Gresp15C

Search yields ambiguous results, so I'll just ask:

Am I correct in assuming that switching to tubeless is moot unless both my rims and tires are made for tubeless use? The one "tubeless ready" bike in the family fleet does seem to have a different rim and tire design.

Chandne

Yeah, bikes hardly ridden are simpler with tubes since sealant dries up and it is easier to just pump up the tube and take off instead of having to refresh sealant. Here in Colorado, sealant dries quickly and when left uninflected, sealant seems to dry up even quicker. I am not a tubeless evangelical though I much prefer it. It is not for all road riders or even most. It is for me and most of my riding buddies but in the cycling club with usually 30-50 riders (and I rarely join groups) tubes are still more popular and probably should be for most. One reason (and TPU is likely a safer option than butyl) I switched initially was that I was doing a lot of riding near 10,000-12,000 ft. Those descents are fast and have no guardrails often. A quick puncture could send me off the side rolling down 100-500 ft. I figured a slow puncture would give me time to slow down and stop safely. I have seen what a butyl puncture can do to riders up there. That is why I started to research road tubeless initially. Burping is not an issue at road PSI for me. I even run my mtn bike tires at 20-22 and fat bike tires at 3-5 PSI and don't burp tires. There are ways to ensure this does not ever happen and I have been tubeless on MTBs for 20+ years. The Mavic UST systems was incredible but Stan's/NoTubes probably priced it out though wasn't as secure. I hope the tire selection for road hookless keeps increasing. I think like discs, road tubeless will gain traction each year. The keys are good tubeless tires and good sealant. I have tried most. Nothing currently beats Orange Seal.

staehpj1

I don't get this. Where do you ride that you need to carry two tubes? It would have to be somewhere really remote days from help or at least off road before I'd consider it a necessity. I've been running tubeless for a few years and never had a flat that the saelant didn't stop or at least slow down enough to ride home. Do for day rides I don't really see myself carrying a tube. I have done a couple coast to coast and other long tours, fot that I could maybe see it, but even there, when you are really off the beaten path pretty much every pickup truck is willing to stop and offer help and every farm or ranch has a compressor.
On a bike that doesn't get ridden much that is probably a bigger issue, but for my daily ride the tires wear out before I'd worry about doing that.

That said, I was curious how much stuff there was in a tire and how hard it was to get it clean like new so I did cleaning one off and weighing it before and after cleaning. I found the the bulk of the latex could be scraped off with a metal scraper and the rest came off with one of those big rubber things that look like a giant eraser that are used for cleaning abrasive belts on woodworking equipment. A piece of medium to coarse sandpaper worked too, but you need to be very careful not to gouge into the rubber. I forget the weights, but I was surprised how little weight there was in latex after two years of riding and the tires were pretty much worn out by then any way. So I doubt I'll ever bother doing it again.

IGotId

Apologizing up front for the newbie questions; how much "maintenance" is involved with tubeless tires? A friend of mine says that sealant needs to be replaced every 6 months or so, another friend says not true. Which friend is correct lol?

I'm interested in giving them another shot despite some not so great experiences! I ran tubeless for several months last year & the experience was not fun as I had flats twice while riding (walked 5 miles back to my car after one of the flats). I suspect it was installer error but not sure (I had them installed at REI).

IGotId

Also, I don't ride much in the winter (below 60 degrees in general); should that play a role in decision-making?

Koyote

google is your friend.

Mtracer

I've never heard of replacing sealant. I top mine off every 6 weeks or so. Some will be lost to punctures, but it also dries out . I've never extracted old sealant. I just add more. I wear out rear tires about every 4 months and a front about once a year, so I don't go years at a time without starting fresh.

I use a little wire as a dipstick to check my sealant levels. I remove the valve core and rotate the wheel with the stem at the bottom and give the sealant a few minutes to settle. Then use the dipstick to make sure I have sealant in there. I almost always add a little while I have it opened up. How much just depends on how low the level was.

Like many maintenance tasks, it seems like more effort than it is the first few times until you get used to it. Is tubeless more than tubed? Probably, but I'd much rather spend a few more minutes in the shop every month or two, then be dealing with flats on the side of the road.

I ride year-round, and don't vary how I use tubeless. And if you ride above 60 F most of the time, I would think that would be ideal temperatures for just about anything. Of course, if you also ride in 100 F temps, I would expect the sealant may dry out faster.

Chandne

You do have to top-off sealant. No way around that. The question is- how long a duration? That depends on where you live and MAYBE how porous your tires are. Here in Colorado, I top off every three months but it is extremely dry here. I do not check it but I have been doing this since 2004, and I know that 3 months is a safe option. I have opened up over a hundred tires and seen which sealant lasts how long over the years. If I went 6 months here (and I have a couple of times) the sealant is completely dry. In humid areas, I'd guess you could go 3-4 if you put enough in to begin with. I also find that sealant dries faster if you let the tire stay with very low air pressure. I suspect that causes a tiny bit of air seepage from the beads.

IGotId

I suspected that was OTT; thanks!

Thanks for the info

chaadster

I dunno about “most cars,” but I’ve not had a car that was spec’d at mid-20s psi since…I dunno…the bias-ply era?! I joke, but seriously, the factory specs on my Alfa Giulia sedan’s rear 245/35r19s call for 42psi, and my wife’s little Ford Transit Connect passenger van is spec’d at 44/49psi on 17” wheels, so yeah, I dunno if most are 20-something psi, but I’ve maybe never seen it in the 30 something different cars I’ve had over the decades.

