Peaty's Holeshot Fast Flow

Presta valves take a lot of flak, especially online. It is of course a design that dates back more than a century, and it is not without its flaws, but it continues to be the standard when it comes to tubeless wheel set-up. Several companies have worked on variants and alternatives over the past few years, some more successfully than others. Peaty’s now joins the fray as one of the latest in line to dedicate considerable time to developing an improved solution – the result is the Holeshot Fast Flow.

Peaty’s Holeshot Fast Flow Highlights

• 7075 aluminum shaft with stainless steel core
• 200% more flow than a Peaty’s MK2 Presta Valve 
• No sealant clog
• Fully tire-insert compatible 
• Fully serviceable with no throwaway parts 
• Internal and external anodizing to reduce clog
• Air-tight fail-safe valve seal located inside the rim 
• Micro-adjustment capability 
• Presta pump head compatible 
• 1x Holeshot Fast Flow spoke key cap 
• 1x Holeshot Fast Flow eLube chain lubricating cap
• Weight: 11g per pair
• Available in 12 Chris King colorways 
• Size Options: 42mm, 60mm, and 42/60mm MX (for Bosch E-bikes) 
• Lifetime Peaty’s warranty
• MSRP: £34.99 / €39.99 / $44.99 (USD)

Initial Impressions

Looking at some of the constraints of the Presta valve design, the slim diameter of the valve stem is one of the most obvious ones. There is not a lot of room in there to place a valve, and when you add tubeless sealant to the mix, a small space equals clogging – that’s quite simply what the sealant was designed to do in such circumstances. One solution is to add a bigger valve housing on top of the stem, like Stan’s did with their Exo-Core valves for example, or, you could put the valve down in the base of the stem. The latter is exactly what Peaty’s did for the Fast Flow valve.

By moving the valve itself down into the base of the stem, it could be made much bigger. So much bigger that Peaty’s claims that the new valve provides 200% better airflow compared to their own regular Presta valve. Peaty’s also created a “cage” around the valve opening that allows for air to flow in any direction into the tire, making it compatible with inserts as well. The top of the stem looks sort of similar to a Presta valve, with a little plunger sticking out, but there is no bolt to tighten after you’re done inflating the tire – the valve closes itself off as soon as the pressure builds up behind it. This also means that if you should somehow damage the external part of the valve stem, chances are you’ll still be able to keep riding as the valve itself remains protected inside the rim.

Diving into the details, the Fast Flow valves are really well made. There’s a rubber joint under the lockring, and the valve caps have them internally as well. The valves comes with two different valve caps, one that doubles as a spoke key, and one that you can use to lock the crank of an e-bike when you need to spin the drivetrain backwards to lube the chain (most e-bikes have a clutch that disengages the crank arms from the drivetrain when pedaling backwards). Sounds trivial, but these are nice little touches that contribute to the overall impression of high quality and clever functionality of the product.

In The Workshop

Installing the Fast Flow valve is identical to any classic Presta valve. The rubber boot at the base of the valve stem is of a fairly universal shape and should play nice with most rim shapes. Operating the valve is also similar to Presta, save for the lack of any kind of locking mechanism to open. Just unscrew the cap, attach the pump, and start pumping. Filling the tire with sealant through the valve is equally easy, just release the air from the tire, attach a hose and fill away.

So what about that flow then? There’s plenty! If you’ve ever pumped up a tire without the Presta core in place, you’ll know the satisfying feeling of air flowing oh-so-freely into the tire. It’s like an instant power upgrade for your pump, it really does make that much of a difference. We haven’t tested to exhaustion at this point, but we’re willing to bet you can seat most tire/rim combos through the Fast Flow valve with just a floor pump or maybe a booster tank. It’s early days yet as we only just got these in for testing, but so far so good; the valves are functioning as advertised and we have not detected any air leaks, even after running sealant through the valves. It something should happen down the line, the valves are fully rebuildable and Peaty's sells service kits that include valve seals and rubber rings.

What’s The Bottom Line?

Tubeless valves are trivial enough, and we’ve made it this far with nothing but those old Presta valves. There are maybe more pressing problems to solve in mountain biking right now, but that doesn’t mean that this product doesn’t make your life better. It provides significantly improved air flow when inflating your tires, and it’s super easy to fill sealant through it when you need to top up your levels. The design is also more likely to survive crash damage, as the valve part of the product sits inside the rim. For the amount of features that Peaty’s has managed to pack into the Fast Flow valve, it is competitively priced as well – oh and it’s covered by Peaty’s “Valves for Life” warranty which includes pretty much all kinds of damage except for ham-fisted thread stripping and willful sabotage. Well done chaps!

For more information head on over to peatys.com.

About The Reviewer

Johan Hjord - Age: 52 // Years Riding MTB: 20 // Weight: 190-pounds (87 kg) // Height: 6'0" (1.84m)

Johan loves bikes, which strangely doesn’t make him any better at riding them. After many years spent practicing falling off cliffs with his snowboard, he took up mountain biking in 2005. Ever since, he’s mostly been riding bikes with too much suspension travel to cover up his many flaws as a rider. His 200-pound body weight coupled with unique skill for poor line choice and clumsy landings make him an expert on durability - if parts survive Johan, they’re pretty much okay for anybody. Johan rides flat pedals with a riding style that he describes as "none" (when in actuality he rips!). Having found most trail features to be not to his liking, Johan uses much of his spare time building his own. Johan’s other accomplishments include surviving this far and helping keep the Vital Media Machine’s stoke dial firmly on 11.

Photos by Johan Hjord