rosefarts

I just got a set of wheels with Stan's Alpha 340 rims. Mostly because I got a good deal, but I do kinda want to try road tubeless.

I have Campy calipers so am limited to whatever the frame can clear. Besides, most of my riding is road with occasional short sections of packed dirt roads. Never true loose gravel. I think a 28mm tire is my best bet.

I ride 23mm Cont Gatorskins currently. I like the handling, durability, and weight. In shopping for something similar but tubeless, I'm finding either extremely heavy or extremely light tires. The ones that seem like I'd be happy with are probably too wide (32mm).

I'm sure what I'm looking for exists. A relatively durable 28mm tubeless that isn't too heavy.

I'd be happy to drop $75+ per tire for the right one.

chaadster

The IRC Formula Pro X-Guard may be a good choice. I think these run true to size, so if you're cutting it close at 28c, if any 28c clear, these will:

IRC TIRE FORMULA PRO TUBELESS

chaadster

Also, Vee Apache Chief can be had in 28c with an aramid breaker belt, so should be pretty durable, and just $60/per direct from Vee:

ApacheChief-N-700x28c(2018)

robbyville

I did incredibly well with the new Schwalbe One’s in 25mm. Found them through Merlin’s in the UK for under $40 ea delivered! They go for $80 ea here

chaadster

The One is the older, original model. Do you mean Pro One?

robbyville

Yes correct sorry. The new ones Pro One Microskin TL-Easy. Right now they are listed at $47.64 ea and I got an additional 20% off I think from being my first order or something

chaadster

Great price on excellent tires!

robbyville

Thanks, I still need to mount them, but I was pretty happy with the old One's which had great ride qualities, although they didn't last as long as some of my other TL tires. I've heard these are better.

rosefarts

Thanks guys, this gives me a great place to start. I've got a question about the Vee tires linked upthread, it doesn't say on their website that they are specifically tubeless. If this were my mountain bike, I wouldn't care, but I've heard some horror stories about people using non specific road tires without tubes.

chaadster

Are you sure? I communicated with Vee when they launched this tire, and the Apache Chief was a new, specifically tubeless tire for them. I guess they could have changed, but...lemme look.

There certainly not perfectly clear about it, but have this on the Apache Chief general info page, under Tire Overview:

“The Apache Chief has taken all of your favorite features from the Apache and combined them with our latest technological advancements. This road tire has even better rolling resistance, control and durability but is now tubeless ready, making it one of the lightest of its kind on the market to date.” https://www.veetireco.com/listings/road-apache-chief/

I guess a quick email to them to confirm would be wise to allay concern.

robbyville

I agree with Chaadster maybe email them? I’m not sure if there are any marketing or licensing charges that a company gets out of by not putting TLR next to the name? Price on these certainly is fantastic but I have to admit I’d be a little worried, probably with no reason whatsoever!

SethAZ 

I'm actually really curious about the Apache Chief now in 30mm size. That could be a really interesting tire for me to try tubeless in again.

If someone has ridden some of the 30mm tires and can say how wide they inflate to in real use that would be very interesting to me. I'm actually very close to pulling the trigger on a pair of these just to try them out. If I do I'll definitely return and report.

If they inflate to closer to 32mm or so then they'd be a pretty direct comparison to the Compass Stampede Pass 32mm tubed-only tires I've been riding on the Lynskey. The Compass tires are nominal 32mm and expand to around 33mm or so on my AeroClyde wheels (21mm interior width, 28mm exterior).

rosefarts

Well, I'm going to start with 28. I've already only ridden 23 (My 650 tt bike had 20s, god bless the 90s). So 28 will feel giant to me.

If I love them, I may experiment with what I can squeeze between my calipers. This will be a good start though.

SethAZ 

I hear ya. My Lynskey has a gravel fork that can take up to 45mm officially. With the 32mm tires I've got on the rear right now I've got a good half inch or so to the sides of the tires to the chainstays, and around 8mm or so clearance to the seat tube. So I could definitely fit larger tires in the rear. 35mm definitely, and probably the 38mm tires as well. It's just that with the new AeroClyde wheelset I built I'm trying to keep my tire width closer to the 28mm external width of my carbon rims for aero purposes. That may well be a waste, since it's possible that the 35mm Compass tires, run tubeless, would gain me enough other benefits to offset some marginal losses in crosswind performance due to the tire/rim transition, so who knows. Still, I'd like to see how a 30-32mm tubeless performs on these rims before I try the 35mm.

If you've been riding around on 23s this whole time I think it'll be an eye-opener for you to try out the 28s. I noticed quite an improvement going from 23 to 25, and again from 25 to 28, and at least with these extremely supple extralight Compass 32s, again from 28mm to 32. I'm not sure when it will plateau, to be honest.

robbyville

Rose and Seth, do you know the internal width of your rims? I know that on my Carbon rims (November Rail's), my 23mm tire measures out at 25.2 and on my Easton Tubeless build (SL90 rims I think) my 25's measure out to just about the same as the 23's on the carbons...

SethAZ 

The carbon rims on my new AeroClyde wheels have a 21mm internal width. The 32mm Compass tires measure out to around 33mm inflated width on those rims. I know every tire model is different, and then there's variation just from tire to tire within a given model. On all of my rims Conti GP4Ks, for instance, consistently measured out a good 2mm larger than their nominal width, while Gatorskins were much closer to nominal. With each tire you just had to either try it and see what size they were inflated, or else see what width someone else got. If these 30mm Vee Apache Chief tires measure out to around 31 or 32mm inflated I think that would be really a great fit. Otherwise I'll be trying the Compass 35mm tubeless. Assuming they inflate to 36 or 37mm that may be a little larger than I want for aerodynamic reasons with these rims. I'll probably try them at some point anyway just to see how the various tradeoffs add up.

robbyville

True enough! I'm looking forward to any ride reports you may care to share. I enjoy trying new tires every time I swap, especially my tubeless ones. The only model I've actually used twice now are Bontrager R3 TLR's. And I suppose now that I have the new Schwalbe's but they're fairly different it seems from the original.

SethAZ 

Well I just tried to order two of the Apache Chief 30mm but they were out of stock. That company has a really, really crappy website. The field for inputting my email address to be notified when they are back in stock didn't work properly either in Chrome or MS Edge browser. That's pretty bad.

I figure with those tires it's unlikely I'll find many reviews or comparisons, so I was thinking maybe I'd bite the bullet and try them out and then comment on the experience. But not right now, apparently. We'll see if I get notified in the future.

trailangel

Apache Chief has all the info accept the weight of the tires.

deepakvrao

Another vote for the Schwalbe Pro Ones. Super tyres. Good pricing at bike24.com

I use 25mm and they measure 27.5 on my wide rims.

chaadster

See here:

https://www.bikeforums.net/road-cycl...e-chief-2.html

trailangel

The title of this thread is 25-28mm tubeless. I see from that link 23mm tire is 230 grams. No mention that I can see of 25-28mm weights.

chaadster

I posted the link to a) give you an idea of weight, and b) share the contact email Vee posted so that you can ask them what the 28c weighs. I can do it for you, if you want?

trailangel

No, just disappointed the weights are not listed on Website. They look like Conti tires.

chaadster

Yeah, it’s pretty standard practice to supply that info.