Originally Posted by
Lemond1985
I know this has probably been asked a million times before, but can you just use a small amount of sealant in a regular tube? Seems like that might at very least give you more time before the tire went completely flat.
Originally Posted by
datlas
You can, one of my club mates does this. I don’t know how effective it is, but he swears by it.
I used to live in goathead territory (San Jose, CA). Pretty much guaranteed to flat at least once during each ride if I didn’t use sealant with non-gatorskin tires.
I used Orange Endurance Seal with regular butyl tubes and it works remarkably well... until it doesn’t. It seems like OES has this nasty tendency to booger up to the point where you have tons of fluid (which will squirt everywhere and dry on your frame and be a b**** to remove) but it won’t actually fix your flat. I imagine that sealing works a lot better with actual tubeless tires though.
I’d say if you’re not willing to try TL, definitely get some Orange or Orange Endurance seal. But don’t put much in. I’d say put in like 0.5fl oz. and top up frequently (once a month?) If you dump 1-2fl oz into a single tube, it’ll just booger up super quick leaving you high and dry. And there’s no good way of checking the boogerification.
Another reason to not use too much sealant is that with goatheads, if it’s gonna seal, it’ll seal instantly. If it’s not gonna seal, it’s not gonna seal and any additional sealant is just money down the drain + extra work to clean up.