Tubeless Spoked Wheels: Benefits Explained

Tubeless spoked wheels offers the best of two worlds - off-road ability and easy puncture repairs

Before we understand the benefits of tubeless spoked wheels, let's first understand what spoked wheels are. Spoked wheels have steel wires connecting the central hub to the outer rim, but these wires are quite flexible and can absorb bumps far better than the alloys. This flexibility makes spoked wheels perfect for off-road motorcycles, which have to ride on rough terrains. And thus quite unsuitable for sports bikes.

The connection between the spokes and the outer rim isn’t sealed, which is why conventional spoked rims require a tube inside the tyre. This makes repairing punctures a tedious task: first the punctured wheel has to be taken off, then the tube has to be taken out of the tyre, then patched up and the entire process has to be reversed to complete the task. This can be especially tricky when you are off-roading in some remote areas. 

There are some aftermarket solutions to seal the spoked rims from the inside to make them airtight, but these aren’t quite robust. The only way is to have the wire spokes connect to the outer edge of the rims. This allows such rims to be fitted with tubeless tyres, while allowing the wheels to take full advantage of their spoked construction. However such tubeless spoked rims are quite expensive when compared to the tubed spoked wheels, and hence are commonly found in expensive motorcycles like the Ducati Multistrada V4 Rally. The cheapest bike available in India with tubeless spoked wheels is the Zontes 350T.