Fixing Tires In The Middle of Nowhere - Tubeless vs. Tubes
08-05-20, 02:46 PM
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A pine needle caused a flat? That’s a first for me, didn’t think a pine needle would go through a tire, even a cheap one. Definitely need to upgrade your tires. Most importantly you need to learn how to change a flat out on the road. I can’t imagine going out and not having that skill, especially with a gravel bike where you may be miles from any any paved roads. Lean the skill and equip yourself with the right tools when you ride.
I'm going to bet a pine needle didn't puncture your tire - unless it was made out of brass. Given that you don't have a pump, chances are you were running on low pressure and possibly pinch flatted it over a square-edged bump.
Learning how to fix a flat is a vital rite of passage for a cyclist. These days, I have a spare tube, a patch kit, and a CO2 canister in my saddle bag, and I routinely listen for leaks and bounce my tires at stoplights to confirm that I'm at adequate pressure.
As for pumping tires - almost anybody on this forum will suggest at least checking tire pressure with your thumb before every ride. I like my tire pressure in a consistent range, so I top up my tires before every ride. Some people even run latex tubes, which pretty much demand to be reinflated on a near daily basis. But even if you run standard tubes, slow leaks that take hours (or even days) to be noticeable are definitely a thing, and valves can get damaged, especially somewhat fragile presta valves. So always check.
Worst case, I think you can buy tires pretreated with Slime (a sealing compound), and you can even get plastic puncture strips to line the insides of your tires. Of course, all of that adds weight, rolling resistance, and ruins the ride, so might just be worth learning to fix your flats yourself. Besides - fixing your flat yourself = $4-8 for a tube, taking it to a shop is likely $15-20, so you win out in the long run.
Learning how to fix a flat is a vital rite of passage for a cyclist. These days, I have a spare tube, a patch kit, and a CO2 canister in my saddle bag, and I routinely listen for leaks and bounce my tires at stoplights to confirm that I'm at adequate pressure.
As for pumping tires - almost anybody on this forum will suggest at least checking tire pressure with your thumb before every ride. I like my tire pressure in a consistent range, so I top up my tires before every ride. Some people even run latex tubes, which pretty much demand to be reinflated on a near daily basis. But even if you run standard tubes, slow leaks that take hours (or even days) to be noticeable are definitely a thing, and valves can get damaged, especially somewhat fragile presta valves. So always check.
Worst case, I think you can buy tires pretreated with Slime (a sealing compound), and you can even get plastic puncture strips to line the insides of your tires. Of course, all of that adds weight, rolling resistance, and ruins the ride, so might just be worth learning to fix your flats yourself. Besides - fixing your flat yourself = $4-8 for a tube, taking it to a shop is likely $15-20, so you win out in the long run.
08-05-20, 03:26 PM
#27
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I now ride with a pump, the flat kit they gave me, the saddle bag that gave me to put the flat kit in, and a spare tire in my backpack. I hate the thought of adding all this stuff to my bike because it was originally around 21lbs. Now it's a little heavier, but at least I won't be walking home. I also pump the tires before I leave too. I did 22 miles on my last ride and no issues. Had no idea bike tires go flat so fast LOL. Never had to do this on my bikes before and never pump tires in my motorcycle or cars.
Think of it this way: you've never had a flat in your car, does that mean you'll leave your spare and your jack at home?
I guess just be happy that you were 4 miles from home on pavement when it happened, and not 25 miles from home, in the woods, with no cell phone signal. Happened to a guy I saw on the road - luckily it's a common cycling route, and I had just enough signal in my phone to call him a Lyft - that's the difference between 2 bars of signal and 0 bars.
08-08-20, 11:18 AM
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Always a fun debate. Based on my experience, tubes are a lot easier to deal with than tubeless. So damned simple. And, if you flat out a tubeless tire in the middle of nowhere, it's likely you'll need to install a tube to get home. So...why bother?
08-08-20, 11:39 AM
#29
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I say with authority that if I tried to run any tire lower in puncture protection than a Gatorskin, I would have to buy both tubes and patches in bulk. I would much rather not ride a horrible tire, and I just simply don't want to spend time fixing roadside flats. So as I've said for the umpteenth time, tubeless it is.
