Yotsko

Does anybody else still ride without tubeless tires?

I want to make the switch to tubeless, but I'm a bit afraid. I've ridden tubes for damn near 15 years and am very comfortable with them. On the flip side, I know nothing about tubeless. Time to get educated.

What do you carry to deal with flats? Is mounting it much different? My rims and tires are "tubeless ready". WTF does that mean? Like an HD ready TV? I still don't know what that means...

santiago

Why do you feel the need to change? Have you had a lot of problems with your tubes? Are you looking to run lower tire pressures?

Yotsko

Lower pressures would be great, any weight savings would great too.

And of course, everyone else is doing it...

pablosnazzy

i ride with both tubeless on one bike and tubes on the others.

to get a UST (universal standard tubeless) rating, you gotta pay money and i think someone gets royalties, so to get around it, there is "tubeless ready." tubeless ready means the rims can support tubeless tires, and the tires can be used tubeless.

to effectively run tubeless, you need higher walled rimes and thicker walled tires, you need a good solid seal. although its an "option," using sealant, such as stan's, is pretty much mandatory, for all intents and purposes, so you just gotta have the mindset that sealant is part of a tubelss setup.

if you are happy with tubes, why do you want to change?

the advantages of tubeless are they are lighter, you don't need a tube, you don't get flats, and you can run a lower pressure tire.

some people can feel the difference. depending on your level of riding, you might not. depending on your level of riding, or how you ride, you might not need tubeless.

everyone gets all worried they are missing out on something. if you are not racing, if you are not paid to ride a bike, then really, other than comfort, who cares? you are riding a bicycle, you are not doing anything all that important. it's about having fun.

tubeless is cool. it's not mandatory. if you ride tubes for the rest of your life it probably won't matter too much.

vandalarchitect

Thanks for the good info.

Maybe it's more fun running tubeless. Wouldn't know until I've tried.

OP, sound like all you'd need is sealant. I say give it a whirl and post a review. Go Cougs!

m015094

I have one bike with "tubeless" and two with tubes. I put quotes around the tubeless because I unfortunately ran over a thorn patch with tubeless tires. Oops. Not even slime (it's stuff that you put in the tire to fill up flats - if you didn't know that) was enough to fix the about 20 tiny holes in the tire. After pulling the thorns out of the tire - the tire is fine, but will not hold air as a tubeless. Because the tread was still good, I ran it with a tube until the tread was low.

I'm in the northeast now and there aren't many thorns - just roots. The only flats I've got are from pinch flats which I've never got with a tubeless tire. I did mess up a rim because of it and it wouldn't hold air.

Also, mounting a tubeless tire takes a little more skill. You usually have to wet the bead and quickly inflate the tire. Sometime an pnuematic air pump will help. It's because you need to quickly get the seal before the tire will hols air.

All in all, I would recommend tubeless to people in non thorny areas. Also, unless you're in a weight freak, put slime in your tires. It will prevent you from flats - even better so than Kevlar belt (in my opinion). As long as you don't run over something that cause a huge tear or many little tears (a thorn patch) you should be fine.

JonathanGennick 

Yes. I haven't yet been motivated to sort out tubeless. The landscape of choices is confusing, I don't see the benefit for where and how I ride, and I choose to put my limited time towards other priorities.

Try tubeless if you want, but don't let other people push you into doing so if it's not something you really want to bother with.

scyclops

Two years of riding singletrack with tubes in the southern Appalachians and no flats. But I never ride with less than 40psi in the rear tire (I'm about 190lbs). Come to think of it, in several decades of general bike riding on and off-road, I don't think I've ever flatted from anything that wasn't man-made debris (metal or glass), and usually on pavement.
So I guess it depends on the conditions where you do most of your riding.

Daspydyr 

The main problem with tubeless is that if you do flat when off road you are in trouble. You need to carry a tube with you. My tubeless flat on dirt was an old twisted rusty nail (scyclps was right, man made) in a mining area. Even service at home is difficult. You need a good compressor to seal tire to rim. I like to keep things simple.

roastbeef

oh look, it's this thread again.

Yotsko

Its funny that I posted this last week...and on the last lap of my race today I pinch flatted. Doh! Going to the LBS tomorrow...