I just saw a video on yt where a guy claims his cycle has tubeless tyres and then goes on to fix its puncture by removing the tube from tyre. so is tubeless a misnomer? how do they remain inflated?
In: Engineering
A tubeless tyre has nothing other than the tyre and the wheel and they seal together to create an airtight space.
A tubed tyre has a separate inner tube that holds the air and keeps the tyre inflated.
A very good example is a pushbike wheel with spokes, because it has loads of holes in the rim it **needs** an innertube to hold in the air and to keep inflated.
A Car wheel without spokes has NO holes through it so it can create a chamber with the tire to hold the air in.
A tubeless tyre works the same way as a car tyre, it makes a seal around the rim with friction
The traditional bicycle wheel is made up of a rigid rim, with a flexible tyre around the outside. Inside the tyre there is an inner tube – basically a donut shaped balloon that can be inflated. This pushes out the tyre so that it holds its shape rather than flopping around.
A tubeless tyre on a bike is one where the inner tube isn’t needed – they make the tyre and rim in such a way as to be able to seal together and hold pressure themselves.
From the outside it isn’t necessarily obvious how a wheel is setup – it is quite possible to have a tyre and rim that can be setup to run tubeless, but to not bother and use an inner tube anyway if you want. Similarly you will often see riders recommending that you always carry a spare inner tube even if you ride tubeless, as if you damage a tubeless tyre in a way that cannot easily be repaired, you can convert it to a traditional wheel as simply as just putting an inner tube inside it.
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