Originally Posted by
DrIsotope
My personal opinions about tubeless, having in excess of 40k miles sans-tubes:
Do you get a lot of puncture flats? Like more than 1-2 a month?
Do you ride a lot of miles, like more than 100 miles a week, and answered yes to question 1?
Then tubeless is absolutely for you. Otherwise, maybe not. Barring tires like Hardshells, I would get flats every 6 days or so. I live in the unofficial goathead and bottle glass capital of the world. So tubeless, absolutely.
Am I happy about things like rim tape and the cost of tubeless tires? Umm, no. But I had exactly two flats in 2019-- over 10k miles-- and both resulted in the total loss of the tire.
I have 5 bikes and 10 spare wheels, most of which are tired, aired up and ready to ride. Some bikes sit for months without attention then get grabbed on a lark. I like that with tubes, all are ready to go with just a pump up.
Ben