sapporoguy

Is anyone road touring on 26-inch tubeless tires they can recommend?
It seems my favorite 700c tubeless tourer--the Schwalbe Marathon Almotion--isn't available in 26 inch, nor are many other options from other makers.
The only obvious one I can find after a quick search is the Panaracer Gravelking SK, and then only in one size, 26x2.1.

veganbikes

Why 26" (assuming 559 iso)? If I was looking to do tubeless I would go 700c or 650b as it will be easier to find tubeless stuff for that especially on the road end of things.
You might be able to run a non-tubeless tire as tubeless as what some call a "ghetto" tubeless set up. However for longer term reliability I would go either with tubes and find loads of tires or go with a larger wheel and run tubeless with the many available options that are easy to get. On a touring bike ease wins above other stuff. Tubeless has benefits but on a touring bike it would probably not be as worth it on a less common tubeless platform like 26".

sapporoguy

We've toured about 10,000 miles on Schwalbe Almotion tubeless 700x38c on the tandem, and we'll keep using them for that bike.
I'm looking for similar tubeless tires at similar width--perhaps a bit wider--for a 26" rim.

jadmt

Renee herse naches pass actual mounted width on my wheels is 41mm. My wheels are velocity dyads.

robow

What about this 46mm wide one below ? If you don't mind some tread, there are plenty of 26" mountain bike tires that are tubeless but then you likely knew that already.

Surly ExtraTerrestrial 26" Adventure Tire

also Kenda3-Sixty Pro DJ/Bike Park 26 Inch Tire

sapporoguy

Looks interesting--26", good width, tubeless ready. If you've toured on this, what's your take?
Thanks, will look into these! Yep, I see lots of knobbies, but fear those won't do as well on 80-mile asphalt days.

jadmt

they are nice for long rides.

sapporoguy

Nice! We rode from Missoula to Sula one day late this August on our TransAm tour.

djb

Geez Louise, 18 mph average, crap that's 29kph average. You are a strong rider.

jadmt

I am old (almost 65) and fat (over 200lbs) and fueled by beer.....people laugh when I tell them beer is really the perfect endurance liquid. it has the right amount of carbo's and is easy to digest....I just installed new handlebars so hoping that increases my speed a little I was running mustache bars.

djb

Pretty darn impressive, I'm a slightly less old skinny 60 year old, but even 35 years ago I was never that fast.
I'm okay with that, just how i am.

Re tubeless, none of my bike have tubeless ready rims, so at this point it's just not an option.
My touring bike is 26in, and unfortunately a number of nice tires just aren't available in 26 any more. Oh well.

Tourist in MSN

You can say that again, the last 200k brevet I rode (no luggage, not touring) that was 125 miles, the fastest rider finished in 8:57, or 13.97 miles per hour average.

No, that was not me, I finished last, 12:29.

djb

All of my riding friends are pretty similar in speed, so I'm always impressed by fast riders and the ultra endurance nutbars 😉, they obviously put the hours and hours into hard training, are very driven people and probably have a lucky genetic thing going on also.

I have some slightly wider replacement rims for my 26in tourer, but they aren't tubeless ready, so until I get a new bike set up for this, I'm not going to be stepping into the tubeless world for a while.
Don't really have a need for it, but it would be neat to feel the ride difference one day, just to see how it is.

jadmt

I have not done tubeless either. It only takes me a couple of minutes to fix a flat so not sure I ever will go that route. I have a good buddy who was tubeless and then went back to tubes as he said ultimately for him the pros did not out weigh the cons.

Tourist in MSN

I regularly ride several different bikes each year, and average one puncture a year. So, I would spend a lot more time and effort maintaining my tubeless sealant than I would patching tubes. So, I agree with you.

And one of my bikes, tires gets switched in winter to studs, so that certainly would be the wrong bike to go tubeless.

Tourist in MSN

I could be wrong on this, but those look like the brake levers that are designed to be used with V brakes, they have more cable pull (distance pulled) and less brake pressure at the pads. I am basing this only on seeing the photo. If you find that the braking with those brakes is adequate, disregard my comment. But I think that you might find you need to use more muscle than you would with conventional brake levers that are designed for canti brakes.