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08-08-20, 12:25 PM
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I now ride with a pump, the flat kit they gave me, the saddle bag that gave me to put the flat kit in, and a spare tire in my backpack. I hate the thought of adding all this stuff to my bike because it was originally around 21lbs. Now it's a little heavier, but at least I won't be walking home. I also pump the tires before I leave too. I did 22 miles on my last ride and no issues. Had no idea bike tires go flat so fast LOL. Never had to do this on my bikes before and never pump tires in my motorcycle or cars.
08-08-20, 12:32 PM
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They're called plugs. I haven't touched a tube in over 2 years-- and in 2018 I used one tube. The sealant prevents about 95% of punctures from being a problem-- most don't even leak, and the ones that do I don't notice until I get home. The "sprayers" are the only times that require a plug, I've had two this year. The second incident was a cut so big that it effectively destroyed the tire. Two plugs held for the remaining 20 miles for me to get home.
I say with authority that if I tried to run any tire lower in puncture protection than a Gatorskin, I would have to buy both tubes and patches in bulk. I would much rather not ride a horrible tire, and I just simply don't want to spend time fixing roadside flats. So as I've said for the umpteenth time, tubeless it is.
I say with authority that if I tried to run any tire lower in puncture protection than a Gatorskin, I would have to buy both tubes and patches in bulk. I would much rather not ride a horrible tire, and I just simply don't want to spend time fixing roadside flats. So as I've said for the umpteenth time, tubeless it is.
I ride GP 4000s and get...maybe...two flats a year. Maybe. If tubeless works for you, have at it. Just understand that for many of us the experience is quite different.
08-08-20, 12:54 PM
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If the nature of your flats is that they're rare and/or are almost always greater than ~5mm, then no - tubeless wouldn't make much sense. For many people, it's a lesser evil. A much lesser evil.
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08-08-20, 01:55 PM
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Is this really not obvious? Because you're much, much less likely to flat out with a tubeless tire? In the ~15k miles that I've been running tubeless, I've needed to put in a tube twice - that's considerably less than my flat frequency pre-tubeless. Hell, prior to tubeless, I've had multiple rides where I've needed to address two unrelated flats.
If the nature of your flats is that they're rare and/or are almost always greater than ~5mm, then no - tubeless wouldn't make much sense. For many people, it's a lesser evil. A much lesser evil.
If the nature of your flats is that they're rare and/or are almost always greater than ~5mm, then no - tubeless wouldn't make much sense. For many people, it's a lesser evil. A much lesser evil.
Be safe.
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08-08-20, 02:11 PM
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The most vocally critical are often people that are: a) lacking in meaningful experience and b) paint with broad strokes. So when you say something like, "So... why bother?" it's a really broad statement that shows that your experience probably isn't representative of the reality that many of us live and it's literally inviting rationalization from others like me. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine - I'm cool with that. Insinuating that's it's dumb and useless is propagating ignorance, though.
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08-08-20, 02:31 PM
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I ride with a group, a lot. Many of them are anti-tubeless even though they've never touched it. Most probably aren't aware that I'm even running tubeless because it never calls attention to itself. I have twiddled my thumbs many, many times while waiting for them to address their flats, yet my system is the one that sucks. Go figure.
One thing I have noticed is that tubeless riders seem to be very defensive about their choice. Can't understand that.
08-08-20, 03:22 PM
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Like when ignorant people insinuate that it's pointless and then tubeless users respond with scenarios in which it's not pointless? Yeah, people are funny like that, sometimes.
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08-09-20, 06:59 AM
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Sorry, I had no idea disagreeing would hit such a sore spot. My comment referred to*my* usage, not everyone. So please, relax and go for a ride.
08-09-20, 07:15 AM
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You're having a hard time with this, aren't you? If you think that you've hit a sore spot and that I'm not relaxed, you're either projecting, giving yourself too much credit or you have a hard time interpreting tone.
I didn't respond to you disagreeing with your usage - you've never explicitly stated that you actually have any meaningful experience with tubeless - I responded to your assertion that flatting with tubeless was the same as flatting with tubes and that it was therefor pointless; that kind of ignorant statement misses the broad-side-of-the-barn mark that punctures with tubeless are much, much less likely to result in an actual flat in the first place.
And I've got 250 miles on the week already, but thanks for being concerned with my riding.
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08-09-20, 07:30 AM
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Tubeless is, for the most part, an expensive fix to a largely self imposed problem. - Getting flats from running too puncture prone and fragile tyres all the time. Ppl should stop brainwashing them selves into running race day tyres to save a few watts on training/fun/group rides. Whats the point any way? Of course endless marketing and hyperbole claims that a bit of protection makes the tyres feel like frozen garden hoses with tractor like drag doesn't help either. Its not true tho.
