I have moved back to tubes for this exact reason. My gp5000s were fitted by the lbs Last year and were great. But last week I thought I would take them off, clean out the old sealant and then refit. Absolute nightmare. It took me two hours to get both tyres onto the rims before getting them seated. I regularly do over century rides and had been carrying a tube for the worst case. I realised I did not want to be sat on the side of the road 50 miles from home stuck for an hour fighting to get a tyre back on. The old tubes are back in and I know I will need 10 mins to deal with a puncture.
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It is really surprising how tight the 5000 TL tires are compared to the first generation tires. I guess Continental went super conservative, apparently to avoid liability issues? I don’t know. The weird thing is that I was able to do a roadside tube and boot install on my 5000 TL last October, on a warm day (high 80s or low 90s?) at end of 2 hour ride. And then a day or two later in 70 temps was unable to thumb the tire on.
That scared me back to tubes and running the Continental 4 Seasons over late fall / winter / spring with only 1 flat and 1 sidewall blowout over 2200 miles.
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I swore off Conti tires years ago because they don’t fit on anything properly, it’s definitely not a new issue.
the Conti 4KS2 tires are likely the best fitting tires I’ve put on my Enve 5.6 disc wheels. The road feel is kinda meh compared to S-Works, but that is more subjective. Never ever had a problem with the 4KS2, and they assuringly “pop” into rim bed when inflated with hand pump or roadside with CO2.
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I despise those tires. Broke 3 or 4 tire levers trying to get them on an array of rims. Vittoria or Schwalbe is all I’ll run these days.
crazy world. Yeah those 4KS2 tires fit perfect on the stock Bontrager alloy wheels and these Enve 5.6 disc wheels. Have never heard anyone talk about fit issues with 4KS2, and tires/wheels spark up a lot of conversations on club rides.
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Very true. I have used gp4000s on my summer bike and 4seasons on my winter bike for many years and they go on with ease. The gp4000s are non longer available and the 5000 clinchers are not so easy to get on…
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A lot of good info there. The bontrager setup (wheel, tire, tape) works well together. But, if I would use a non Bontrager tire with that setup, I would most likely scrap the Bontrager rim strip and use Stan’s tape instead. And it would take some trial and error to figure out how many layers of tape too. I can’t wait until every manufacturer starts following the new standard.
It’s Schwalbe or Bontrager for me. I believe the gp5000 is continental’s first foray into tubeless. Seems they didn’t get the fit quite right in relation to many wheels from the sound of it.
Tubeless should fit tightly, but it seems Conti might have gone overboard… I keep going back and forth as to whether or not I want to take this leap. I would love to run the 5000TL, but if I can’t mount it myself, I’m not going to run it. So then I think, well, the 4000s with latex have been good from a puncture perspective and are almost as fast, so why would I change??
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Good point. The strip might be designed to only seal properly with the exact bead on the matching tyres.
As for GP5000TL and fitting issues, is that tubeless specific? I thought Conti were famous for having the tightest beads across their entire range for decades. I’ve lost more tyre levers to Conti than every other tyre brand I’ve ever used put together 
I have Conti 5000TL on my Roval CLX 50. Had to top off sealant in march to start my outdoor road season. They went on by hand. Absolutely no issues so far. Over 2k on them, not a single puncture. Only thing that was weird were two or three single threads that came off the sidewall. Apart from that they’ve been working great for me so far.
This is a long thread, and I posted some info in another thread. Going to just repost here:
A great read if you are technically inclined is a Mavic article (link below), as it talks about actual measured rim and tire diameters and how that impacts putting a tire on.
For example in “7. WHAT IS THE ISSUE WITH CURRENT ROAD TUBELESS?” it speaks to the issue by measuring the bead diameter of several rims:
The specification for rim bead diameter is 621.95mm +/- 0.4mm. Wow, plus or minus 0.4mm is a pretty tight tolerance! Some rim diameters can be out of spec and too large, which is going to make putting a tire on harder.
Lets assume your rims are in-spec, well then why can it be hard to put on a tire like 5KTL or have a tire like Sector 28 go on too easily?
That brings us to the TIRE bead diameter. That brings us to the next pic from the Mavic article, where tire diameter is measured and shown against specification:
A regular tubetype tyre has a nominal diameter of 620,3mm +/-0.5, where most tubeless tyres are 1 to 2mm smaller, which makes them harder to install.
When combining rim with a bigger diameter with tyre with a smaller diameter, it easy to understand why current road tubeless can be such a hassle to use.
Great stuff in the Mavic article for the technically inclined:
https://engineerstalk.mavic.com/en/road-ust-tubeless-bike-wheels-easy-safe-fast/
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I’ve posted in many tubeless threads here that a tubeless setup is a 3 part package. And your post defines 1 of the reasons why. 
? I think that article discusses two parts:
- rim bead width
- tire bead width
But if you want to package that together I can see your point. I’d rather deal with a rim out-of-spec issue separately from a tire spec issue.
That’s why I said “1 of the reasons”. The 3rd part of the package is rim tape. One of my points is you need to find a tire, wheel, and tape combo that works together, a package.
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I’ve tried a good number of traditional clinchers and tubeless tires. Pretty convinced my wheels are in-spec. In my world it has been the tires that are the real variable.
Every time I look at the specs for bead diameter they are sure tight:
- diameter 621.95mm / 24.49 inches
- tolerance of +/- 0.4mm / 0.016 inches (that is ~4 times smaller than 1/16 of an inch!)
and no easy way for the average person to measure wheels. You’ll know if the wheels are too large because every tire install will be a struggle!
Certainly a bad tape job can be a problem and should be considered when diagnosing a problem.
Thankfully I’ve never had a tape problem. Well except for the time I attempted taping a wheel myself - didn’t have enough tension while applying and screwed up the job. 
Two different vintages of Enve tape, one shop used Stans tape, and another shop used something else (Bontrager?). They all have worked great. I understand there are different widths of tape (is that true?), guess you can screw up both the install and not using the correct width tape.
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There isn’t “quite” a spec yet. Mavic has there UST, which is an awesome idea, if everyone would follow it. There is a new European spec, but not all manufacturers have put out products that follow it. The new Schwalbe Pro Ones do follow this spec. What we need is 1 standard and all wheel and tire manufacturers follow it. From sound of it continental is not following anything universal.
Wheels need built to 1 standard and tires need manufactured to the same standard. That’s why I say when you find a combo that matches well, stick to it unless you want to take a chance of having trouble.
There are different widths of tape, but that’s the least of concern. Using the correct type of tape and using the proper layers is most important. When wheel and tire tolerances don’t match, you fill that gap by adjusting the number of layers. Then there’s Bontrager “tape”. If you have Bontrager wheels and tires, then use their “tape”.
Also, if the gp5000 are as tight as it sounds. Everyone should check the spoke tensions after inflating the tire. The inward pressure could be reducing tensions.
Thanks for clearing that up!
I’ve got the Bontrager rim strips for the stock wheels, just don’t know what tape the shop used on my Enve wheels. It wasn’t Enve tape, and it wasn’t Stans tape, thats all I remember.
Anyways, I’ve been very happy with my wheels (2 layers tape per Enve spec) and they have worked really well with nearly all tires I’ve tried both clincher and tubeless. The Conti 5K TLs are the tightest fitting, even on the Bontrager alloy wheels. It is unique to those tires in my limited experience.
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