staehpj1

I guess a lot depends on what sealant you use, how long it takes to wear out the tire, and how fussy you are about cleaning up sealant. It can range from what you describe, to scraping some not so dry latex, to never bothering at all. I mostly don't bother, but when I did, I didn't find it to be a big deal.

tFUnK

I'm cleaning out the old sealant because I want to patch them from the inside and then there's a good chance I will just run them with tubes afterward. The residue sealant is quite tacky and I'm not sure how they will get along with an inner tube, be it TPU or butyl.

tFUnK

Yeah, I was 50/50 on this initially, hence why I started this thread. But now that I've started I don't want to quit part way through. So I am committed to getting all the residual sealant off eventually, if for no reason other than that.

Kai Winters

I have the pleasure of dealing with tubeless and get to see a lot of different tires and sealants when replacing the tires or refreshing the sealant.
It's interesting to see what the inside of the tires look like and unpleasant to remove the old and dried sealant...which no longer works as it is a dried coating on the inside of the tire.
Some tires have large chunks of sealant that we...I lol...remove before adding sealant.
I don't know if at some point the layers and chunks change the ride feel of the bike and certainly on a heavy, full suspension bike the added weight is negligible imo.
We remove the worst chunks and peel away what easily peels then give it a good scrubbing with warm, soapy water, wiping dry with a shop towel then back on the wheel and fresh sealant added.
It does work great on pin hole punctures and good on bigger punctures when a plug is used. but it can be a real mess and hassle when it doesn't work and the rider fails to carry a tube...just in case.

Koyote

If you are going to run tubes anyway, you don't need to patch the tire - unless we're talking about a very large cut.

The dried sealant will not affect the tube.

In other words, you are still making this much harder than it needs to be. Just throw in a tube and ride.

Atlas Shrugged

What always baffles me is that even after it is pointed out that this is not an issue, the same rhetoric keeps coming back. The other bizarre response whenever Tubeless comes up is the response that flats are not an issue for certain individuals as they have ridden for up to 7 years and never get flats. Those individuals completely miss the point; flats are an issue for most active cyclists who choose to ride supple performance tires outdoors. Comparing tubeless to Gaterskins or Marathons is ridiculous as nothing ruins a good riding bike more than crappy dead tires. Tubeless allows people to ride supple high-performance tires and virtually eliminate ride-stopping punctures. Squirt in some sealant through the valve every 6 months or so and replace the tire once worn out what is so hard about that? If a puncture does not seal, jab a plug-in (Dynaplug for me) keep on riding and replace the tire when worn out.

SoSmellyAir

How about this? Silca Ultimate Sealant Remover at BikeTiresDirect

I was not joking about the natural loofah, which is slightly more abrasive than a dish sponge. That is why people use it to exfoliate.

Koyote

When these folks claim that they don't need tubeless because they rarely (or never) get flats, I really wish they'd give us their annual mileage and riding conditions. I mean, if you're riding a couple thousand miles per year on nicely paved roads, then sure, maybe you rarely flat -- and when you do, a roadside repair is no big deal. I ride 7k-8k miles per year, much of it on Flint Hills gravel -- and tubeless is a game-changer. More times than I can count, I've gotten home from a ride to find sealant on my frame -- and yet, I never even noticed that my tire had been punctured. I just rode.

And to reiterate a couple more points before I leave this thread:
--You don't need to clean old sealant out of a tire.
--You still need to carry a spare tube and inflation system even when running tubes, so that's not a rap against tubeless.
--You don't need to clean old sealant out of a tire.
--You don't need to carry a sewing kit, sewing machine, or floor pump when riding tubeless.
--You don't need to carry super glue when running tubeless. (Honestly, where did THAT come from? Crazy.)
--YOU DON"T NEED TO CLEAN OLD SEALANT OUT OF A TIRE.

Atlas Shrugged

Last year I rode Gibraltar to Girona solo unsupported and had a few miserable rainy days en route. At the end of one of those crappy days, I noticed the telltale signs of sealant on my frame and panniers. That moment alone made me a lifelong tubeless advocate—nothing worse than a flat repair mid-tour on the side of a rainy road, removing panniers etc. For reference, I tour and ride on RH Standard Casing 38mm tires without flats or issues, not on some garden hose dead tire. With that, I join you and depart.

Leisesturm

It's not weird, it's evolution. Humans have a brain structure, I forget the name of, that allows us to extrapolate a fatal scenario without actually having to die from trying it. My cat must have a similar structure because he would jump out the ground floor windows all the time, but never, ever, out the second floor ones.

Koyote

Are you now claiming that tubeless tires are potentially fatal?

So much drama.

tFUnK

I get it, in most cases you don't need to remove old sealant. Yes I should have just plugged it and called it a day 🤷‍♂️

But I'm already in the situation that I'm in, and I'm gonna try to remove all the sealant. I don't have a better reason other than I don't want it in my tire. But a secondary reason would be to try to locate the hole to do a patch from the inside (and run tubes with it later).

But I can also think of a couple of other reasons why one might want to do this. What if I was planning to run latex tubes? What if I was planning to list my tires for sale? These situations work out better if the sealant were not there. So yes it may be a silly exercise to the majority here, but to me it makes sense to do it, and since this is the internet I'm allowed to gripe about the hassle even if it's annoying or pointless for you to read 😁 Thanks to those who offered suggestions for removal, I look forward to trying them.

