Mdavis5011

I had 28mm tubeless tires on my Giant Advanced Pro 0. Love the bike, not so much the tires. 80% of my riding is on bike trails for road bikes. Numerous problems with the tubeless setup, including constant loss of air in the tires.

I finally decided to do away with the tubeless setup, and go back to tubes. My LBS said the Hutchinson 28mm tires were fine and there was no need to purchase new tires. Just add the tubes, change the valves and away you ride.

My question is, is this the best setup? There are so many good tires meant to be run WITH tubes, does it make sense to run tires that are not meant to run with tubes. Are there friction issues? Any safety issues?

Wouldn't some continental grand prix 4000 S2s be significantly better?

allonsy

They're just tires, they won't behave any differently than a tubed tire. They might be slightly heavier if you are a weight weenie but negligible if you are not.

Different tires might ride different or handle different, but that's the tires not whether they can run tubeless or not.

I have two Giant bikes in the family running tubeless and am quite happy with the setup. They get lots of miles. It was a beyotch to learn to install them, but otherwise very satisfactory.

dabac

I have no idea of your previous bike experience, nor exactly what you mean by ”constant loss or air”, but you might simply need an expectations adjustment. Bike tires in general, and road bike tires in particular, are not like car or motorcycle tires. Weekly topping up is perfectly normal, even on tubed tires.
Only way to avoid it in that tire size is to use solid tires. Which is doable, but has its own drawbacks.

That’ll work just fine.
Fitting tubes is a common roadside fix for a (bad) flat anyhow. Or for ”burped” tubeless MTB tires.

Best - no. The tire will be a little heavier and have a little stiffer sidewall than it’d otherway have gotten away with.
There’d be a slight penalty to that.
Tubeless tires tend to be more difficult to mount, so getting the tube in there w/o damage might require some extra care.
Road/tire friction will be unchanged.
Tube/tire friction won’t be a problem. The pressure will ”laminate” the tube to the tire well enough to prevent any chafing.
While JRA - no.
There might be an inability-to-finish-the-ride issue if the tires are difficult to mount. Flats WILL happen.
Since you already have them, and haven’t said anything about not liking the ride, grip when wet etc - then it does make sense to keep using what you’ve got.

While JRA, in a non-competitive setting - no.
Not from what you’ve said so far.
Your gripe with the current setup was with air, not grip, feel or rolling resistance.
If it was me, I’d ride them if they were easy enough to mount.

shelbyfv

If you are interested in trying the GPs, order some from one of the UK sites and decide for yourself. If you don't think they are an improvement, you still have your original tires to use when the new ones wear out. For 28s on the road or MUP you aren't going to realize the supposed advantages of tubeless as you would with wider tires on rougher surfaces.

Mdavis5011

Thank you, that makes sense.

Mdavis5011

Thank you for the detailed responses, I very much appreciate it.
I did have an issue where the tubeless must have become unseated on a turn/ bump and lost about half the 80psi. I didn't want to ride home on such low pressure (worried about messing up the wheels). Seemed I needed to top up air every other day. LBS said not enough internal tire gook.
So, I went back with what I knew best, especially I was riding mostly bike trails.

Marcus_Ti

They'll ride like crap. Roadie tubeless tires are much stiffer than tubed tires. A proper tubed tire will ride far better than a tubeless tire-with-a-tube-in-it at the same pressure.

WhyFi

As mentioned previously, topping off every day/ride is completely normal, tubes or not.

A burp like that with road tires seems very odd. They should take a lot of effort to unseat, which makes me wonder if they were fully seated in the first place. If a visual inspection confirmed that the bead was still on the shoulder, I wouldn't hesitate to (conservatively) ride a 28mm @ ~40psi until I could top them off, though having a pump with you is a good idea, even if you're running tubeless (having a pump/CO2 is a must if you're not running tubeless).

For 28mm tires, I'd probably put in a max of 2oz sealant.

tomato coupe

That's been true of every set of road wheels I have ever owned -- both tubeless and tubed.

alexdi

I find tubeless for forgiving with air pressure. My Schwalbe Pro One tires lose maybe 6-8 PSI a week. I check them before rides, but it doesn't much matter because, for lack of pinch flats, I can run them down to 35 PSI. Doesn't hurt that they're 28c that measure 31mm.

Maelochs

I have been running tubes in some tubeless tires/wheels because i cannot always get the tires to seat by pulling the valve and cranking like heck on a floor pump, and I don't know anyone with a compressor (no luck with the overpriced air at convenience stores.) Maybe Some people think they ride badly ,... I have no issue.

I have found some tires are insanely difficult to mount/remount, and others less so. I am not sure if it is just the tire or also the wheel. But that is the big fear in running tubes in tubeless---I have some Vuelta wheels set up one tubeless one with tubes, that I am afraid to run because if I get a flat I am not sure I could fix it roadside every time.

I base that on the fact that i got a flat once and it took almost 45 minutes-ten times longer than a tire change should--and broke some levers. Also trying to mount up at home I punctured about three tubes trying to get the tire mounted.

I can imagine spending 45 minutes and burning through my spare tubes, and patches, and snapping all my levers, and then just throwing the bike into traffic in front of as truck.

