[jimku]

WHEN is Royal Enfield going to make alloy wheels to run tubeless tires available?  They have them for their Bullet bikes, so they have no excuse.  To me it is marketing STUPIDITY to not have them available for the Interceptor.  There are articles all over the internet saying that they are coming soon, even mentioning "the official RE website" that supposedly has them listed as coming soon.  I cannot find ANY such website.  I have sent several emails directly to Royal Enfield and all they will say is that there are no current launches for alloy wheels.  When I press them for future plans, I get no response.   

If anyone knows of a source for alloy wheels for the Interceptor, please let me know!  If not a Royal Enfield product I will put them on my bike even if it voids the warranty.

[robertllr]

If your had a motorcycle in the 1950's, 60's and early 70's, your only choice was wire wheels.  Nobody whinged about flat tires.

All off-road bikes are still built with laced wheels. No whingers there either.  In fact, they know that catastrophic, irreparable damage is far more likely on a cast wheel than on a laced one: the latter can be made serviceable with a rock and a tube patch, and you'll be able to ride out to civilization. Try that on a cast wheel with tubeless tire.

My first  bike--bought in 1969--was a 1964 Triumph.  It was my sole transportation, throughout  college and beyond, on both coasts.  Never had a flat.  Never worried about it.

Every bike in my current stable has the laced wheels it came with: 1968 Triumph Bonneville and 1970 Triumph Trophy, (both ridden 10's of thousands of miles--including coast to coast trips--since I bought them around 1980.)  No flats, no anxiety on the Dunlop wire wheels. 

My main rides now are my 2005 Moto Guzzi California Vintage and my 2013 Moto Guzzi 750 Racer.  I have been on many long distance (two to three thousand miles, round trip) rides on those bikes with no flats and no fear. (Annoyingly frequent tire changes though, due to wear--both even and  uneven--and not the fault of my beautiful Borrani wheels.)

And, FWIW, I have never had to adjust the spokes on any of my bikes!  I've tested my runout and spoke tension occasionally, but never found any need to break out the spoke wrench.  (However, I have recently restomodded my Trophy as a cafe racer.  I built the wheels myself, using stainless rims, spokes, and nipples.  So I know how to lace and true a wire wheel.)

What else?  Well, here is a partial list--just off the top of my head--of brand new bikes street bikes (similar in market to the RE 650's) that come with wire wheels standard:

Triumph--various Models--indeed, almost all the "classic " models
Moto Guzzi--exactly half the 18 model lineup comes with laced wheel and tubed tires
Kawasak-- WD 800
Various HD  Heritage models
And of course, every model of RE has laced wheels


Lastly, if you really need to stress about flats, instead of swapping your wheels, why get a motorcycle rider on your AAA membership?  It'll cost a whole lot less, and you'll get a free 100 mile tow.  If that cant help you with your tire, I don't know what will.

[ceekay]

tubeless spoked wheels would be a plus but they have to keep those bean counters happy as well. as an option it would be nice. I think they've done a great job but yeah I would rather plug a tire than replace a tube in the field.

[jimku]

If your had a motorcycle in the 1950's, 60's and early 70's, your only choice was wire wheels.  Nobody whinged about flat tires.

All off-road bikes are still built with laced wheels. No whingers there either.  In fact, they know that catastrophic, irreparable damage is far more likely on a cast wheel than on a laced one: the latter can be made serviceable with a rock and a tube patch, and you'll be able to ride out to civilization. Try that on a cast wheel with tubeless tire.

My first  bike--bought in 1969--was a 1964 Triumph.  It was my sole transportation, throughout  college and beyond, on both coasts.  Never had a flat.  Never worried about it.

Every bike in my current stable has the laced wheels it came with: 1968 Triumph Bonneville and 1970 Triumph Trophy, (both ridden 10's of thousands of miles--including coast to coast trips--since I bought them around 1980.)  No flats, no anxiety on the Dunlop wire wheels. 

My main rides now are my 2005 Moto Guzzi California Vintage and my 2013 Moto Guzzi 750 Racer.  I have been on many long distance (two to three thousand miles, round trip) rides on those bikes with no flats and no fear. (Annoyingly frequent tire changes though, due to wear--both even and  uneven--and not the fault of my beautiful Borrani wheels.)

