zpl

I'm new to tubeless tires and they were a life-saver on a recent ride I did out in goathead country. Along the ride I pulled out a few goatheads as I found them in my tires and they sealed up nicely.

However, now that I'm home, I thought I'd take some time to go over my tires for any stragglers. On my front tire in particular, I had around a dozen or so thorns embedded into the tire which I removed. Some of them sealed up quickly, others took a few minutes to seal and made a nice puddle of sealant on the floor until I started putting some rags down. My tires are GK SKs in 700x43.

I'm wondering at what point would you replace a tubeless tire that's riddled with (mostly) pinholes? I'm a bit nervous that the next time I top up sealant that once the tire deflates, my next inflation with the compressor is going to result in sealant shooting out of 10+ holes in the tire all at once. Or is the sealant more solid as a plug than I'm thinking? Thanks for any advice.

chas58

I think you will be fine - as long as it is holding the same amount of air day to day, week to week.

Its a thin layer of latex. Its not as sensitive as lambskin, but you know...

aggiegrads

Where is goat head country close to PDX? East of the cascades? I dealt with goat heads in CA, but never in OR.

I’ll make sure I am set up with an extra shot of sealant when I follow your track.

zpl

Yeah, I was just East of The Dalles - rode the Deschutes River Trail. I also posted a couple of the ride photos in the Gravel Ride Pics thread.

TrackSmart

I wouldn't worry much about the thorns. I had THIS in my bike tire for at least 2-3 weeks before I realized it was embedded. I remember the ride where I lost about 15-20 PSI on the way home. Somehow I missed seeing the nail head in the dark of the garage when I looked over my tire that evening. It held air perfectly until I pulled out the nail. Then I used one of those "bacon strips" to seal the hole and called it good. I rode that tire for another ~1000 miles before retiring it for other reasons (i.e. failing to hold sealant in the sidewalls after ~2000 miles, tread was still not fully worn out). My advice: Use some tire plugs if any of the holes are not reliably sealing after removing the thorns. And if you are not carrying one, get a tire plug tool. I use the basic one from Genuine Innovations, which cost about $7 and weighs about 5 grams including the tool, though there are fancier options out there.

jimincalif

What TrackSmart said.

zpl

Thanks for the advice. I have a Stan's DART tool for larger punctures, but these are definitely not big enough to warrant that. I guess I was just a bit apprehensive when a few of the thorns removals would take 3+ minutes to seal (I'd remove the thorn, then rotate the wheel so the hole was at the bottom to ensure the most sealant was available).

Here's a photo of most of the little buggers. My tire is holding air well now, will keep an eye on it.

shoota 

Don't use a compressor and keep them aired up. That should take care of that.