DrIsotope

If it was going flat, that means there was a leak somewhere. At the stem, somewhere on the rim strip, somewhere along the bead. It's really that simple. Nine times out of ten, it's the stem/core.

If you mounted the tire dry (without any sort of mounting fluid, like bubble juice, soapy water, Schwalbe Easy Fit, etc.) then there's a very good chance part of the bead didn't seat. I cannot speak to the efficacy of Bontrager rim strips, as tubeless tape has proven itself to be effective for tens of thousands of miles, and I see no need to try anything else.

Mounting tubeless is like anything else, it takes some practice to get it right. Few people can walk up to a derailleur and adjust it perfectly the first time they lay hands on it. I've had a few hours of cursing and whipping tire levers, because some tire won't seat, or a bead popped and blasted sealant everywhere. It happens. But I also swapped tires last week, including removing the current set, cleaning them, and folding them for storage, in less than 30 minutes. The set of Pirellis on the bike now lose about 1psi every 24 hours.

I mention this because IME, tubeless tires don't ride particularly well with tubes put in them. I only run a tube in a tubeless tire under dire circumstances-- if a tube is going in, it's to hold a boot in place, which means I'm only counting on the tube to get me as far as the LBS or home, whichever is closer.

bruce19

This is the way Mavic developed and sells it's UST line and it works like a charm.

FlashBazbo

I would recommend an additional step to help the sealing issue: Deflate the tire (leaving the bead seated on the rim), then press down on it a little -- pushing the rim down onto the interior bottom of the tire -- and roll the tire a full revolution in one direction, then a full revolution back. This coats the inside of the bead interface with sealant. Then, immediately use a compressor or charge pump to rapidly inflate the tire.

Most likely, the tires will still lose a little bit of pressure every day, but they shouldn't be completely flat in 48 hours.

I use tubeless almost exclusively on my gravel bike and tubed exclusively on my road bike. I like tubeless tires. But no matter what the tubeless enthusiasts might say, tubeless requires more maintenance than tubed. If you want set-it-and-forget-it tire pressures and you don't get a LOT of flats, tubed is the way to go.

LesG

Just as a reminder about my skill set and bikes, I was out of biking for 20 or so years and got back into about a year ago. That said I'm comfortable fixing/doing repairs to our (wife and I) bikes because much of that hasn't really changed. BUT tubeless, well, there was no such thing back then.

Thanks folks for the input. I give your suggestions a try. One thing that bothered me a bit about the strips is they are a very slick plastic material. These strips are the white ones from Bontrager and not the black ones. Anyway they seemed slick enough that sealant may have a hard time sticking to and curing on it. OTH, I could be completely wrong about that. One other thing that I didn't mention. When I took the tire off the bike (the one I tried tubeless) is that the only place there was any kind of cured sealant present was around the bead of the tire. I was expecting to see some sort sealant coating on the interior part of the tire itself and not just around the bead but none was there... I did originally rotate the tire after adding sealant, both in a vertical position and then both sides in a horizontal position and also took it for a very short ride. I'm pretty sure I got the sealant well distributed. Also when I dumped the sealant out of the tire when going back to tubes, no sealant stuck to the inner surface of the tire from where the sealant was pooling.

When I get some time I'm going to try tubeless again only this time ditch the strips and try 2 wraps of tape. I'll use another presta valve just for good measure. With the valves I can use one with a rectangle type base on the inside or a coned type that sort of wedges into the hole. I'll think a bit about that choice.

I don't flat that often and I'm semi retired... I flat about every 600 to 800 miles which works out to around every 6 weeks. So with tubes, I shouldn't be too concerned about flats because they're pretty quick to fix with a tube... takes me maybe 15 minutes or so. However, I did take a part time job teaching/ selling stuff in another sport I'm very much involved in. Thing is some working days I'm squeezing in bike ride time. If I were to flat on one of the "squeeze in a bike ride" days, I could end up being late to teach a class... NOT GOOD! Hence the reason tubeless appealed to me as a sort of insurance policy against flats. That and I'm going to get another bike (different from current one) so I wanted one tubeless (for the reason above) and leave the other one tubes.

bruce19

That's not my experience with Mavic UST.

FlashBazbo

One of my wheelsets is Mavic UST. I will agree that Mavic's UST wheels used with Mavic's UST tires mount and seal easily and well. In my experience, those tires on those wheels will inflate and hold air for quite awhile without sealant. But (and this is a BIG but) . . . there's no way I would ride a Mavic branded UST tire on road or gravel. The tires just aren't very good. They're stiff and heavy and, in the past, haven't proven very durable. My experience with quality tires on the Mavic UST wheel is as I described above. I have to put in a few pounds of air on every ride.

bruce19

My only experience with tubeless is the USTs. My CAAD 12 weighed 18 lb 5 oz with the stock Aksiums and 17 lb 10 oz with the USTs. So, I'm good with that. FWIW, I've been running the same sets of Aksiums and Ksyrium Elites for quite a few years and last year I had to have one hub rebuilt. By "quite a few years" I'm thinking 6 yrs for the Aksiums and 4 yrs for the Ksyriums. So, my experience doesn't equate to the hubs or wheels being poor quality.

FlashBazbo

I never said the hubs or wheels were of poor quality. Read my post. I talked about the tires.

bruce19

I know. I was trying to address another comment as well. Apparently, I should have been more specific.