rim strip

I clean all rust off the inside of the rim (that'll really eat your tube), spray it with rust stabilizer and a few layers of aluminum paint and tune the wheel before I deal with anything else. In place of a rim band, electrical tape works fine. Friction tape is tougher. Use a fairly wide tape, and use a few layers. It isn't going anywhere at all once the tube is inflated. One thing: After you've tuned your wheel, check to be sure that no spoke ends stick in through the spoke nipples. I dust the inside of the tyre with talcum powder so there's no resistance to the tube aligning itself inside the casing when it's inflated. Incidentally, if your new front tyre is a little off being perfectly round, your front end will sort of "hump" at a certain speed. You can fix this by setting your motorbike on the main stand and rotating the wheel against an index block. Loosen spokes at the low point, tighten them at the high point. Progressively less tightening or loosening in both directions from those points, and adjust for an even "ping." The "hump" will disappear by the time you're down to about 1/8 inch out of round - tyre flex can handle that amount.