That said, I’ve never had a $45 car tire either. Those Giulia Pirelli P7s I’m lucky to get for under $350 apiece, and the Michelin CrossClimate2 for the Transit were $202 apiece last replacing, replacing $83 Kumho Ectsa 4X IIs that were pretty rubbish.

Current Michelin Power Cup TLRs for the bike were $75 apiece, which I thought wasn’t bad…

Anyway, running sealant in car tires as a prophylactic isn’t a thing; it’s usually added after the puncture has happened, so the dynamics are very different to bicycle tires and sealant, but as someone who has used Stan’s at 100psi over the years, believe me, regular Stan’s does work. Stan’s Race is even better.

That’s not to say every Stan’s formulation works on every size and type of cut and puncture, but it will definitely seal— without need to even stop riding— some punctures which otherwise would totally flat a tube.

Mtracer

Concerning how often you need to top of sealant, I certainly cannot go 3 months at a time. FYI, I live in Albuquerque NM.

But one thing I know affects my tires is the more punctures I get the more often I need to top off. I'm not talking about the sealant needed to replace what came out at the time the puncture happened. Rather some clear, thin, oily liquid starts to weep out where I've had punctures months earlier. Not the thick, milky sealant, it looks more like water or oil.

Usually I wear out a rear tire before this happens much. I probably get a small puncture every other ride from goat heads. So, after a year, I'll probably have had 100 small punctures that have sealed in my front tire. What I start to see is weeping of the sealant. My belief is these are extremely small holes. Too small for the latex to enter and plug, but rather some oily sealant carrier is getting through. Maybe even something that gets forced through the latex that original plugged the hole.

Regardless, whatever it is, it is coming from the sealant, and once I start to to see a lot of these weeping spots, I seem to have to add sealant more often.

Racing Dan

If your main concern is the tyre coming off, then simply glue a clincher tyre to a clincher rim. No need to go tubular for that.

mschwett 

sorry, but no. most of my tubed flats (5 in 1,000 miles) were "in the downtown areas," where my tubeless setup on the same bike has been absolutely trouble free. road tubeless excels at sealing up the kind of little punctures that you get in urban riding from bits of glass and wire.

thousands of miles within the "downtown areas" on GP5000 and now GP5000 S TR tubeless, 28-32mm, 50-80psi. zero flats. the only flat free period i had with the exact same riding pattern was on gatorksins.

tomato coupe

That's a lot of incorrect statements packed into one post.

jackb

I ride tubed on my Trek Domane bike and tubeless on my Trek Checkpoint bike because that's the way bike came when I bough it. No flats on the endurance bike for three years with GG 4000 4Season tires. No flats with the tubeless Bontrager Team 1 Issue. So far so good. I don't like working with sealant, but I don't like fixing roadside flats either. I don't plan on changing either bike as long as I am having good luck with both.

mschwett 

it was impressive.

Koyote

I think you've got this backwards: the satisfied tubeless rider has bad roads -- gravel roads, litter-strewn roads, roads with goathead thorns -- which offer many flat hazards that are usually easily handled by tubeless sealant, and which would result in frequent roadside repairs with tubed clinchers.

bruce19

Hmm that's interesting. When I switched from Mavic Ksyrium Elite clinchers to Mavis Ksyrium Elite USTs .I noticed more comfort, an increase in spin and significantly less weight.

urbanknight

Same reason I carry auto insurance when I haven’t been in an accident in 2 decades.

Seriously though, I now carry only 1 tube and some plugs. If I rip two tires that badly on the same ride, I’ll cut my losses and call for a ride.

rsbob 

+1

rosefarts

I had Schwalbe Pro One in 28mm. That’s 250g and I added 45mL of sealant. So that’s 295 per tire.

I switched to Grand Prix 4000 and race tubes, so 220+60, or 280 per tire.

Basically the same. That’s a 30g difference, or one ounce total. Both ride great.

Since I switched to mostly gravel and MTB, I don’t use the bike that often. In fact, I have been moving around as a travel nurse for a while now and haven’t even brought the road bike along. So yeah, tubeless is definitely not for that bike. But yeah, my gravel and MTB are never going to see tubes.

tyrion

Nonsense. With tubed tires I'd average about 1 flat per month. In 3 years of riding tubeless I've had zero flats (numerous punctures, but no flats).

The things I found embedded in a tubeless tire last time I took them off: a small nail, a small screw, a tiny wire (truck tire belt wire), and a paper clip. That would have been 4 flats with a tubed tire.

tomato coupe

Is this where someone argues that it would have been only one flat with tubed, because you probably picked up all those objects at the same time?

Koyote

I understand your point, but the analogy doesn't hold up. Driving while uninsured is illegal in 49 states, and the economic consequences of uninsured driving are a little more serious than being stuck with a flat tire.

​​​​​​Get these! Cost almost nothing, weigh almost nothing, and they last pretty much forever. I always carry a couple in my saddlebag.

wolfchild

I disagree that tubeless is better for preventing flats...if you're getting a lot of flats with regular tubed tires it's because your tires are crap and lack puncture protection.