08-09-20, 07:50 AM
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You're having a hard time with this, aren't you? If you think that you've hit a sore spot and that I'm not relaxed, you're either projecting, giving yourself too much credit or you have a hard time interpreting tone.
I didn't respond to you disagreeing with your usage - you've never explicitly stated that you actually have any meaningful experience with tubeless - I responded to your assertion that flatting with tubeless was the same as flatting with tubes and that it was therefor pointless; that kind of ignorant statement misses the broad-side-of-the-barn mark that punctures with tubeless are much, much less likely to result in an actual flat in the first place.
And I've got 250 miles on the week already, but thanks for being concerned with my riding.
08-09-20, 07:59 AM
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I've tried the Jedi mind trick with myself, but I just can't seem to convince myself that ****ty tires don't feel ****ty or that the punctures that happened didn't really happen. I must not be trying hard enough - I accept this as a personal shortcoming. 
08-09-20, 08:03 AM
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YMMV, but there's no chance I'm going back to tubed tires.
08-09-20, 08:19 AM
#43
Non omnino gravis
If you live in a place with "actual winter" you probably won't benefit from tubeless... but there are even some exceptions to that. Here in the Land Without Seasons® (a few years ago it was 100º on Halloween) the weeds never stop growing. It's goatheads 24/7/365, and that doesn't even account for the blossoming homeless population and their penchant for whippin' glass everywhere, or the fact that the city filed for bankruptcy in 2017 (what's a street sweeper again?) Tubeless is not a solution looking for a problem. It's a solution for those of us that already have a problem.
What will forever boggle my mind are the folks who have zero issues over years and years running tubes, then just out of the blue decide to try tubeless. When it doesn't turn their bike into a maintenance-free rocketship, as it's just a tire full 'o juice...
What will forever boggle my mind are the folks who have zero issues over years and years running tubes, then just out of the blue decide to try tubeless. When it doesn't turn their bike into a maintenance-free rocketship, as it's just a tire full 'o juice...
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08-09-20, 08:19 AM
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Again with the hyperbole and deliberate misreading ... Great arguments tho ... :-)
08-09-20, 10:11 AM
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That said, one of my good friends has been dabbling in road for the last couple years and I have to constantly try to talk him out of going tubeless. He's only 25-30 miles away from me, but he lives in the sticks, where the shoulders are more generous, there fewer streets to sweep, and debris is generally less of a problem. He's also still a low-mileage rider (~1500/yr?). He is a tri-geek at heart, though, so I think that he's looking for some watt savings even if it doesn't make much sense.
08-09-20, 10:15 AM
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If you live in a place with "actual winter" you probably won't benefit from tubeless... but there are even some exceptions to that. Here in the Land Without Seasons® (a few years ago it was 100º on Halloween) the weeds never stop growing. It's goatheads 24/7/365, and that doesn't even account for the blossoming homeless population and their penchant for whippin' glass everywhere, or the fact that the city filed for bankruptcy in 2017 (what's a street sweeper again?) Tubeless is not a solution looking for a problem. It's a solution for those of us that already have a problem.
What will forever boggle my mind are the folks who have zero issues over years and years running tubes, then just out of the blue decide to try tubeless. When it doesn't turn their bike into a maintenance-free rocketship, as it's just a tire full 'o juice...
What will forever boggle my mind are the folks who have zero issues over years and years running tubes, then just out of the blue decide to try tubeless. When it doesn't turn their bike into a maintenance-free rocketship, as it's just a tire full 'o juice...
08-09-20, 11:44 AM
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Tubeless is, for the most part, an expensive fix to a largely self imposed problem. - Getting flats from running too puncture prone and fragile tyres all the time. Ppl should stop brainwashing them selves into running race day tyres to save a few watts on training/fun/group rides. Whats the point any way? Of course endless marketing and hyperbole claims that a bit of protection makes the tyres feel like frozen garden hoses with tractor like drag doesn't help either. Its not true tho.
Last edited by Atlas Shrugged; 08-09-20 at 05:14 PM.
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08-09-20, 09:10 PM
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I ride with a group, a lot. Many of them are anti-tubeless even though they've never touched it. Most probably aren't aware that I'm even running tubeless because it never calls attention to itself. I have twiddled my thumbs many, many times while waiting for them to address their flats, yet my system is the one that sucks. Go figure.
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