Possible big problems with tubless rims on 450

[Luka]

Hi guys

Did some research and I cancelled my kamet white tubeless order which is coming in a few days.
I will probably pick up Hanle black with standard wheels (which are manufactured by Japanese Excel, you could say best Spoke wheels on the market)

Tubeless wheels on Himalayan are manufactured by Spanish Akront (not a bad company, one of the best for tubeless spoked wheels)

But when I see all the problems with Ducati Desert X, Tuareg 660, Africa Twin...all of them have same design tubeless wheels it doesn't look good. All of the bikes on the pictures are relatively low miles, some driven on terrain and some only on road.
There aren't enough Tubeless Himalayans sold in Europe and I do plan riding it off-road so this is a no go for me sadly.

What do you think about this topic ?

 

[Roy Gavin]

The tubeless rims on my BMW R100 GS didn't hold air either.
No punctures so far in 80,000 km on the Hima, two nail punctures in 250,000 km In the tubes I had to fit in the Beemer, both fixed with a pressure pack, so I wouldnt fret about tubeless

 

[Acedoc]

That’s a shame !was looking forwards to getting the tubeless rims. Slime it is then

 

[LIGuy]

Is it my understanding that you all are talking about tubeless tires on the new Himmy??
Well I just saw on at my local dealer and it sure as heck didn't have tubeless spoked wheels that's for sure

 

[Acedoc]

You are looking at your base variant of Kaza brown - RE is selling the black and white with tubeless spoked rims abroad, they couldn’t get homologation permission in India - I was about to order them from UK but even they are not arriving in a likely time frame.
Now this feedback about breaking rims

 

[Mark H]

Someone has just posted on the Royal Enfield Owner UK Facebook group about having a leaking front tubeless rim that looks like its going to be a drawn out warranty claim due to spares availability. (OP identity removed from screen shot) I’m guessing that spare tubeless wheels aren’t currently available due to the need for RE to use all available wheels to meet the demand for the delayed tubeless equipped new bike orders to be fulfilled.

 

[Alan F.]

A sharp new file and 20 minutes of patience will get that nut off.

 

[Acedoc]

A Dremel would be faster

 

[Alan F.]

A Dremel would be faster

Yes but you would only need one file and no respirator.

 

[Roy Gavin]

And you woul have to use about $15- worth of disks if you used Dremel ones!

 

[Carl 350]

A Dremel would be faster

A nut splitter faster still.

.

 

[Alan F.]

Maybe so, but I did get that swingarm nut off without damaging anything else. They're only original once.

 

[Jaime72]

I guess I'd want to know more to the story about the photos of the "failed" tubeless spoked. How many are on the road? What is the actual failure rate of the total number on the road? Guess what, any yahoo can pretty easily destroy any rim. What caused that failure? Did the owner say "wife only and tarmac miles?" I wouldn't jump on the "spoked tubeless is shit!" bandwagon without knowning/seeing more.

 

[Andyb]

This thread made me have a look at the cross spoked tubeless wheels on my 1992 BMWR100R. I have never had any problems with these and have used this type of wheel for +120,000 miles on two bikes. I am unaware of any BMW recalls on them either - so BMW quality must be better than RE. Except that the 32 year old wheels on my bike were made in Spain by Akront!
Maybe Akront could charge BMW more so used better materials?
The only noticeable difference is that my rims are plain unanodised alloy while the ones RE use are anodised and the anodising process might harden the alloy and promote cracking?

 

[Acedoc]

Re has allowed the configurator to add these to new bikes - only diff is 110 pounds or so. I spoke to RE dealers in UK and they were quoting 400 pounds for a set.
could be the price factor or may be different supplier

 

[Luka]

Just to clarify Pictures are Honda Africa twin and Rims are DID
But design is the same. We should see, but I think Himalayan will be good. It's a much lighter bike with less power

 

[Alan F.]

Just to clarify Pictures are Honda Africa twin and Rims are DID

Wait, what?

 

[Luka]

Wait, what?

Picture attached are Rims from Honda Africa Twin and Ducati desert X.
That's why I wrote there could be problems with Himalayan rims because design/patent is completely the same. We should see how it copes when more people start riding Tubless Himalayans offroad.
But considering Royal Enfield started selling Tubeless rims separately yesterday it could be possible to have Tubeless rear and Tubed front. That would be good combo.

 

[Andyb]

As I said above, BMW used Akront cross spoked tubeless rims without problems on their heavier and more powerful Airheads in the 1990s, and many of those bikes are still in use +30 years later………So the design is well proven.

 

[Roy Gavin]

My R100GS tubeless rims were leaking when I bought it at 100,000 km, new tires fitted before sale by the only BMW dealer for 800 km. Actually part exchange for a F650 GS which was still under warranty but no one could get running, and they took back!
The actual design does not get past wheel building 101 so they cannot be trued without stripping the wheel , usually cutting the spokes to do so, re drilling the spoke holes and then reassembling in a heavy duty wheel building gig which holds the rim securely in place during assembly as no adjustment is possible after assembly if you have the spokes at the correct torque.
So the design is a proven failure, and all but your bike will be running tubes by now, usually on rebuilt wheels.