I think you have the RL520 but want the RL340, but someone here that know Tektro brakes better than me might have better input.

jadmt

they actually are RL340's but braking sux tho. The fronts will put you over the bars but the rear barely slow you down. I had the tektro canti brakes too and thought maybe the dia compes would be better but they are equally bad .

sapporoguy

I totally understand why people don't want to go tubeless, no argument there. and I stay tubed on my commuter and local bikes.
Touring on the tandem has been a little different. We didn't have many flats when we crossed the country the first time, on tubes, and it didn't take me long to change. But we tour fully loaded, and each flat required taking off all the gear, diagnosing the cause of the puncture, packing it all up again. That wasn't pleasant the time we had two flats in the pouring rain, or with the serial flats we got in 100-degree temperatures in the shadeless, dusty Nevada desert, or fixing the flat alongside a busy highway. We once had multiple tube failures on one tire before I could closely examine the tire to find a minute imperfection that was abrading the tube.
I'd rather not mess with any of that while touring.
We've had zero flats in the 10,000 miles or so, including another 1 1/2 cross-countries, since we switched our tandem to tubeless, including across the South, where some other touring cyclists were getting multiple flats a day from goatheads and other hazards.
I've also had zero trouble mounting the tires, including changing one in a motel room. Topping off the sealant takes about 10 minutes, when I need to do it at all.

But tubed or tubeless aside, I'm only now discovering that 26" wheels/tires have apparently been disappearing from the market for some years, which is disappointing.

Tourist in MSN

Oops, sorry I got that wrong.

For a touring bike, you want good brakes, the downside is that you can go over the bars if the bike is unladen. Happened to me a couple years ago. Lots of car drivers stopped to help but none thought to get the license plate of the moron that suddenly turned into my lane. Broke an adjuster on the bike, sore ribs for a few weeks.

Tourist in MSN

Yup. I have three bikes that use 26 inch.

I think that tires will always be available, but selection will be poorer and the better rolling tire models may disappear.

jadmt

I think you would be happy with the Rene Herse naches pass's rolling resistance. if you could go back to tubes they make an elk pass that is really fast 1.25" wide. I also run Panaracer Paselas and tservs and they roll nice but not tubeless. I started running TPU tubes and they are really light and supple and so far have proven to be nice tubes.

staehpj1

There is something to that. I love tubeless on my every day ride. I trail ride and there are thorns. I have zero time spent fixing flats now vs one per week before. I wouldn't want to maintain sealant in the tires on bikes that sit unridden for most of the time though. I would probably find it worthwhile to set up for a long tour where flats were likely, especually in thorn country.

I was surprised how noticeable the difference in ride was, but the elimination of fixing flats was worth the change for my daily ride. I am thinking of putting tubes back in my hard tail that only gets ridden once in a while.

robow

I began using the TPU tubes, RideNow tubes about 4 months ago on my 32mm tire road bike. They've come down in price to where they are now very competitive with butyl tubes. After almost a thousand miles, so far so good. They don't lose air like latex but they definitely ride like latex and at 36 grams they weigh next to nothing and are very compact when folded. Jury for me is still out as to their durability and puncture resistance but so far, not an issue. On my fall tour a few weeks ago I toyed with the idea of using them but I decided to hold off for a while, maybe next early spring when we are touring down in Louisiana. Though I'm not really sure they will really offer an advantage while loaded touring unless their puncture resistance isn't at least as good or better than butyl..

Tourist in MSN

If I had much exposure to thorns, I would have to re-consider. I live in Wisc, also bike some in Minnesota. Pretty much free of thorns.

Most of my touring is in non-thorn areas. If I go somewhere with thorns, I might use Slime sealant in tubes. I have a bottle of it on the shelf from my last thorn-area trip.

staehpj1

Way back in 2007 we tried slime tubes when on the TA. We found that they leaked any way with the thorns. We had trouble with patches not holding (perhaps our technique). The wet mess was a pain if wanting to patch and we found that we did still need to patch them. It did clean up with water, but if you still need to patch there isn't much point. We generally were unhappy with them and quickly went back to regulat tubes.

Maybe the interface between the tube and the tire moved and the thorn kept it from sealing, Perhaps if we had gotten the thorn out it would have sealed itself. That is most of the work of patching though.

A guy in a shop on the ST (deep in thorn country) swore by those heavy thornproof tubes with sealant. They are super heavy though.