MilKit already made tubeless setup & maintenance easy & clean with their unique tubeless valves and syringe injector. Now they have a simple solution to make seating a tubeless tire easier in the first place. Their new MilKit tubeless Booster is meant to be a low-cost cap & valve setup that turns a standard aluminum drinking bottle into an air pressure tank. Thread the cap onto your bottle. Pressurize it with a standard floor pump. Then quickly blast the air into a new tubeless setup, instantly seating the tire bead.
MilKit tubeless Booster
We’ve used a number of other specialized pressure tanks for seating tubeless tires, and they certainly eliminate the need for a compressor in just about any home shop. MilKit’s novel solution is to use a standard aluminum drink bottle like one you would get from SIGG or MSR and thread on a cap with the necessary pressure regulating valves, to be connected to a pump to pressurize it & then connect to your tubeless valve to seat the tire.
In fact, the design was inspired by makeshift solutions that many DIY folks have rigged up to use plastic drink bottle as pressure tanks. The MilKit crew had to resort to a similar solution when a tubeless setup failed far from home. They knew they could make a better solution so set out to create the MilKit Booster. Now with the design completed and through functional prototyping, they are turning to you via Kickstarter to crowdfund the project into reality.
How it works…
The thread-in Booster is a relatively simple injection molded plastic piece that contains two valves. On one end it uses a standard removable Presta valve core to allow you to pressurize the attached bottle. The other valve is a spring-loaded valve that is activated by pressing onto the tubeless valve on your wheel. Simply press to inflate the tire. The remaining end simply threads into the aluminum drink bottle, sealed with a rubber o-ring.
Through their Kickstarter, you can back the project to pre-order the thread-in Booster valve, including a small 20oz bottle for about $43 or a large 34oz bottle for $46. For another $15 they will include a thread-on cap with a drinking hose & bite valve to turn it into a hydration setup that will double as the pressure tank for trailside tubeless repairs. There are also several other funding options. A $67 kit includes a set of tubeless valves, or the $98 kit includes all of the above.
The project seems on track for a quick for crowdfunding delivery. MilKit have already completed design and expect to have tooling & production sorted out by the end of 2017. Assembly and quality control are slated for January. Completed parts are expected to start shipping to backers in February 2018.
