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I ride 29 inch MTBs with 2.25 front, 2.0 rear.

I usually ride on paved road (randonneuring) and occasionally slightly unpaved road (under construction).

In the past, I ran 30psi and currently I use 40psi and it runs much faster!

How high can I go with tubeless tires? Although my tires says it can go up to 65psi (https://conti-tyres.co.uk/mtb/race-king-2-0) (I use continental race king 2.0 inch on rear, maxis ardent race 2.25 inch on front)

I think the max is for when I use tubes.
When I run tubeless, how high can I go?
Something like 80% of max specified psi?

  • Edit

I run this setup for train purposes. More resistance for training.
(But I want to know how fast I can go with this high rolling resistance setup)

I plan to use similar setup for more unpaved road in the future some thing like tour divide.

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  • Foldable or steel-bead?
    – leftaroundabout
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 10:09
  • @leftaroundabout i'm not sure there is such a thing as a tubeless tyre with a rigid bead? It's probably not technically impossible, i'm just not aware that anyone makes any
    – Andy P
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 10:25
  • 1
    @AndyP No official ones, but people do successfully run wire bead tires as tubeless.
    – MaplePanda
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 15:13
  • If the tire is tubeless, its rated for the pressure on the side wall when running tubeless. For non-tubeless, you already outside manufacturer recommendations, but the sidewall pressure will be fine as a tube contributes nothing to pressure containment.
    – mattnz
    Commented Mar 29, 2022 at 20:53
  • 2
    Tubes hold the air, the tire holds the pressure. The rated pressure on tires, especially those labeled Tubeless will be how high you can go.
    – mattnz
    Commented Mar 30, 2022 at 3:50

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To answer the question as asked: It probably depends on your rims, for example Light Bicycle recommends a maximum pressure of 40psi for their MTB rims.

To give a more complete answer: What you are trying to achieve doesn't really give the results you are looking for. Even on a perfect surface increasing to the maximum pressure does not save that much power. Here is some rolling resistance data for a race king: Bicycle Rolling Resistance - Race King Protection

When you start to consider non perfect surfaces you find that differences become smaller. The higher pressure 'feels' faster, but can in fact be slower. Personally I can't think of any reason I'd ever want to run a race king above ~35psi. When I take my 29er on road rides I typically run around 28psi rear and 26 front for a pure road ride - if I'm taking even small diversions onto gravel I'll run lower than that.

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