MTB Lockdown upgrades part 2: Muc-Off Tubeless Valves Review Link to heading
My lockdown quest to add more shiny, orange bits to my main mountain bike continues! This time, I’m adding a little more bling, but with arguably a bit more functional value thrown in compared to the Wolf Tooth Blink Kit that I reviewed in my first #LockdownUpgrades post.
Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you, Muc-Off Tubeless Valves:
Valves: Muc-Off; Fingers: Models own
What do they do? Link to heading
Put simply, they’re a set of valves that slot into your wheel rims and let you add air to your tyres! In the good old days the valve would have been attached to an inner tube, but in the modern age (or the Future as us oldies call it) you should absolutely be running your wheels tubeless if you ride off road. These valves allow you to do that (along with some rim tape and compatible rims and tyres!) and they allow you to do it in style!
What do they cost? Link to heading
Ok, let’s get the price question out of the way. The RRP for these bad-boys is £24.99 (that’s about $30 or €28 at current exchange rates), however I purchased these direct from Muc-Off on sale for (I think) £17.50, which was a far more palatable price.
Is that good value? Well, a standard set of Stan’s Tubeless Valves costs about £10 to £12 - I’m specifically referencing these ones as Stan’s stuff is almost universally recommended as the ‘buy this if you want to set your bike up tubeless’ standard.
Of course a lot of new bikes and/or new wheels come with tubeless valves in the box for free, so chances are you either already have some or have a friend with spares (I have at least 6 unused valves lying around now…)
Do these provide enough value to double the cost of the Stans and make you throw away the perfectly good free ones you might already have? Actually, I think they do, (but your milage may vary!) so let me explain why…
What’s so great about them? Link to heading
To begin with, unlike most tubeless valve’s this set comes with different fittings to make sure they help to create a tight seal on any rim, preventing air from escaping until you want it to (that’s their whole purpose!). In addition, they also have a couple of really useful extra features: Firstly, they have a small Allen-key hole on the bottom, and their lockring fits a small (11mm?) spanner - whilst the valves only need to go on hand tight, these could prove really useful if you ever need to remove them. Second, and honestly most useful they come with a spare valve head that doubles as a valve core remover. Why is this cool?, well part of setting a bike up tubeless is seating the tyres on the rim - to do this you want to get a lot of air into them in a very short space of time, until you hear a lovely ‘pop!’ as the tyre seats. To do this, removing the core of the valve so that you can blast air in is super useful. Previously, I’ve purchased a valve core removal tool to help with this (from Stan’s obviously!) and that cost in the region of £8… see where the value is coming from now?
Finally though, these valves are both super well engineered - the whole valve is machined aluminium (that’s aluminum if you live on the wrong side of the Atlantic!) and they feel super premium.
..and of course, let’s not forget their true purpose - they just look great and come in a whole rainbow of colours:
Taste the rainbow!
Anything they don’t do well? Link to heading
Honestly, these fulfil such a simple purpose that it’s hard to nit-pick here, however there is one area where they fall down (which isn’t really their fault) - I run a Nukeproof ARD RIM insert in my back wheel, and as that’s a big foam noodle, it comes with special valves which push the foam away from the valve hole a little to allow an air channel to allow enough air flow to seat tyres:
Like this:
The top (bottom?) of a Nukeproof ARD valve yesterday
The bottom of the Muc-Off valves is completely flat, which means it doesn’t have this air channel.
Now, there are a few options around this - firstly, you could just not run inserts (I expect most people don’t!) - I like having one in the back to protect my rim in the event of a bad puncture - I also run a lighter tyre casing at the rear at the moment, so hopefully it’ll stop me tearing it! Or you could use one of the other tyre inserts available (Huck Norris, Rimpact or the super premium Cushcore’s wouldn’t have this issue).
The next option would be to buy Nukeproof’s competing valve! They also now do a really cool looking anodised aluminium valve:
Look familiar? - Image “borrowed” from singletrackworld.com - subscribe to their mag, it’s great!
The Nukeproof’s are a little cheaper I think, and have a valve core tool on each cap, rather than just on the ‘spare’ cap - but I went for the Muc-Off’s for two reasons. First, I didn’t know the Nukeproof ones existed when I got them (seriously…), but second, and by far most importantly: They don’t come in orange!. Come on Nukeproof, sort it out!
The final option, and the one I went for, is to just make your own ghetto McGuyver (hi fellow 80’s kids!) solution:
Believe it or not, this worked just fine!
Yep - I stuffed a manky bit of cardboard and some tape around one of my valves…and it worked just fine!
Anything else to say? Link to heading
So, by now you’ll know that I really like these valves - I reckon they’re decent enough value, function really well and they look super sweet!.
The only other point I think I should note is that they come in three lengths - 44mm, 60mm or 80mm. Now, I assumed this was ‘short’, ’normal’ and ’long’…so just went ahead and ordered the 60mm ones without measuring my current valves.
Turns out 60mm is really long…honestly, I can’t imagine why anyone would want or need 80mm ones on a mountain bike (that’s like a mile long, right?).
Despite this though, I’m really happy with how these look on the bike - just a wee subtle bit of colour on the wheels. Lovely. The fact they also function super well is a bonus!
Is that a Muc-Off Tubeless valve on your rims, or are you just pleased to see me?
One last note - whilst writing this I found out that Muc-Off, in an excellent demonstration of entrepreneurship/money-grabbing (delete as appropriate) also now sell ‘accessory kits’, consisting of just the lockrings and caps, which would allow you to have these different colours to the main valve - I can’t help but wonder how blue ones would look with the orange on my bike…
(Honestly hope that last bit didn’t sound too arsey! I think Muc-Off are an awesome company, I’ve been buying their stuff for almost 25 years!)
| The Ratings | |
|---|---|
| Utility | 9/10 - OK, they’re doing a simple job, but they work well. Bonus points for the built in valve core tool! |
| Aesthetics | 9/10 - These look great, but they’re a really small part of a bike! |
| Value | 8/10 - Glad I got these on sale, I’d have cried paying full price! |
| Overall | 9/10 - I’d score these a perfect ten if they were just a wee bit cheaper and were easier to fit with the ARD inserts. |
Closing Comments Link to heading
These look fantastic (especially against some all-black rims), work really well and have a few wee extras - such as the valve core tool and Allen key/spanner tightening - that really add to their value. A little expensive at full price, but are definitely worth a small premium over basic tubeless valves. Recommended!