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Replacing Surly rim strips

The bulging of the Surly rim strips in the Rabbit Hole rims was driving me a bit crazy. At 2.5 bars it was just too much -- I'm sure it would have been structurally fine, but it annoyed me.

I used a layer of red and silver reflective tape, covered in two layers of Gorilla Tape.

 

I went to a local hardware store (Breed & Co., an ACE franchisee of sorts) and they only had adhesive tape, in something like 2 inches or 50 mm.

 

To keep from being wasteful, I cut the tape in half, which was enough to cover the rim cutouts, if I lined it up perfectly (I did not). Given the tape was adhesive, I had the extra fun of removing backing and getting the tape as tight and centered as possible, before two tight layers of Gorilla Tape. I know a non-adhesive version of the reflective tape exists, and I’ll use it when I eventually redo these wheels. I hope it will be in longer lengths so I don’t have as many seams also.

 

Aside from seams showing, and some less-than-perfect alignment, I think it looks nice. It's certainly better than the giant bulges before and it adds a bit of reflectiveness.

 

The Schwalbe Marathon Mondial 26 x 2.15 have a good shape on these rims, and the tired just roll over everything so nicely.

 

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Uploaded on June 2, 2016
Taken on June 1, 2016