Tire Makers Adopt Love's Tubeless Technology

REDMOND, WA—Danny Sotelo, whose tires established design trends in the early years of mountain biking, is back with a tubeless tire design that may be just as influential.

For 2002 expect tubeless tires from Ellsworth, Knucklebone, Slime, Spinergy, THE and Vuelta, all using Love technology. Sotelo and Innova Tire, the producers of Love Tires, are making the private label tires for each company.

Sotelo has been clawing his way back into the industry since selling his share of Onza, which he co-founded with David Ajiki. Shortly after selling his half of the company, it filed for bankruptcy.

While at Onza he designed its popular Porcupine tires and bar ends. Since leaving he has dabbled in brakes with Box and later gloves. But he has always kept his hands in tire design.

"Danny originally was looking for a way to bring the advantages of tubeless tires to normal rims. What he did was continue a tubeless tire's air-proof lining between the tire beads for a self-contained system," said Henry Reyes, Love Tires' sales and marketing manager.

"It is not a glued-on addition to a normal tire, but it is manufactured as part of the tire. It kind of looks like a tire off the rim with a tube in it. Recently we joined forces with Slime on a new sealant as part of the package," Reyes said.

Slime's traditional formulas were designed to seal punctures in inner tubes many times smaller than / inch thick. But in tubeless systems punctures are through the tire's outside casing and those can be as big as / inch thick.

"A sealant has the whole depth of the casing to congeal and seal in case of a puncture. So Slime developed a totally different formula. The system is so bomb proof that our BMX tires are wearing out before the first flat," Reyes added.

Love introduced the new tubeless tire system at last year's tradeshows. Reyes said it has been so well received in other markets that, until now, little effort has been made promoting the tires in the United States.

"We would have liked to get more tires out there, but it has been hard freeing up tires for North America," Reyes said.

Because the Love tubeless system works with any rim type—tubeless or traditional—it can be used on any type of bicycles, even road bikes.

Knucklebone has a line of BMX tires beside the usual mountain bike cross-country and downhill sizes. Innova also has a tubeless 24-inch model. Love and Innova have the ability to make 700c road tires, but so far, no one has ordered any.

The weight of the overall system is on par with the combined weight of traditional tires and inner tubes. And Reyes said that the company is confident that the inclusion of Slime in the system will allow it to drop even more weight from the tires without harming reliability.