robbyville

About a month ago I put on a new set of Vitoria Corsa Speed tires (tubeless), billed as the fastest out there. As soon as I received them I knew they wouldn’t last long, super light weight even by clincher standards. They felt great on the bike though.

this morning on our group ride someone said to me “looks like you sprung a rooster tail” and sure enough sealant was coming out of the tire. All good, it soon stopped, tire lost a bit of pressure but still fine (hurray).

about 15 miles later I felt my tire getting a little soft, figured the sealant hadn’t held up so I pulled over and figured that I could no longer say that I’ve never had a flat since going tubeless lol.

Pulled half the tire out and valve, popped a tube in (stupid thing had powder all over it and now all over my bike). Used my CO2 and no go, looked at the tire and realized that the first cut was fine and that I had a staple in the tire that now put a hole in the tube D’oh!!

if I had just looked at the tire I could have pulled the new staple, let the sealant do its job again and been on my way.

Jeez back to the new continental 5K tubeless I go, the last ones went over 3000 miles. Once I got home had to deal with all the dried sealant on my bike, first time that’s happened to me, normally it just seeps and blocks any cut.

Sy Reene

So for clarity's sake... is there anything inherently wrong with the Vittoria tire? Sounds like issue was that you rode around with a staple still stuck in the tire, so unclear why you're going back to the GP5k?

robbyville

correct, nothing inherently wrong with the Vittoria, except that it cut deeply enough to leak from two different spots on one ride. First a cut then a staple.

im sure they’ve both sealed up now, the only reason I’m thinking of immediately getting a pair of Conti’s is because I no longer trust these, but they can certainly be a back up pair

robbyville

Well, put on a new set of GP5000 TL’s today. Was able to keep the front Vittoria Corsa tire as a spare. I probably could have kept the rear but it definitely had some pretty deep cuts that had sealed.

I always like to experiment, this was not exactly a fail. I bought the tires having read many reviews that mentioned that these were “race day” tires and I chose to ignore those comments. Probably only got about 600 miles on them. Tread is still fine of course but that rear tire is pretty beaten up!

the GP5k’s were as nasty and as hard to put on as I remembered. This time I used a spray bottle with soapy water. Better and faster than the first set I put on but still took much much (did I say much) more effort than any other TL tire. But, like last time, seated with my cannister pump nice and easy. Hopefully they last as long as my last set which was over 3k miles and thankfully my friendly LBS owner gives them to me for $50 apiece!