Everytime someone tells me I should have done whatever, yes I agree but it would be more helpful if you just came over to help me scrape and peel this crap off of my tires 🤣

unterhausen

The year before I switched to tubeless on my gravel bike, I had 20 flats. I should have taken a picture of all the tubes, because I kept them to try to patch them all at once since tube glue goes bad once it's opened.
I was wondering why my rear gravel bike tire was losing air overnight and once I looked at the tire I realized I had dozens of little punctures. Filled it up with sealant and no more losing air overnight. It could have been one episode of hitting a lot of stuff, but I didn't notice it while riding. I keep thinking I should carry something to patch a larger hole, but I haven't needed it. I do carry a pump and tube though.

bbbean 

To be fair, I've had patched tubes fail, too. But most of them last for hundreds or thousands of miles. I've patched 3 tubeless tubes with a patch on the inside. 1 of them leaked after around 200 miles. I don't think I did an adequate job of cleaning the solvent out of the way before I put the patch on. The other, lasted another 2000+ miles - until I retired the tires from road use and put in my trainer tire/emergency backup pile, and the third patch is on bike now, with roughly 2500 miles on it.

BB

bbbean 

I've moved worn tubeless tires to non-tubeless wheelsets and latex or butyl tubes. No problems at all.

tFUnK

Good to know. I thought latex based sealant doesn't play nice with latex tubes but I'm glad to hear that's not the case.

tFUnK

Perhaps you rode through a section of goatheads? I've had that happen to myself (tubes with sealant) and a friend (tubeless) once and after we got through that section we both had sealant spraying all over. I already knew mine was beyond repair so I swapped tubes but my friend tried desperately to save his. I don't recall exactly if he was actually able to save it (I want to say yes, and it involved pumping up the tire multiple times to give it some shape, then spinning the tire to distribute the remaining sealant) or if he went with a tube also. I just recall him spinning his wheel over and over to distribute the sealant inside the tire, and getting a bunch of sealant on himself every rotation🤣

unterhausen

I don't think of this area as having a lot of goatheads, but I have seen some so I think you are right.

bbbean 

I did wipe out the old sealant with a paper towel, but no problems from the little bit of sealant that didn't want to wipe out.

tFUnK

Gotcha. I've got solid chunks of latex stuck on top of thin layers of dried latex on the inside of the tires. I guess it wouldn't matter with latex tubes as the solvent has already dried out.

BMC_Kid 

I run tubeless on both my Tesch S-22 with Boyd’s Altamonte rims and Continental 5000 S TR tires and my Ritchey Breakaway has a set of Fulcrum Zero Nites running Continental 5000TR tires, both converted with Boyd’s rim tape. I live and ride in Bahrain currently and the heat here seems to dry out the sealant much faster than back in Texas. I guess you can consider this environment severe duty. I initially started with Orange Endurance sealant in Texas but when that ran out I switched over to the sealant from Boyd’s. For me, taking care of my tires is just another part of bike maintenance. I have no problem taking everything apart, cleaning it, then reinstalling with fresh sealant. Since going to tubeless, this is just a part of my preventive maintenance for the wheels. In Texas I’d do this a couple times during the summer for each wheelset. The old sealant typically had some that had congealed but was mainly intact, just less of it due to leaks that had been sealed over the last month or so.

Now that I am in Bahrain, and after my first summer here, I noticed that the Boyds seemed to have a lot more congealed sealant and it was congealing in the span of about a month or so. So, I end up taking the tires off, removing the congealed sealant which is very easy to do, rinsing everything down and reinstalling with fresh sealant. Taking my time, total time for me for a pair of wheels is about 45 minutes, start to finish. For this most recent time, I switched back over to Orange to see if it can take the heat any better than Boyd’s.

With either sealant, it has never been a chore for me to remove the old sealant but maybe that is because it is not sitting in there for more than 4-6 months, now about 2 months. It comes right out with either my bare hand or a common kitchen sponge. If you are worried that removing the sealant will affect any previously sealed punctures, don’t be. Odds are that sealant that is sealing the punctures has solidified and won’t be removed when you remove any old sealant from inside. And even if it were to somehow remove the sealant plugging the hole, as soon as you inflated you tire, the sealant would immediately do its job again. I’ve never had this problem. In any kind of environment don’t expect to convert to tubeless and think you will have years of maintenance free wheels. If that is your expectation, stick to tubes.

Converting tubeless back to tubes is easy and requires removing the valve and a rinsing of the tire to remove the old sealant and wiping down with alcohol if you want get as much of the old sealant off as possible. I did just this with one of my bikes back in Texas. Since it wasn’t getting ridden but every 6 months or so, I converted back to tubes and have had no issues.

ctripblog

I always try to remove the dry sealant, but always left some scraps, good to know, next time, Im not going to clean it!

Kapusta

I have no strong opinions either way on tubeless. It’s a no brainer on my mtbs, but it has had its ups and downs on my gravel/road bike.

To answer your question (for my road/gravel bike: I do not track my mileage, probably a couple thousand a year. Roughly 60/40 paved/gravel. Pavement is often rough, gravel ranges from grade 1-3. Ran RH Extralight tires for 6 years with tubes. Got a couple pinch flats on 32s on potholes in the first year then went up to 35-38mm tires. No flats for the next 5 years until I went tubeless a couple years ago. Still no flats, though after a year they would not hold air long and weeped a lot of sealant. Stuck tubes in and still no flats.

I just bought a set of Challenge tires in hopes of finding a tire that rides as well and the RH Extralights but does tubeless better. But if there is any loss in performance, I’ll just go back to RH ELs with tubes. I find tubeless great in theory, but in reality it has made little difference on my bike.

bbbean 

FWIW, the rear tire of my road bike had a tacky spot this morning. Saw that I apparently punctured yesterday (25 mile anaerobic interval session), but sealant sealed the hole before it lost enough pressure for me to notice. Knocked out a quick 20 miles with a few sprints this morning, no additional sealant leak, no need to patch or maintain in any way. My faith in tubeless justified once again