How to seat a tubeless tire

A tubeless tire makes an airtight seal (or seats) into the lip around the edge of the rim. This seal replaces the need for an innertube inside the tire. It is actually the air that is keeping enough pressure on the tire to keep it in place on the rim and airtight. The trick is to get a good enough temporary seal that you can add air and push the inside edges of the tire firmly against the rim and make it airtight (AKA seating the tire).

You'll need; 3 feet of rope, dish soap/water, air compressor with tire valve.


Add dish soap all around the area between the rim and the tire. Now add a LITTLE water, and rub the seam between the two. This will loosen the soap up a little, and get it to run into any smaller holes not sealed by undiluted soap.

Tie a slip knot in rope and wrap it around the middle of the tread and pull REAL tight. Squeezing the tire around the middle should force the edges out, pushing them towards the rim's lip.

Put the air compressor on the tire valve and hit it with a firm blast of air. Hopefully this will pop the sides out, and start inflating the tire. Remove the rope, and inflate to desired PSI.
If it doesn't seal, locate where the air is escaping from (should be able to see it in the soap/water making bubbles), and tighten the rope (forcing the sides out further) and add more soap to that area. You can also try hitting the tread portion near the leak with a rubber mallet. This will rapidly increase the tire pressure, pushing the edges towards the rim tighter.
If you can't find the air leak, try tightening the rope, and adding more soap around both sides (entire seam) and try the air compressor again.


After your tires inflated, clean the soap residue off of the tire. The soap leaves your tire real slick, so don't set your bike down (unless you want to repaint your whole bike to match your wheels)! In addition to a good wash down, run the bike for a little while and wear off the soap on the tire before trying any hard cornering.