Crank It Cycles

One of the best decisions I made with my mountain biking was to convert my wheels to tubeless so when Steve offered me the chance to test ride a brand new pair of the latest Stan's Notubes ZTR Alpha Pro road rims laced to American Classic hubs and shod with Hutchinson Fusion tubeless road tyres, yes you read correctly – TUBELESS ROAD tyres – I leapt at the chance.

Over a couple of days, I rode two of my usual training rides that involved taking in the scenery of Feilding. Colyton, Ashhurst, Valley Road and Cheltenham before heading back into Feilding for the first ride whilst the second ride consisted of Feilding out to Stanway via Halcombe before returning to Feilding. I also threw in a short sharp 90min session involving out of the saddle accelerations. Overall a nice combination of climbs, descents, flat and undulating roads.

First impression was.... WOW! The combination of the wheels fitted with tubeless tyres is favourably light (front wheel 968gr complete with tyre, value and skewer, rear wheel 1157gr complete with tyre, value and skewer but miss the cassette), they also roll amazingly well. On average I was able to ride one gear higher than I would normally be able to with my Mavic Ksyrium SL's and I also found it easier to sit on the plus side of a 31kph average instead of scraping the underside of a 30kph average. Climbing felt easier whilst the seated and out of the saddle accelerations with this combination were impressive, mainly due to less rotational mass.

But one of the biggest bonuses of this combination is its resistance to punctures and pinch flats. While I will be the first to admit that , yes, you can still puncture, the pairing of the Hutchinson Fusion tubeless tyre with Stan's latex liquid means that the likelihood of having a shard of glass pierce the tyre carcass (and which would puncture a tube) causing a flat are just about a thing of the past.

(Editor's Note: Steve was out on a ride this week and got a sizeable puncture - a 5mm+ cut in the tyre - and it sealed within 10 seconds while riding! There was such a small amount of air lost that there was no need to pump up the tyre to complete the ride.)

If you are sceptical about the potential of Fusion tubeless tyres and/or the Stan's ZTR wheel set then I would suggest that you pop in and not only have a chat with the crew at Crank It but also see if the wheels are available for you to take for a test ride.

The nitty-gritty:

• claimed weight of tyres is 290gr per tyre
• claimed weight of wheel set is Front: 520gr and Rear: 680gr