jgwilliams

I have to admit I was a little doubtful about the benefits on a road bike, but no longer. I've now completely worn out a rear tyre without getting a single flat. Admittedly, I was a little disappointed that the tyre (Vittoria Corsa N.Ext) only did 3000 miles - I've gone for GP5000 All Season this time which, I hope, will last slightly longer. I got a comparable performance from a pair of Aramdillos, but they were hard work by comparison.

PeteHski

I’ve been running tubeless road tyres since 2020 and only had a single roadside flat, which I sealed with a Dynaplug (2x actually as it was a wide cut). Every other puncture has self-sealed without me noticing on the road. I had one puncture that lost a significant amount of pressure, so I sealed it with a Dynaplug post ride and it was fine for the rest of it’s life.

I think tubeless does work best on wider tyres at relatively low pressure. Certainly no problem sealing on 30 mm tyres at 60-70 psi. Even better on 32 mm at <60 psi. Punctures at low pressure are less dramatic and usually seal without significant pressure loss.

The only minor downside to tubeless is maintaining the sealant, but it’s not a big deal. When I’m lazy I ride with dried sealant, which is still better than a tube as you can still Dynaplug any flats. I’ve done this many times with mtb tyres, especially on UST rims without any sealant. This reminds me that I should really check the sealant on my road bike as I haven’t topped it up since last Autumn.

indyfabz

How rare, professor? I’ve faced the scenario at least twice that I can remember.

BTW…I’ve been running road tubeless for maybe 10 years or more and like the feel. But as noted above, I agree there can be fewer problems with lower pressure setups.

bruce19

I was an EXTREME skeptic about tubeless. Then for some reason unknown to me I bought a rear Mavic UST. Five years later on five road bikes and zero flats. So my opinion was untested theory and once tested became an experience. I like my experience.

Koyote

You must be new around here.

BobbyG

+1 Mr. Tuffy!

seypat

OP probably doesn't have any tire savers installed either. He'd be unstoppable with a pair of those.

shelbyfv

Since I've gone to 38s(!!!) on the road, tubeless is a no-brainer. Good to hear it's working with more traditional road widths.

Koyote

And that's the level of most tubeless criticism here on bf: poking uninformed fun at something that you (and no one I've ever met) have even tried, but that some riders apparently find useful for their riding conditions.

Polaris OBark

I tried it.

Once.

Absolute fail.

JohnDThompson 

It seems more a testimonial for sealant than for tubeless. You can use sealant in tubes, you know.

Polaris OBark

Have you tried it?

PeteHski

Sealant is more effective when tubeless since there is no ultra-thin walled tube to seal. Dynaplugs wouldn't work either with a tube.

staehpj1

Sealant in tubes was a fail for me as well. Tubeless has been wonderful, but I only have used it on mountain bikes. I suspect I will eventually wind up using tubeless on the road, but in recent times I have been riding very little pavement. I would be likely to go tubeless if setting up a bike for another coast to coast tour or something like that and if I was choosing new wheels.

DomaneS5

You will have to pry the tubes from my cold dead hands!

Sierra_rider

Another satisfied tubeless road user here. I'm running GP5k TRs in 28/30 on a couple different bikes, no issues whatsoever so far in the 9 months I've been running them. I've been running tubeless for years before on my MTBs, similar success there.

seypat

I'm guessing the OP means that tubeless is stupid good, or stupid easy? Does that mean it's bombproof?

JohnDThompson 

Sure, but the OP's anecdote states that he couldn't find the puncture site to plug that way.

rsbob 

One flat with tubeless in 4 years with GP 5Ks due to sidewall cut. Did pick up a nail once, but was able to ride it home, plug it and rode it another 2K. Ain’t never going back, no ways, no hows. <-OK grammar police, you can feast on that one. 😊

Congrats Koyote on doing it. Good ride!

Polaris OBark

Yeah, I kind of suspect that brag was the real point of the thread, but it is a well-deserved, hard-earned bragging right. Congrats!

(I made the mistake of doing the sealant in tubes experiment on my wife's bike. She was not amused. It was almost certainly a pinch flat, BTW.)

Polaris OBark

I really was hoping it would work, but I had what was almost a controlled experiment. Both my wife and I were finishing what was a very rough gravel ride, and we hit a washboard going rather fast. I had the same tires (RH 38mm Barlow EL). Mine were tubeless, hers had tubes with a lot (probably 80 ml) of the same Orange Seal endurance. The one bit of good luck was it was the end of the ride.

Fredo76

Sounds exactly like my tubeless experience. 48mm Rene Herse Barlow Pass tires on Velocity A23 rims simply would not seat, no matter what we tried, including a compressor, and the strap-around-the-circumference trick. Did not buy and try an Airshot or similar bottle inflator, because l can't take one with me on my unsupported rides, now, can I?

OTOH, I've used sealant in half a dozen tubes, with results similar to those reported here with tubeless. When I finally replaced one tire which I'd run with sealant in the tube for about a year, I found about a dozen places where the sealant had done its job. Those were Schraeder valves, so I didn't even to leave them in a draining-down valve stem orientation. I've even used sealant in sew-ups, and it worked there, too.

I have read that sealant won't work in TPU tubes, but I'll bet somebody will soon invent some that does...

NVFlinch 

Years of experience riding tubeless on mountain bikes - wide large volume tires. Very few flats.

Did an experiment on 28mm road tires last year. Dramatic reduction in flats, as in No Flats! Relaced two other bike wheels withtubeless rims and converted all to tubeless. Never going back to the dark side. No flats on any of them so far with tubeless. 'Nuff said.

Atlas Shrugged

Nice!

So, with a current setup, you had a leak that could not be fixed with a plug, and the tube would not fit in the tire? I can even imagine a scenario where this would occur. That aside to each their own and enjoy.

Fredo76

Glad it was fun; I thought it was a good one!

It was informed fun, however - the uninformed wouldn't even get the joke. No photographs exist of Eddy Merckx standing beside the road, holding his broken bicycle with a pool noodle protruding from the wheel. Of course, pool noodles hadn't even been invented then, and we can all be certain that Mr. Merckx would have ridden pool noodles if he'd had them, right?

It's true that I haven't tried pool noodles.

For the record, I believe people who say tubeless works well for them.

But let's have some fun! Blue pool noodles are dorky, but red pool noodles are the bee's knees, and faster, too!

Got pool noodles?