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SOC18: milKit Tubeless Booster will seat your tires and quench your thirst

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If you’ve ever tried to seat certain tubeless tires without a compressor, you know it’s not always an easy task. Some of the better tires and rims have no problem snapping into place, but that’s not always the case. After being approached by mechanics and riders to create a way to seat tires without a compressor, milKit went to the drawing board and came up with the Tubeless Booster. First launched through Kickstarter, the real life product is here and will be available in a week or so.

SOC18: milKit Tubeless Booster will seat your tires and quench your thirst

To be honest, the concept isn’t that different from the many DIY tubeless inflators you can find instructions for on the web. The difference is that the Booster is foolproof, super light, portable, and the canister doubles as a water bottle when you don’t need to seat tires. Available in a 20oz and a 34oz aluminum bottle, the smaller bottle may fit in some cages, while the larger bottle will need to go in your pack or a larger anything cage or similar.

SOC18: milKit Tubeless Booster will seat your tires and quench your thirst

When you need to use the Booster, you’ll remove the bottle cap, remove, drink, or transfer the water to another vessel, and install the Booster head which is a super light plastic nozzle with a presta valve to fill the bottle, and a presta-only fill valve for the tire.

After inflating the bottle to 120-160psi, simply press the nozzle against the valve on the rim and it will release all the air at once with a satisfying pop of the tire into the rim.

Note that this demonstration uses milKit’s own tubeless valves – which is one of the advantages of the system. The milKit valves have a rubber one way seal on the bottom which allows you to remove the valve cores when filling, which lets the air flow more freely through the valve and into the tire. But once the air goes in, the rubber seal closes and doesn’t let the air back out.

You should be able to use the Booster on regular tubeless valves with the valve core in place, but don’t expect it to work quite as well – especially if your valves are gunked up with sealant. However, you should be remove the valve core on your own tubeless valves and use the Booster to pop the tire beads in place. The air will leak out of the tire when you pull the Booster, but the tire will be seated allowing you to refill with a hand or floor pump.

The Booster will retail for around $65 in a kit that includes the milKit tubeless valves as well.

milkit.bike

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Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot
6 years ago

I dig those trick valves but really a pancake compressor is cheap enough from HF that if you’re really seating this many tires you’re better off having a tool that is far more than a multi-tasker. If you’re looking to seat a tubeless tire once every few months than a c02 is perfectly suitable and works fine with stans you just need to let a lot of the C02 out and reinflate with a standard floor pump after the initial seating.

Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot
6 years ago

*uni-tasker

Dylan
Dylan
6 years ago

I really have no other use for a compressor, and anything that puts out enough air to seat a tubeless tyre is either going to be bulky (with a reservoir) or expensive. On the other hand, I could get just the head for 23.99 euros from bike24 and use it with my existing Sigg fuel bottle (painted red instead of black, and with a horrible aftertaste from the unleaded petrol for my camp stove, but otherwise identical).
Most likely I’ll do neither, and just continue to pump like a crazed monkey, and use a CO2 cartridge on the 20% of occasions where the ordinary floor pump doesn’t work first go:)

Bill
Bill
6 years ago

I gave in and got a cheap 100$ compressor off of amazon for just this. It’s loud when it fills, but it does so much better than any of these gimmicky pumps or tanks. What they all fail to show you is what happens if there’s any difficulty getting it to seat, you have to start over. A compressor you can just hold the air on, work the bit up that wasn’t going up, and pop.

Turns out it’s also become incredibly useful for cleaning bikes! Blows off all the grit and grime, especially from inside tight spots like where the screws / springs are on front derailluers. AFter a quick once over with the hose, it’s just wiping down to get the dried on dirt cleaned up.

Crash Bandicoot
Crash Bandicoot
6 years ago
Reply to  Bill

Air Compressor and Ultrasonic cleaner are the only two bike related extravagances that have actually provided a lot of utility outside of bikes in the house

YoJo
YoJo
6 years ago

Nice one Milkit. A bikepacking and touring winner. I’d often have a Sigg bottle for fuel anyway so a quick decant and rinse plus this will take care of any TL issues mid-ride.

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