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I am considering going tubeless with a set of snowflake wheels. If I do go the tubeless route, I need a valve stem since the tube will not be present. What kind of stem should be used and where can I obtain the stem?

AAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ah, now don't you go worrying about the Major, Twist.
He just needs a bit of a rest. Maybe a change in the meds. Anyway, we'll have him back, propped up and grinning in no time. Now, what was your question again?

Good one Charlie, I think we need to send someone around to check on him, it sounds like he fell off a ladder!

I have a right angle 'steel' tubeless valve for my rear. It has a flange on the outside and two nuts on the inside.
Good and solid, no alteration to rim.
I bought it from a local bike shop.
No leaks .

I have yet to go tubeless on the front.

Almost any MC tubeless intended valve stem of this type will work:


The stem is nothing special, and if you would rather, then buy a similar item from BMW for more $$$ ...

You may want to a bit of filing on the flakes to give the valves a good flat place to seal.

Airbear wrote:Ah, now don't you go worrying about the Major, Twist.
He just needs a bit of a rest. Maybe a change in the meds. Anyway, we'll have him back, propped up and grinning in no time. Now, what was your question again?

Airbear, you have a bit of a mean streak in you, methinks.

Twist, if it isn't already obvious, the discussion about going tubless on snowflake rims is a long and sometimes heated discussion that has been done here on Boxerworks a few times. Two very articulate posters here (vanzen and Rob Frankham) have both presented some well thought out arguments, vanzen being "fer" and Rob Frankham being "agin". Both sides cite safety as the prime, and perhaps overriding concern.

At the risk of completely misrepresenting each argument, Rob regards going tubless on snowflake rims as both foolish and dangerous. The core of his argument is that the snowflake rims don't have a "safety bead" which is designed to keep the tire on the wheel in the event of sudden loss of air pressure. With the tire flopping around on the wheel, you have very little if any control. And that's damn dangerous!

Vanzen's point of view is that a tube is much less likely to undergo sudden deflation than a tubeless tire. A tube, once punctured, tends to split or tear and suddenly you have a massive deflation. With a tubeless tire run tubeless you at least have the chance of a slow leak developing rather than a sudden total deflation--which is essentially a blowout.

I personally enjoyed the argument and made it a point to understand it as well as I can. I have personally come into alignment with vanzen's point of view. But for me it's mostly moot since I do most of my riding on spoked wheels or the later "Y" spoked wheels of the monolever and paralever bikes.


Ken

The snowflake wheels were never designed for tubeless.
PERIOD. There's no debate about it.
MAYBE someone has pulled it off, but it makes for a very unsafe motorcycle.
Even if you are silly enough to want to try it, you will need to have the stem hole machined to a larger size and have it squared to accept the stem. iirc

wirewrkr wrote:The snowflake wheels were never designed for tubeless.
PERIOD. There's no debate about it.
MAYBE someone has pulled it off, but it makes for a very unsafe motorcycle.
Even if you are silly enough to want to try it, you will need to have the stem hole machined to a larger size and have it squared to accept the stem. iirc

So wirewrkr, have you read vanzen's ideas on the subject? He does put together a well thought out counter argument. If you're familiar with his argument, where do you think he went wrong?

Ken

Ken, I have read both points of view, over and over again. I wanted to know about the stem provided by Vanzen. I know that there needs to be little modification and BMW has a valve stem but wanted the alternate idea. I am considering the tubeless. I understand both points of view and now I have to make up my mind which way I want to go.

twist wrote:Ken, I have read both points of view, over and over again. I wanted to know about the stem provided by Vanzen. I know that there needs to be little modification and BMW has a valve stem but wanted the alternate idea. I am considering the tubeless. I understand both points of view and now I have to make up my mind which way I want to go.

Actually twist, I was addressing a comment by wirewkr, not something you said. If you re-read my post you will see it was wirewkr's statement that I quoted. I was hoping to discover what led him to his case-closed conclusion. I'm not married to vanzen's point of view and maybe there's something I need to consider. But a case-closed statement doesn't particularly move me.


Ken