And, FWIW, I have never had to adjust the spokes on any of my bikes!  I've tested my runout and spoke tension occasionally, but never found any need to break out the spoke wrench.  (However, I have recently restomodded my Trophy as a cafe racer.  I built the wheels myself, using stainless rims, spokes, and nipples.  So I know how to lace and true a wire wheel.)

What else?  Well, here is a partial list--just off the top of my head--of brand new bikes street bikes (similar in market to the RE 650's) that come with wire wheels standard:

Triumph--various Models--indeed, almost all the "classic " models
Moto Guzzi--exactly half the 18 model lineup comes with laced wheel and tubed tires
Kawasak-- WD 800
Various HD  Heritage models
And of course, every model of RE has laced wheels


Lastly, if you really need to stress about flats, instead of swapping your wheels, why get a motorcycle rider on your AAA membership?  It'll cost a whole lot less, and you'll get a free 100 mile tow.  If that cant help you with your tire, I don't know what will.

Don't give a rip about all of that.  This isn't the 60's, this is 2020 when alloy wheels and tubeless tires are common especially on touring bikes.  I too have ridden thousands of miles with only one flat.  That one flat was one too many.  Never again will I be stuck because I wasn't carrying the 40lbs of B.S. necessary to swap out a tube by the side of the road!  Never mind being willing to wrestle around for two hours in the dirt to do it.  The bean counters can be damned.  They don't have to offer alloy wheels on the bikes on the showroom floor, just make them available for those who want them enough to pay for them, so it wouldn't change their bottom line by a dime.  I have two different sources for roadside assistance.  Neither is worth a tinker's damn when 100 miles from nowhere with zero services including no cell service which is common in the mountains here in Idaho (where the best motorcycle roads are) ... I can't yell loud enough to be heard 100 miles away. 

I searched for six months before I finally found a source for alloy wheels for the Interceptor.  There are gobs of nice alloy wheels available for the RE Bullet line, but apparently only ONE obscure source for the 650's. 
I wouldn't have bought the bike if I hadn't already found them! 
And I will never buy any bike that doesn't have them available! 
If Triumph doesn't offer any bikes with them, and none are available for them after-market then Triumph does not exist.  Period.

I have already found wheels that will get the job done.  The only reason I posted this thread is because I am not exactly thrilled with their styling, and hopefully when "nicer" wheels hit the market someone will let me know.  Hopefully RE will pull its head out of its butt and offer them.  Apparently Triumph has their head tightly crammed up there too.  As for Moto Guzzi, they don't even have a dealership within 400 miles of me so they don't exist either.  I have been intrigued by Moto Guzzi bikes for a long time, almost bought a Norge sport tourer even though I would have had to ship it 500 miles for servicing, then they discontinued the Norge for some reason.  https://youtu.be/Y_xm-gQgqMk

[Ove]

Calm down fella. You've thought ahead and got your tubeless tyres. Others are happy with the wires. All seems fine to me. 

[Richard230]

I recently rode 20 miles on the freeway at 60 mph with the rear tire, mounted on the alloy rear wheel of my Zero, completely flat. It was only when I tried to leave the freeway and make the off-ramp turn that I became quickly aware of my flat tire.  I made it another 15 miles home riding slowly on the flat tire. When reaching home I plugged the hole with a Stop and Go tire plug and the tire hasn't lost any significant amount of air pressure since then.  Since the tire stayed on the wheel during all of that riding, I am not looking forward to breaking its bead when the tire finally wears out and needs to be replaced. 

[Marcsen]

you know there are spoked tubeless rims , where the spokes are connected to the rim on the outside like on some offroad BMW models . just need to find a company who can do the job .they just need your hubs and your choice of rims the rest is about how much money you want to spend.

[ceekay]

I think the price of having custom wheels made could be prohibitive to most of us.

I have seen a kit that converts your tube rim to tubeless.

And Ride On makes a product that can seal/prevent punctures under a certain size.

