Originally Posted by
3alarmer
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...I have never transitioned to tubeless tires on a bike (although I've run tubeless tires on all the cars for a long time now).
For those of you who do set up your bikes with tubeless, isn't it kind of a sticky mess to find the offending object that flatted your tire, to the point where you need to run a tube to get home, then insert a tube, and pop the bead back on, so you can inflate your new tube ? Or am I just imagining this ? The tire has a lining of sticky sealant goop, right ? Isn't that difficult to deal with when your leak on a high pressure road tire doesn't seal on its own ? Or am I just imagining a problem that does not exist ?
I have been running tubeless road tires for 12 years now, so I was an early adopter. Guess what? It isn't obligatory to use sealant if your tires don't require it. If you do that, there is no sticky stuff inside the tire to make a mess and if you do flat, you can install an inner tube to get home. However, tubeless plus sealant will reduce the number of flats you have. In the 12 years since I stated using road tubeless tires I can count the number of on road flats I have had on the fingers of one hand even though I don't use sealant all the time. One time, I had a puncture caused by an industrial staple. I pulled it out and the air that was coming out pretty much stopped. I only had about 4 km to the end of the ride so I rode on but had to stop once half way and pump the tire back up. Guess what? That day I was riding without sealant in my tires. One of the flat tires I "suffered" happened while my bike was sitting in my living room. All of a sudden, I heard a hissing sound and my front tire deflated. Turned out to be somewhere along the tire bead. However, silver lining. I had a new set of tires ready to go and when I looked at the rear tire it turned out to be threadbare and would have soon failed. I might have saved the front tire by injecting sealant which I hadn't been using but I simply decided to install my new tires. It does help that the wheels I use do not have to be taped which seems to be one of the biggest problems people encounter