Bitten by Tubeless
#101
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In a road tire, even the more generously sized ones, you're putting maybe 1-2 fl oz. For a front tire that rarely punctures, this can often last until you rotate it to the rear (or until you rotate in a new rear).
For a rear tire, I'll check every 6-8 weeks during the worst puncture season. If it's low, I'll top off. If it's gone bad and watery, I'll unseat one bead, mop it up with a paper towel and put in fresh stuff. Just spitballing, but at the end of the useful life of the tire, the dried up webbing is probably less than half the weight of a typical tube.
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#102
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It's just a small amount of latex. Most of the weight of the sealant is the fluid, so once it dries away, it adds very little mass. If a big blob of latex ends up in one place, i.e. if a wheel is left sitting around without motion for a while, it's easy to remove.
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#103
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I can only go by my experience with my Mavic Ksyrium Elite USTs. And, that's been one season. However, the tubeless replace some Mavic Aksiums that came on my new CAAD 12. They are lighter, smoother, more comfortable and easier to spin up. I've had zero problems with set up or use. And, at about $400 a set w/tires they are a killer deal. I'm not going back.
#104
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For about 15 years they produced crap, and it was a PITA to get replacement parts when you needed them(which was often). They seem to have improved things over the past few years, but it's gonna take some time to repair that reputation.
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#105
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Also late to the party with rims that weren’t super-skinny, or had modern (non-V) aero profiles. It was hard to justify looking at them for a premium; wifey has Aksiums now just for use on the STAC, which requires a metal rim and her SystemSix came with carbon.
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#106
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I'm kinda new to cycling so I wasn't aware of their bad reputation, but I kinda got a feel for it. It seems people hated their hubs, but their current generation"id 360" hubs are a copy of some popular dt swiss model, which supposedly lends to reliability.
#107
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I've been using Mavic clinchers and now USTs for about a decade. Maybe I've been fortunate but I've never had a problem. Once hit a pothole with both wheels at 40 mph on a down hill. They never even went out of true.
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#110
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[QUOTE=noodle soup;21267484]Happy to do so under two conditions. I get to speak the truth and I get paid. So far, only one has happened. It's not the paid part.
#111
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I try to pay attention to where I put my wheels at 40 mph because I like having teeth. If I can't see what's coming up, or there's some other reason I can't ride in control, I slow down.
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#113
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+1 on MAVIC USTs and MAVIC customer service. The interactions and support I have had with MAVIC have been phenomenal, specifically Chris Brown, he is a Rockstar. You can definitely feel the difference going from tubes to tubeless (at least I can). I have one bike setup with tubes and the other with tubeless. Tubeless rolls so much better IMO.
#114
Senior Member
One example of tubeless tire lifetime additional weight.
New Grand Bois Hetre: 422 grams
Hetre worn to the cords after 3500 miles: 370 grams
New tubeless Grand Bois Hetre: 417 grams
Added sealant over 6 months/3500 miles (dispensed as 4 oz/2 oz/2 oz/2 oz): 10 liquid ounces/300 grams
Hetre tubeless worn to the cords after 3500 miles: 395 grams
Tubeless sealant weight is 90% liquid/carrier. Once it "evaporates" the weight of the remnant is minimal. A smaller road tire would be closer to 2 oz/1 oz/1oz as the tire is much smaller and the lifetime much shorter.
New Grand Bois Hetre: 422 grams
Hetre worn to the cords after 3500 miles: 370 grams
New tubeless Grand Bois Hetre: 417 grams
Added sealant over 6 months/3500 miles (dispensed as 4 oz/2 oz/2 oz/2 oz): 10 liquid ounces/300 grams
Hetre tubeless worn to the cords after 3500 miles: 395 grams
Tubeless sealant weight is 90% liquid/carrier. Once it "evaporates" the weight of the remnant is minimal. A smaller road tire would be closer to 2 oz/1 oz/1oz as the tire is much smaller and the lifetime much shorter.
it.
#115
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Re: Sealant weight- I recently watched a video of a guy removing the dried up sealant in his 32mm tyres. He weighed the stuff that came out. It was about 10 grams per tyre. Not that bad...
Re: Mavic Wheels- The older Mavic designs are fine as long as you preventatively maintain your bike. If you ignore your bike, then a lot of things won't work for you. Ride a Schwinn Varsity.
