TimothyH

A little weary of hearing this.

It is stated often on the forums. Wheel manufacturers even say it.

From https://icancycling.com/collections/...ro-45-wheelset...



Fact check: Tubeless tires get punctures. They are not immune.

The only thing tubeless does is seal the tire after the puncture so it doesn't go flat, maybe.

Semantics?


-Tim-

spdntrxi

not to cuts though

LesterOfPuppets

Yeah, I think there's an implied "...that will have you spending some quality time on the side of the road/trail."

Troul 

They forgot the "auto" before the immune then the word "deflating" after immune.

LesterOfPuppets

There must be an error somewhere. I've never seen a rim with 10mm more external over the internal

unterhausen

that fact that plug kits are selling pretty well seems to indicate that tubeless is not immune to punctures. OTOH, they are a lot better than tubes in this regard.

BarryVee

BarryVee

Rollfast

Slime and liners. Nothing is forever.

dsaul

All of my bikes are tubeless and I would never go back to tubes, but they are far from immune to punctures(flats). That reminds me that I need to order more plugs.

Sy Reene

The outer rim width that they're using is actually the distance at the furthest point of the fairing.. not measured at the brake track. Some Flo wheels I believe also come close to 10mm difference measured this way.

Humpy

Semantics. Your argument relies on an assumption that by punctures they meant all punctures.

It is a fact that most humans have eight toes. It is also a fact that most humans have ten toes.

TimothyH

Your tires probably have many punctures.


My argument relies on the assumption that they don't understand what they are talking about.

Tubeless tires are immune to neither flats nor punctures.


-Tim-

Jon T

That's like the quiz question: "Some months have 30 days. Some months have 31 days. How many months have 28 days?"
​​​​​​​Jon

LesterOfPuppets

I'm sure I got a couple of punctures during the MTB race yesterday. I didn't notice, since I was running tubeless.

Troul 

don't forget about the bissextile year.

Humpy

There are only 7 days.

PaulRivers

I was told tubeless doesn't get flats. My experience mountain biking in arizona disproved that.
I was told slime inside the tire would seal punctures. My experience disproved that as well.
The purpose of the green slime was apparently to highlight the puncture point by squirting green goo out of the tire at that point. In that way it worked I guess, but since it was tubeless and there was green slime, the fix was to put a tube into the tire.

If people like tubeless that's fine, but I'm not dropping a few thousand to switch from tubes to tubless.

bikeaddiction1

A few thousand dollars? Maybe if you are going to buy new high end tubeless rims to do it. Most better quality bikes come with tubeless ready rims, and often tubeless ready tires. My last mountain bike came set up tubless from the factory. Tubless set up kits for two wheels typically are under $75 (and that's Canadian dollars, less in the US).

I have never used Slime, but have used Stan's and Orange Seal for the last 6 years on 4 of my bikes. The only flat I have had with tubeless was a 2 cm cut in a sidewall. That is mostly mountain biking and gravel rides. I have had a number of flats on my road bike which I still run with tubes.

Tubes are a pretty dependable, relatively easy to use system, and I still need to carry them in case of a big cut that will flat any system But for me personally, I spend more time riding and less time fixing flats with tubeless.

LesterOfPuppets

Regular Slime doesn't work very well as a tubeless sealant. Slime Tubeless Sealant works slightly better, but Stans and Orange Seal are better tubeless sealants.

It costs nowhere near a few thousand to make one bicycle Tubeless. I only have tubeless on about half my bikes, since I have a few non-tubeless rims. I did setup tubeless on one bike with non-tubeless rims. Might do my plus bike also, even though it has non-tubeless rims.

shoota 

100% not immune. I can speak from experience.

CliffordK

My tubeless experiment got set aside when I slammed one of my Schwalbe One Pro tires on a rock, and ripped the cover and tore a few cords. Not enough to totally compromise the tire, but enough that I could get it to seal sitting still, but it would leak as soon as I started rolling again. And, of course, I waited a couple of hours, but coudn't take a couple of days off of the bike in the middle of a ride.

I'll try Pirelli tires this coming summer.

cyccommute 

It should be obvious that tubeless can go flat but any number of people have claimed otherwise on these forums. Without exception, people will tell you that they have never had a flat with tubeless. You may know that is wrong and I may know that is wrong but it is what is claimed.

PaulRivers doesn't appear to be talking about Slime as a tubeless sealant. Most people's experience with it is as a tube sealant and lots of people swear by it. Personally, I've never liked the extra weight of the sealant.

As for Stan's, Orange Seal and Slime tubeless sealants, their formulation my be different but that doesn't mean that it doesn't have problems. You have to ask yourself why do you need to "refresh" the sealant? Where does it go? How can a tire that is sealed to air lose a liquid? And, finally, why go through the mounting hassle of tubeless? Why not just use the sealant in a tube? Life would be much easier the way.

Perhaps PaulRivers is overestimating the cost but by how much would depend on what you have and what you want to do. If you have old rims, that's a new set of wheels. That gets pricey quickly. Or, as in my case, you have multiple bikes and converting all of them would be prohibitively expensive. Or, again as in my case, you don't have a compressor. Yes, I know that some people can seat tubeless with a hand pump but it doesn't sound as easy as a compressor.

cyccommute 

In other words, "don't listen to this guy because he has thought about it". But from MSDS reading, head scratching, observation of tire problems in the past, and thought, I've come up with a hypothesis. Do you have another explanation for how a liquid can "dry" in a sealed container? Come up with a better explanation and I'll entertain it. Otherwise your comments boil down to "Nuh uh."

And that gets us nowhere towards an explanation.

First, I've been involved in some mounting of tubeless tires. I wouldn't say it isn't a hassle for most folks. It seems to take a lot of time, effort, and a considerable amount of mess at my local co-op.

Why would you need to run higher pressure to prevent pinch flats? The sealant would seal them. Or are you saying that the sealant doesn't work?

But one thing that the people who fear pinch flats seem to forget is that pinch flats are a symptom of a far worse problem. If the tire bottoms out so as to pinch the tube between the rim and whatever surface you are on, the rim is going to hit that same surface. I'm far less concerned about pinch flats than I am about rim damage. One costs a few pennies to fix and just a little bit of time while the other can cost 10,000 or more pennies and a whole lot more time to fix.

PaulRivers

"buy a new bike that comes with tubeless tires" "under $75"...

Whether it's a few thousand for a new bike or a few hundred for new wheels, the exact cost wasn't my point, I don't see the motivation personally to spend any money on it. My experience has not shown it to be an improvement.

I'm not claiming to be an authority on this topic but I am saying from my personal experience I'm dubious of the claims of no flats as it hasn't been my experience when renting a bike (for many rides) with tubeless. The bike shop owner told me big amazing things how amazing tubeless and slime would be...then I flat out on the very next ride. I'm not exactly impressed.

Sometimes new marketing hype comes with improvements...sometimes it's just empty hype. My experience leaves me leaning towards that tubeless is mostly hype. I mean tubeless works "fine" I'm not saying anyone "shouldn't" use it but it is extra work and a little messier and in my (limited) experience it's flat prevention is no better than a decent flat resistant tire with a tube in it.