Motion Pro makes a compact bead breaker for your tool kit that makes breaking beads easy. Available in steel or alloy.

https://www.motionpro.com/product/08-0519

https://www.ride-on.com/us/support/tire-types/motorcycle-formula

[jimku]

you know there are spoked tubeless rims , where the spokes are connected to the rim on the outside like on some offroad BMW models . just need to find a company who can do the job .they just need your hubs and your choice of rims the rest is about how much money you want to spend.

Yes, I checked these guys out.  They do not offer wheels for the Interceptor.  I would have to ship my stock wheels, rotors and sprocket to them in Austria so they could get proper measurements, then they would build me a set of wheels ... for $6,000.00!  These are VERY high-end wheels usually put on $40,000.00 custom bikes.

[jimku]

I think the price of having custom wheels made could be prohibitive to most of us.

The wheels I found were just under $1,000.00 for the pair in stock black with polished aluminum accents.  I thought they were butt-ugly in black so I had my guy powder coat them in Super Chrome with black accent bolts for about another $500.00 which made a huge improvement ... to me at least.  They still aren't what I would really like (which is why this thread exists so maybe someone will find wheels that do roll my socks up and down), but I can live with them.  https://www.dropbox.com/s/drye7pgx9c0ypnn/RE%20TUBELESS%20WHEELS%20INFO.docx?dl=0

Looking at the large srray of alloy wheels available for the Bullet line, between $400 and $500 per wheel seems to be the norm.

[jimku]

Calm down fella. You've thought ahead and got your tubeless tyres. Others are happy with the wires. All seems fine to me. 

I am calm as can be.  The other guy gave a diatribe (almost a rant) in favor of spoked wheels, so I felt a strong response was in order from my point of view.
All is good in River City, just two guys with passionately different views, neither right, neither wrong, nobody is heading out into the street at high noon.

[GlennF]

I have had two flat tyres in 10,000km/9 years on my B5, both fortunately on the rear wheel. One occurred while parked at work, the other while riding but I was only doing 50kmh and able to pull over in a slightly out of control but safe fashion.

The President of the Australian Enfield Club (RECOA) a few years back had a flat on his Carberry at highway speed and wrote off the bike and ended up in hospital for some months.

Guzzi wth their retro v7 offer both options.  The Racer and Rough have tubes and spokes, their other models including the Stone have alloys and tubeless. There seems no reason Enfield could not offer a similiar choice to customers.

[twocoolgliders]

re flats:

I've only ever had one flat...tubeless tire on my old Honda scooter.  But...it was the valve stem that sheared off...so no chance of fixing it "on the road"  was about 12 miles from home.  I found a certain speed where the bike would 'handle" (sort of) ....it was the front tire too.....too slow and it went all squisshy....to fast and it shook and wobbled all over the place ...right around 12 MPH the tire sort of pushed out due to centrifugal force, and became jsut barely hard enough to make the trip home!


The other day, with a couple of buddies riding....I looked over and saw one had a flat rear.....he noticed it but it didn't immediately seem that bad.  We limped it to our lunch stop, where it finally all leaked out.  Turns out it has a 3" gash across the tread.  Right next door was a car repair place, I know the owners....I said let's see if they can so anything.  They layered in like 6 or 8 of those worm plug things...it worked...he made 25 miles to home....then put on new tire.


So...while tubeless tire do seem to have distinct advantages....they are not foolproof either!



Cookie

[jimku]

My one and only flat happened on the freeway at about 70 mph on the front tire on my way home from work.  It went "squishy" feeling and the front end wandered.  I knew I had a flat and knew all hell would break loose at some point as I slowed down, so I slowed down gingerly and slowly.  Sure enough, at about 25 mph the front end went to shaking so violently that I could barely keep my hands on the bars and it was still wandering about a half lane's width back and forth.  I didn't try to man-handle it or hold it still  (or I would have wrecked), just made myself relax and used my balance / lean and let it shake and wander.  At about 15 mph the shaking stopped and the squishy / wandering came back.  The tires were due to be changed, so I just slowly rode it on home about 5 miles on the shoulder of the road, totally ruining the front tire. There was a motorcycle dealer about 5 blocks from home so next morning I limped it over there and bought a new set of Dunlops.  It was a large framing nail right in the middle of the tread.