Re: Mavic Wheels- The older Mavic designs are fine as long as you preventatively maintain your bike. If you ignore your bike, then a lot of things won't work for you. Ride a Schwinn Varsity.
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#116
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I think I will continue to use tubed tires on mag wheels because I have had no trouble with them in over a year. It may seem frivolous, but I had a bad boss who threatened to fire me for wearing green socks to teach my math classes when no other professor had to put up with such a thing. When hes extra duties requiring me to drive hundreds of miles at my own expense and other things were costing me too much for which I was never compensated I quit. I celebrated by burning all my black socks and I only wear green socks. To further this custom I order green tires on ebay rather than use black tires. The green tire treads last longer than the black tire treads which came new with the bike. I might consider tubeless tires if I can get them in green at a reasonable price. I use my bike to commute and save gasoline.
#117
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Proprietary spokes and nipples suck, and their freehub bodies were fragile. Mavic was a terrible company to deal with as a vendor, but some of you people have said they've changed.
These days, I couldn't possibly care less about what Mavic offers. There are many other companies out there that haven't been a PITA.
#119
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Haven't run in to a situation where the old-school levers, the ones already in everyone's tool kits, haven't worked. Neither have I had an instance where damage was done to the tire or the rim. If one is in need some new levers, anyway, and these are a convenient purchase at a reasonable price, by all means, give them a whirl, but they're hardly a necessity.
#120
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Haven't run in to a situation where the old-school levers, the ones already in everyone's tool kits, haven't worked. Neither have I had an instance where damage was done to the tire or the rim. If one is in need some new levers, anyway, and these are a convenient purchase at a reasonable price, by all means, give them a whirl, but they're hardly a necessity.
Just being practiced in tight tire mounting helps me not become anxious, and then impatient. Looking after the necessary details such as using low profile tubeless rim tape, making sure to drop the mounted bead into the middle depression in the rim and then being focused for final mounting of the 2nd bead has improved my tubeless mounting (and Challenge open tubulars which I’m running on my main road bike now) a lot. Also, leather gardening gloves that are snug fitting have given me much better grip for mounting that last couple of inches of a tight bead without the use of tire levers.
An equally frustrating tubeless mounting issue I have had is more one of poor bead air sealing. I have only mounted 5 different tubeless wheels so far so hopefully my proficiency and success rate will increase with a larger number of tubeless tire mounts. The square rubber bead on a tubeless tire where it seals off on the tubeless-ready rim shelf isn’t always as tight a fit as it should be. So mounting with compressed air does help but I had that stubborn Hutchinson Atom/Dura Ace 7850 that just leaked & leaked with tons of microbubbles half way around one bead. Soapy water didn’t help much so I used small amounts of silicon O-ring grease on the rim bead shelf & it finally did the trick.
Last edited by masi61; 01-06-20 at 09:51 AM.
#121
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#122
Non omnino gravis
#123
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I live a couple hours south of Rob. Roads ok and I concur almost exactly same circumstances. I rarely flat and see no reason at all going tubeless. I would go tubular before that and never ran tubulars. I see no advantages to tubeless at all. I suppose depends on where and how you ride. I still run Conti GP II S 23 mm. I may try 25 s but I don’t see a huge comfort factor to be had.
in my mind tubeless is crazy but I sure I have a lot to learn.
in my mind tubeless is crazy but I sure I have a lot to learn.
#124
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Riding without a backup tube or inflation method doesn't sound real smart. I've used tubes for the life of more than one tire, so I don't see any cost savings. I've logged 5400 miles in the last 18 months (when I returned to cycling after 8 years off) without a puncture. I've never ruined a tire in 40 years of riding, but I know it does happen. I still carry two tubes and two co2 cartridges, just in case.
#125
I eat carbide.
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I also have another teammate that swears it's impossible to change a flat on tubeless ready rims mid ride. That you have to call an uber and do it at home or in the shop.
...he also runs a shop.
Fact is people just aren't good at stuff or really only know what they know and refuse to believe anything else is different.
So - back to the point: Yes I used to say that I never needed a lever. I have run into a lot of situations where I have needed a lever though. That said I can still usually mount continentals on tubeless setups without a lever - a combo some swear is impossible. *meh* Also said I mount thousands of tires a year between service, the wheel business, and team/neutral support on all sorts of bikes from all walks of life.
There are more important things to hang my hat on than whether or not I occasionally use a tire lever. IMHO
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