Written by Adithya
Whenever I took my motorcycle out for a long ride, one persistent thought always used to irked me – How will I overcome a situation when my motorcycle tyre gets a puncture? Wouldn’t a tubeless kit help?
Just in case if you haven’t checked out my sexy looking motorcycle in the ‘Riders’ page, I would like to let you know that I own a Royal Enfield Interceptor 650 (Mark Three Black).
Needless to say, the 650 twins run on aluminium spoked rims with Pirelli Phantom SportComp tubeless tyres. Just because of spoke wheel arrangement, they come with tubes inside (What a let down!). One flat tyre and you’re stranded waiting for the road side assistance to turn up or push the bike to the nearest workshop. Experience with this unfortunate incident depends on two factors: Place and time. It is this thought which irked me when I set out for long rides (especially solo rides).
Although there were rumours making rounds in early 2019 about Royal Enfield launching alloy wheels as an accessory for the twins, thus far not a single announcement came from the company as such, I am sure it’s nothing short of a distant dream. A couple of other alternatives were tyre sealant (Yuck no!) and Outex (Hmmmâ¦) which is a proven product but way too expensive.
Enter Tubeless Kit!
Thankfully, in November 2019, WAY2SPEED PERFORMANCE launched WAY2UBELESS kit (tubeless kit) at the rider mania which was held in Goa. Just to give you a brief introduction, WAY2SPEED is run by Melwin who is a doctor, an entrepreneur and above all a hardcore gearhead. At least this is what I know about him because everytime I speak to him, it’s like I am speaking to an encyclopedia. He also happens to own an Interceptor and before releasing this well thought out product, all the testing was done on his motorcycle. So this instilled my faith on this product. After discussing with Melwin, I along with two other riders in this club (Deepak who owns an INT 650 and Vivek who owns a CGT 650) decided to install this product on our motorcycles in Jan 2020.
Now, instead of further boring you with my long essay, let me take the privilege to enlighten you with my video detailing the unboxing and installation followed by a small test ride.
Just FYI, this product works on any motorcycle with spoke wheels! But make sure you put on the those tubeless tyres.
Now in case of a tyre puncture, I just need to plug it with a puncture repair kit and ride on.
I have hardly ridden 1000 Kms as on date since the tubeless kit installation, mostly due to the nationwide lockdown to restrict spread of coronavirus, which had impacted my/our club’s ride plans. I believe it’s too small a distance to write a long term review of this product. At the right time, I will come up with another column which will include my review as well as collective feedbacks from my fellow riders in the group.
Till then, Happy Reading and Happy Riding!