well biked

It has its pros and cons, but in my opinion it's well worth it. You pretty much take puncture flats out of the picture and you're able to run low tire pressures without any worry of pinch flats (I've NEVER had a flat with the Stan's sytem, which is amazing to me). I like the better ride quality and better traction of low pressure in my tires, that's one of the main reasons I like it. And in running conventional rims and tires, you've got pretty much unlimited mtb tire choices.

Stan used to be (maybe he still is, I don't know) an XC racer, and one of the original advantages he touted about the system is that it saves a little weight over a typical setup with tubes, so it was thought of as race-oriented. It certainly saves a good deal of weight compared to something like UST rims/tires if you use the system with a conventional setup. And I've talked to a lot of UST users who've struggled with flats and sometimes have trouble just getting the tires to hold air at all, and they say as soon as they added Stan's sealant to their tires the problems were solved. For a short while, this was all a big "secret", because the big companies who had invested so heavily in UST (Mavic, Michelin, Hutchinson, etc) didn't want to acknowledge that a product from a little start-up company like Stan's Notubes worked with their UST system to get satisfactory results. The downside is definitely the original setup, it takes a time or two to get the hang of it. I've used it for four or five years now, and I actually enjoy setting a tire/rim up with it now. I would definitely recommend using an air compressor to do the initial inflation, but once that's done you only have to do it again when you need to replenish the sealant. I put a little more sealant in than is recommended, and I've gone as long as a year without refilling with sealant; so all in all, it's very low maintenance. Just check the tire pressure occasionally, top off the pressure with a hand pump as needed, and ride on-