If you desire the safety advantage offered by tubeless wheels but you want to be able to easily change your own tyres then these Gori rims may be the solution you’ve been waiting for.
I like tubeless wheels and I’ve got SIP tubeless on my Lammies. However, I didn’t use them for my last continental tour because I knew I’d wear out tyres and replacing them – even for many tyre shops – is such a pain that I went back to using split rims and inner tubes.
If you want a reminder of what is involved with fitting and removing tyres from SIP tubeless rims then check out the following videos:
Gori – the brand now owned by Bettella and used to market Lambretta products – has recently launched their tubeless aluminium split-rims. Very nice they are too.
These feature a similar construction to the Pinasco tubeless rims, but the Lambretta rear hub design forces some compromises.
The biggest compromise is having only 4 fixing points. This only leaves room for eight unevenly-spaced fixings to hold the rims together. By comparison, the Vespa version has three extra fastening points in total.
As a result the Gori instructions state that you can’t inflate the tyre beyond 1.8 bar (26 psi) while the wheel isn’t bolted to the hub.
This is only an issue if you wanted to carry a Gori wheel as a spare with an inflation pressure of 30 psi or more because you were travelling 2-up with luggage. The solution is to carry it inflated to 26 psi and only top it up after fitting to the scooter.
The good news is that building these wheels is easy if you follow the instructions. There are a couple of issues to watch out for (supplied screws are a bit too short) but essentially fitting and removing tyres proved simple.
We’ve produced a handy Tips & Tricks video (above) that covers all you need to know about building the Gori wheels, in particular making sure the two rim halves are perfectly aligned.
Wheels fasten with a flanged shakeproof M8 nut used without a washer. Torque to 25Nm (18.5 lbs-ft).
• Much easier to fit and remove tyres than with one-piece wheels
• Run truer than most pressed steel wheels
• Lighter than pressed steel wheels
• Spare O-ring included
• Cool aesthetic
• TüV documentation being sought for legal use where type approval is required
• Much more expensive than one-piece wheels
• Supplied unpainted in bare aluminium
• Supplied 12mm-long screws were too short. You really need 14mm-long screws.
• No positive alignment between the rim halves so this must be done manually
• Require longer studs (supplied) to be fitted to the hub
• Are tight fit onto the hub studs if the stud alignment is not perfect
• Can’t be inflated over 1.8 bar (26 psi) off the hub
I’ve not done enough miles with the Gori wheels to say for certain that they are perfect. What I will say is that if I had to do a long tour again where a tyre change was likely to be required – or if I was racing a Lambretta – then these would be my choice over split rims and tubes, or solid tubeless wheels.
We’ll keep you informed on how they hold up on the road.
Sticky
Gori tubeless rims are available direct from Gori Laborazioni.com for around €129 per wheel.
If you want to know all there is to know about the current Lambretta kits, how to choose what suits your needs, tips on building, dyno results, owner’s views and real-world info – Sticky’s ‘The Complete Spanner’s Lambretta Kit Book’ is the book for you.
Also from the Spanner’s series is the third edition of the Complete Spanner’s manual for Lambretta, an invaluable resource for anybody who owns or maintains a Lambretta. Click on either of the books above if you’d like to buy a copy.
Are the supplied hub studs too long?