Funny part---I have the wheels mounted with tires hanging in my garage, and neither tubed or tubeless loses air.

alexdi

I just made a long post about this on another forum. My Schwalbe tires were almost impossible to mount and remove. Dish soap (and to a lesser extent, a heat gun) made all the difference. Which is to say: these things became possible. It's still a miserable experience. I don't even ride with tire levers anymore. If my sealant doesn't work, I'm calling a Lyft.

jitteringjr

Holy cow I can’t even imagine thinking that way. 40 years of riding and the only time I didn’t return home on the bike was when I got redirected to the hospital via the ambulance. If I can’t take care of minor issues like flats on the road, I’d question why I was even on the road.

alexdi

Did you read the post you quoted? Flats aren't so minor with some tubeless tire and rim combinations. Fortunately, they're also much less frequent.

redfooj

schwalbe pro one... mount and unmount them by hand. super easy with my rim combination.


only thing to beware of when using them with tubes, is that because the bead should be a tighter fit (theoretically, anyway), be sure that the bead seats evenly when you inflate.

once when i had to run my tubeless tires , with innertubes, in a pinch... it took me multiple reinflation to make sure the tires sit flush on the rims

dim

I use tubeless on my Giant TCR (I have HED Belgium Plus rims, laced to Chris King R45 ceramic bearing hubs and Sapim Cx Ray spokes) and I doubt that I will ever switch back to tubes (unless a new really fast clincher tyre is released) ... thats the beauty of tubeless ready rims (you can use tubeless or clinchers)

a few points:

if you are loosing air, you need another layer of tape on the rims

you need to top up the sealant every 2 months (I use Orange sealant) .... I only top up each tyre with 30ml

when you get a puncture, you will loose a fair bit of air before the sealant works, so always carry a good pump

if you get a puncture that is too large to seal, you will need to use the worm kit (ior add a tube, but it's quicker and easier with the worm kit):


don't use standard tyre levers, get the ones that are marketed for tubeless, but always try to fit the tyres without levers (I can fit IRC tyres easily by hand, but it's a bit harder to get them off)

don't use co2 with sealant .... if you need to fit a tubeless tyre on a ride away from home, and it's not seating, you can use one or 2 co2 cannisters to seat the tyre, then let the co2 out .... add more sealant and pump up

always carry sealant, a spare tube, decent pump and tyre worm kit with you when you go on long rides

Hutchinson 28's are good (similar to Marathon Plus), but there are much faster tubeless tyres on the market (IRC (my favourite), Schwalbe, Maxis etc etc)

joejack951

A lot depends on the tubes, and how much you care about exact tire pressure. With standard (non-lightweight) butyl tubes, I'll sometimes go over a week without *needing* to add air (28mm GP4 Season tires, longer with fat MTB tires). That is not to say that pressure has not dropped, but that it is still within my threshold of 'ok', losing perhaps 10 psi.

With latex tubes I air up every ride. They lose a significant amount of pressure overnight.

jitteringjr

Yes I read it and still can't imagine putting myself in a situation where a flat would necessitate a call for help. If the tire and tube combination is so hard to get on that you say the heck with it if you get a flat on the road then choose another combination.

pesty

As another comment noted... you shouldn't burp air on a road tubeless setup if they are properly seated, especially at 80psi. Typically when I first install the tire I'll run it up to the max on the tire to make sure it's fully seated, typically arround 120 or so. Caveat to that is watch out for the max pressure on the rim. I have some HED wheels that specify max of 100psi.

Properly seated, the bead should hold at low enough pressure to bottom out the rim. I've ridden tires at 40psi out of necessity before. I wouldn't recommend it, it's squirrely as hell, but it got me home. Now I cary a small pump or C02 and worst case scenario, stop every 5-10 minutes and air up.

Good sealant also helps. I've tried Orange Seal, Cafeelatex, two varieties of Slime, and both Stan's Original and Stan's Race Day. Race Day is by far my hands down favorite. I've had it last 6 months or more in tires and still seal up just fine. I also have started to cary tubeless plugs in my saddle bag. Anything that doesn't seal up in a few minutes, I stick a plug in it and forget about it until I run the tire down to the threads.

As for sticking a tube in an actual tubeless tire.... good luck. In my experience, a tubeless tire's bead is just too tight to be able to get a tube in it reliably without pinch flatting it. If you don't want to run tubeless tires tubeless, get rid of it and get some good clinchers. Personally, I switched from clinchers to tubeless about 10 years ago because I was going through too many tubes. I ride 5,000+ miles a year and haven't had to be rescued in probably 4-5 years.

ksryder

It may not be a problem with tubeless -- Hutchinson makes terrible tires.

But as far as any safety issues with popping in a tube, nope, you're fine.

Maelochs

Lol I have some nice Hutchinsons .... I equate them with Maxxis Padrones .... both good enough for me.

I might need to buy CO2 just to seat my tire, I hear? if that is all it takes (no compressor necessary) then I might go back to all tubeless.

Marcus_Ti

Get a compressor. A great many-use tool.

WhyFi

Even if you don't have a compressor, how hard is it to have bring them someplace to get them seated? When all else fails, there's an auto repair shop with a great (and free) compressor where I'll bring my wheels. It happens, but not so frequently that's hassle.

Oh, and let's not forget the flash chargers as an alternative to a compressor. I have a Spec one, but it's honestly been hit or miss, so I might look at another more well-reviewed model sometime.

Roadlizzard

The only tubeless I would use are Mavic's UST, no problem mounting or removing tire and can pump up with a bicycle floor pump

WhyFi

Maybe when there's more selection available, but there's no chance that I'm touching that for the time being.