Originally Posted by
wgscott
I cannot get my front mtn bike tire to stay inflated. At 2.8", I woud like to avoid tubes, but this is an unending headache. The leak is so slow I can't detect it, but the tire is flat the next day, even with more sealant added. (I only took it apart to replace a broken spoke nipple, so the only thing I can think of is the new rim tape is at fault.)
Once you add more sealant, how do you slosh it around in the wheel? Going way back to ~2005 I followed a Stan's video of holding the wheel between two hands horizontally and tipping back and forth, rotate wheel a couple degrees, and repeat, then flip the wheel over and repeat. Since then I've seen Compass/Rene Herse lifting the wheel from below the hips to overhead and rotating, but I've stuck with Stan's method.
I'm not sure that just riding does as good of a job.
But a bad taping job or the valve stem not being fully seated will do it. I'd start with a wide plastic container that you can submerge the wheel halfway up the rim (I used a a round concave plastic kids snow disc/sled), with some soap in the water, and slowly+patiently rotate the wheel and look for the faintest hint of a bubble. If air is leaking past the rim tape, then it'll be going into the rim cavity and out spoke holes and you'll probably never see it without immersing the whole wheel.
And as for valve stems and removing on the road and need for pliers that was mentioned early on, I've never been unable to press down on the rubber portion in the rim channel enough to relieve pressure from the nut that holds it on and unthread by hand. The valve doesn't need to be tightened with pliers in the first place, so shouldn't need pliers to remove it later.