light weight 29er ust tires?

fluffypanda said:

i'm building up a new 29er, and i was wondering if anyone could recommend a light ust tire. if possible i'd like to avoid ghetto tubeless/stans rim strips, since it was a ***** to set up on my 26 in.

looking for something fast rolling on the back kenda sb 8 like, and something knobby on the front wtb weirwolf like

bontrager 29-3 maybe? i saw that those weighed in at 575 g each i think.

thanks

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UST 29er and light weight is not yet able to be said in one sentence... if you get a wheelset that is set up to be tubeless you can avoid the rim strips (this has nothing to do with the actual tire though)- there are quite a few of them out there now but most are sold as wheelsets not rim only.

Your best bet tire wise is going with a tubeless ready tire which will generally have a tubeless bead but require a sealant to actually be run tubeless(thought some hold air quite a while without it). Schwalbe Racing ralphs come in a TL version for 2011, Specy Fast tracks come 2bliss and quite a few of the Bonty tires come tubeless ready as well. Even with ust adding some sealant is helpful to ward off air loss from thorns etc..

Actual UST would be Maxxis Ardent and Crossmark as well as a few Geax Sagaurro's are floating around out there... light.. no not so much-

Your UST-licensed options are:
NOS Geax Saguaros - 900(+)g ? no longer in production, been sitting a while
Maxxis Ardent - 885g
Maxxis Crossmark - ~900g ?
Spesh Fast Trak Grid UST - 675g

feel like I'm missing one... maybe not though.
i second knottshore's comments re: tubeless ready

oh, i didn't know there was a difference between ust and tubeless ready tires.

UST 29er and light weight is not yet able to be said in one sentence... if you get a wheelset that is set up to be tubeless you can avoid the rim strips (this has nothing to do with the actual tire though)- there are quite a few of them out there now but most are sold as wheelsets not rim only.

Click to expand...

i thought that you had to use the rim strip even if the rim was ust, if the tire wasn't tubeless... i had a set of 26" crossmax STs that i tried using regular folding tires w/o a rim strip w/ and i couldn't get tire to inflate, but when put the stans rim strip in it, it hooked right up. maybe i wasn't trying hard enough?