel like this before - rim tape advice

1K views 3 replies 3 participants last post by  Greg Smalter 
#1 ·
To be fair, I haven't seen many wheels. All the wheels I've dealt with have really been racing/road bike wheels that have holes on the inside of the room and the spoke fastener is below the grade. The rim tape covers the holes.

I just got a flat on my commuter bike and its rim is quite different. Every spoke has a flat-head screw protruding above the grade of the interior rim surface (picture attached).

Typically the first flat I get with a wheel I will replace the rim tape with Velox. In this case I'm not sure what to do - I almost want to put Velox over the existing rim tape. Or, I could remove the old stuff and use Velox or just do nothing.

I did go a year without a flat on this wheel. Also, the flat was a blow-out (sounded like a gunshot). I did not find any evidence of the tire being penetrated.
 

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#3 ·
Every spoke has a flat-head screw protruding above the grade of the interior rim surface (picture attached).
Those are not flat head screws. Those are the spoke nipples. Standard low cost rim. All you need is appropriate rim strip that will not shred in contact with the nipples. Stiff plastic rim strips are probably not a good choice, but Velox will work fine. So will the cheap rubber rim strips that typically are installed with this type of rim.
 
#4 ·
I left it alone, and the new tube blew out too. Turned out to be the sidewall that was the problem. For future reference, a loud gun-shot blowout of the tube is a tell-tale sign of a sidewall problem (according to my LBS, who without looking at it was right about every guess they had in this situation). I couldn't see a problem with the tire until I pumped it up to 40 psi and then I could see a small section of the sidewall had failed.
 
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