bikeinxs

We have about 1200 km on our True North tandem and I'm getting significant wear on the rear tire. The front looks like new but the rear tire looks like it is two years old. I never really kept track but I seem to think I used to get 3000 or 4000 km out of the Continentals on our old road tandem. I'm also not happy with the Stan's sealant that continues to ooze through the sidewalls (and I did not buy the lightweight sidewall tires). Plus we got a very small piece of glass embedded into the tire last weekend and the sealant was completely useless at stopping the leak.

So I'm looking for a tubeless alternative. The Panaracer Gravel Kings look promising. They have a tiny bit of a file tread which I don't need but probably wouldn't slow us down. I am not looking for a proper gravel tire, we have another set of wheels with Gravel King SK's and they are working just fine.

I also understand that Caffee Latex or Orange sealant might work better than Stans.

Any advice and input welcome.

Thanks.

unikid

Stan's also make a "Race" Sealant which has more particles and seals better than the plain. One drawback is you cannot inject through the valves.

I used it in the past on an XC racing bike which had a set of fast rolling tires but a tendency to develop leaks and pinholes. I've since moved on to a set of tires which weighed more but didn't have all these problems.

unikid

Maybe this will help? https://road.cc/content/buyers-guide...hnology-rubber

OneIsAllYouNeed

I can confirm that the Panaracer Gravelking (slick) tires are really nice for tandem use. The hold sealant well. They are every bit as fast as a "road tire". The newer Gravelking + has extra puncture protection, but I don't know if it has extra rubber.
You might like the Simworks Volummy 38mm, Donnelly USH 40mm, or Challenge Strada Bianca 36mm as (somewhat) longer lasting alternatives to Rene Herse tires.

waynesulak

Compass has come out with a third type of casing - "Endurance casing" which is heavier that the normal version.

tkramer

I've had the Panaracer Gravel King 700x38 on my bike for 1,000 miles now. They were installed new with Stans. I have been running them at 55-58 PSI the entire time. Just today, I switched them over to tubed (Schwalbe SV18) as they were starting to weep at the sidewalls, not hold pressure as well, and the front began making the most annoying sound when the bead flexed against the rim (carbon fiber). Imagine the sound of basketball sneakers on a wood court - squick!, squick!, squick! - every revolution of the wheel. The sealant kept us going after what would have been two punctures, at the cost of wiping down the goo mid- or post ride. One thing I did notice is that the carcass delaminated from the tread in the contact region, about 3/4 of an inch along the centerline of the tire. Like a blister, some sealant had filled into some of the gap. I coated the tire with lots of talc to avoid the tube fusing to the tire.


After the 1K mile mark I also swapped them front/back. The back has worn just enough so you could barely see the tread at the contact strip but still present at the margins where the file-pattern shoulders start. Much less wear than I experience with 28mm wide Gravel Kings run at ~95 PSI.


I'm ambivalent about tubeless for road leaning slightly against. While everything is fresh and new, it's nice. But it gets to a pain as the system wears, while you can keep going with tubes without a thought ... at least until/if you flat.

torger

As far as I understand orange seal is good for tires with weeping sidewalls (compass), as it coats the tire with a film, while stan's and many others work just fine or better with tubeless tires that are actually air tight. Personally I think a tire shouldn't be allowed to be called tubeless if it weeps through the sidewalls, but maybe that's just me...

About tire alternatives, do you have clearance issues so you can't go up to 40mm? There are some more alternatives there.

Otherwise, there's Schwalbe G-One All-Around 700x38c (~40mm wide with the knobs), WTB Riddler 37mm if you need a bit smaller tire, Challenge Gravel Grinder TLR 38mm. Look up the pressure you need though, limited max pressure could be a problem for some of these tires. The Panaracer Gravelking SK 35mm used to be big in size and swell up to about 37mm, but my latest Gravelking SKs are actually smaller, more spot on 35mm on a 19c rim so maybe they have adjusted the size. If you have the clearance you can go up to 42mm of the gravelkings. Here in Europe Schwalbe is big, G-One All-Around is a great tire with good fit for tubeless. I like the Gravelkings too but they are much trickier to set up tubeless due to less precise fit. All these tires are high performance tires with low rolling resistance etc so the wear out faster than a regular touring tire.

On my tandem I've opted for tubes though, I like to change tires between road and gravel now and then and it's a mess with tubeless when sealant is involved. As we rarely go on multi-day tours I use latex tubes which has about the same performance as tubeless, having to pump them up every day would be messy though for touring...

bikeinxs

We have about 500 km on the gravel kings with Stan's sealant. So far so good. Running at 60 psi with a 300 pound team. I did not like the handling of the compass tires at anything below 75 psi but the stiffer gravel king is quite good.

tkramer

@bikeinxs Were you running the Rene Herse/Compass Standard or Extralight Barlow Pass tires? I find it curious that the GKs are actually lighter (claimed 330g) than the Compass extralights (350g). Even considering that there is variation +/- 20g for both, I find it hard to believe that the GKs are much more rigid at the sidewall.

bikeinxs

I believe we were running the standard tires (at least that's what I ordered). There is nothing on the sidewall that I can see to indicate which one I might have. I just weighed them at 750 g for the pair or 375 g each. The Gravel Kings are on the bike so I can't weigh them easily. There is no question that they are much stiffer so it must be about the construction material or process. The Compass tires just flop over and are incredibly squishy at lower pressure. I was still running the Compass tires tubeless on my cross bike until a month ago when one just collapsed and rolled off my rim.