Orange Seal Versa-valves

The Orange Seal Versa-valves are the best tubeless valves I've tried so far. They're well designed, easy to seal and sturdy. If you're struggling to seal your rims with other valves on the market it might be worth forking out the rather salty £19.99 for a set of these.

• Pros: Easy to fit, sturdy
• Cons: Expensive

These valves specifically address some issues I've had with other valves. Firstly, you generally need to do them up tight to get a seal. That can be hard with the small lockring that you normally get, which often has me resorting to pliers, which can scuff the ring. The Versa-valve locking ring has flats machined on each side so you can do it up with a 9mm spanner, making the job a whole lot easier.

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Secondly, I've had valves fail when the rubber grommet that seals the rim has pulled away from the shaft, having been bonded on. That can't happen here: the alloy shaft has an extended flat section the top, and the grommet just slides on and is held in place by that. You can choose from two types of grommet – conical and half-cylinder – and both are included, as are spare valve cores and a valve core tool.

The choice of grommets means they should fit pretty much any rim; I fitted them to Hunt rims and Reynolds rims and got a seal easily in both cases. The only issue was on the Hunt rim, where the asymmetric rim shape meant that the locking ring didn't sit flush and the rubber O-ring poked out a bit, but it still sealed fine.

The Versa-valves are available in four lengths up to 80mm so you should be fine with anything up to a 50mm section road rim. Orange Seal has clearly considered the issues with current valves and its solutions are very neat and work very well. They're expensive – £19.99 is more or less top dollar for tubeless valves – but they perform very well, and if you struggle with sealing your rims they're probably worth the extra tenner over a cheaper set.

Verdict

The best tubeless valves I've used yet, at a price