Broctoon

I have zero experience with tubulars, quite a bit with clinchers of various types and sizes, and just a little with tubeless. My one bike that I’ve set up tubeless is for general kicking around, commuting, chasing my wife and kids down the MUP. I went with a 35mm width on it, because speed and weight aren’t big concerns, but smooth ride on a variety of surfaces is. Most importantly, I don’t want to deal with punctures, and it’s been great for that.

Now I’m thinking about going tubeless on my next road bike. I’ll probably choose a 25mm something. Not interested in running low pressure, but weight savings from foregoing tubes sounds nice, and again, self sealing punctures: big plus.

How much pressure are guys puttting in 25mm tubeless? Any recommendations on tire models? (For general fitness riding/training on smooth pavement)

The rim I’m considering is the Pacenti Brevet 700C. It seems to check all my boxes.

I understand it may be ill advised to pump up any tubeless tire beyond ~60 to 80 lbs. Will this moderately low pressure negate any performance advantage gained by the lack of tubes?

Does a tubeless setup make sense for amateur, performance oriented road biking?

Lrdchaos

I’m getting ready to setup my tires and wheels tubeless with Schwalbe Pro ones. My goal is to run 80-85 psi as a starting point. It’s my understanding that wheels and tires that are made to run tubeless are fine running the higher pressures. It was the wheels that didn’t have the correct lip to grab the lip on the tire that caused blow outs at higher pressures. But all my info comes from reading forums.

i do know that I love tubeless on my mtb, I’m able to run 22-24psi and have massive amounts of grip.

Sy Reene

Couple things I believe worth reviewing. The first is a chart off of Mavic's "Engineers Talk" blog. Your Pacenti is a 19c rim, and shows a max advisable of 6.7bar which is roughly 95psi. That said, I'd always err on side of using the rim and/or tire manufacturers' rating for maximum if it's less than Mavic's theoretical chart.

The second thing worth looking at is the info at Bicycle Rolling resistance, you'll note if you compare an eg. Conti GP5K in tubed vs tubeless, the rolling resistance differences at various PSIs. You'll note that the tubeless version, run at 80psi, has about the same rolling-resistance as the tubed version at 120psi. YMMV. Conti 5K tubed Vs tubeless

WhyFi

What gave you that (wrong) idea?

Sure.

DOS

The info about staying below 80 psi is wrong. I am running Schwalbe Pro Ones (23s) on HED Belgium Plus rims (21mm internal width). I go 85-90 psi in the rear, 80 or so in the front (I weigh 215). I find the lower pressure as compared to running 110psi in clinchers is actually the main benefit of tubeless as it makes a significant difference in ride quality. Puncture resistance is nice as well, but I never really has a huge problem with flats even with clinchers.

I had been running 25s but recently went back to 23s for the slight aero benefit and because they were cheaper. But even at 23, the tires blow up to almost 27mm (25s blew up to almost 30mm) so I probably could go with lower pressure, but my ride is quite plush as is so I haven’t felt the need to go lower.

Broctoon

Something I read online, saying much more pressure than that puts you at risk of blowouts. It may have been from early days of tubeless tires. I knew if I came here I’d get the real low-down. 👍

@Sy Reene, thanks a bunch! That’s exactly what I was after.

Broctoon

I do has a problem with punctures—lots of goat head thorns in my area. 😡

I’m hearing same rolling resistance at lower pressures, better ride quality, less weight, and of course flats fix themselves... what’s not to love?

WhyFi

There are some rims, particularly hookless ones, that have lower max pressures, but these kinds of wheels generally have very wide internal widths and are primarily aimed at gravel and/or wide, low pressure road set-ups (28mm+ nominal tire widths). Rims in the ~25mm external width region and less will typically support way more pressure than you'd want to use. Then it's just a matter of double-checking your tires of choice; I would bet that most 25mm tires would, again, be rated for a max pressure much higher than you would want to use.

edited to add: one thing to consider with road tubeless is that some sealants are better suited to road pressures than others. I haven't used it myself, but Stan's seems to get a lot of flack at higher than MTB pressures. The only sealant that I've used, and I have no need to try another, is Orange Seal - closes pretty quickly, seals permanently and I've had no issues with it working at ~100psi.

Seattle Forrest

Not sure about that one, depends how much sealant you use and what tubes I guess. I use a bunch of the stuff, give me a better chance.

IRC makes excellent road tubeless tires. Pro Ones are recommended a lot because they're great, but they're very fragile. IRCs roll and grip very well too.

I run 28s (on wide rims, so they measure 33). I run 60 for gravel and 65 for pavement, 5 less in the front. I'm faster than I used to be on 23s, but a lot has changed since then too.

robbyville

I’ve been on tubeless since 2013 and exclusively tubeless since early 2016. Won’t go back. In my case it’s mostly puncture resistance and comfort. I don’t honestly think there’s much of a weight savings over tubes given the tires tend to be heavier and then you’re adding between 1-2oz of sealant. Any savings if at all are pretty negligeable.

I weigh between 152-160 and generally run about 80lbs in my tires.

ive had success with both Bontrager and Orange Seal sealant. I haven’t had any true problems with stan’s But when I did have cuts in tires it seemed to ooze more but I could be totally wrong on that.

ive used a lot of tires. I think my favorites are the Schwalbe Pro One TL Easy, kinda on the fence with my current Continental 5000 TL’s. Had good success with Bontrager R3’s as well but they were on the lower end of the durability scale, they felt fast and light though. Again purely anecdotal and could be completely wrong from a data perspective. I do have a pair of Specialized Turbo’s that have a few weeks of use in them that I’ll probably throw back on once the Conti’s are done.

enjoy and experiment with what works for you! Forgot to mention, all my tires have been either 23 or 25mm haven’t gone wider yet

Seattle Forrest

This pretty much sums up my experience too. I've had cuts OS wouldn't seal, but it wasn't the OS's fault.

Broctoon

Lots of good insights here. Thanks for the replies. I'm seeing multiple confirmations of what I'd hoped would be the case but wasn't sure.

@Seattle Forrest, comparing apples to apples there might not be much weight difference, but I believe I will see a significant savings when comparing tubeless apples to the tubed oranges I usually ride. Because we have a big problem with goat head thorns in our area (and not just when mountain biking), I often have to choose puncture resistant tires. Gatorskins have worked pretty well for me. I haven't looked up the specs yet, but I believe even the tubeless version of something like a GP 5000 will be a bit lighter. And then I sometimes choose heavy duty tubes as well. Compared to a 100 gram race tube, 1.5 ounces of tubeless sealant isn't much lighter, but compared to the tubes I typically use in an effort to keep the thorns from penetrating, it's a real difference.

I'm not a weight weenie. In fact, each of my bikes is at least ~18 lbs. But I believe wheels/tires are one area where it can really make a difference to count the grams.

So my desire for a tubeless road setup stems from the following priorities:

1- Self-sealing punctures
2- Less weight, even if only by a small margin
3- Better comfort/ride quality
Distant 4th- Ability to air way down/no risk of pinch flats

I have been using Stan's sealant, with 35mm Gravel King SKs on WTB KOM rims, and filling them to about 40 PSI. Based on recommendations here, I think I'll go with Orange Seal for the road bike, in 25mm tires @ about 80 PSI. Still have to pull together all the pieces. I'll build the bike myself, including the wheels.