JFuller

An acquaintance of mine rode across the country on tubeless and didn't flat until his tires wore right out to the casing. Reviewing the tires after removal showed dozens of small punctures that were sealed by the sealant, each of which would have likely been a flat tire if running tubes.

I run tubes because the tires I run don't work as tubeless (Compass Babyshoe) but unquestionably the tech is there

seely

I've had really great results going tubeless and likely won't be going back. So far I've put about 2,000mi on a set of Panaracer Pasela TG setup tubeless with zero problems, and they're not a tubeless tire. If you look them over you'll see tons of little cuts that have been sealed up so fast I didn't even lose noticeable pressure. Now that there's some decent comparable tubeless tires out there, I'll be going that route just for the added assurance of a tubeless rated bead.

As far as on the road serviceability, none of my proper tubeless tires are inordinately hard to install or remove, either. There isn't one I can't get on the with just my bare hands and good technique. The key is good technique. You want to pop *both* beads down into the center trough of the rim before removing the tire, and when you're putting it on, take care to try to keep both beads in that center trough as much as you can as you work your way around.

If you do get an on-the-road flat, there's nothing preventing popping a tube in there, though I'm almost to the point where I wonder if I should even bother with a spare tube.

dim

Schwalbe say that tubless is the way forward .... here is a link that answers most questions:

Tubeless - Schwalbe Professional Bike Tires

you also need to make sure that your rims are tubeless ready... see the section: 'which wheels are suitable for the conversion'

unterhausen

reports are that sealant doesn't work as well in tubes. Also, running lower pressures is beneficial, so that can't be discounted. From what I see, road tubeless is still a bit on the experimental side. On MTB in Central PA, it's insane to run tubes. I need to find some good tubeless gravel tires. My gravel wheels are tubeless-capable, but I run them with tubes.

gsa103

The inner tube flexes relative to the tire, constantly causing the hole to flex and micro-leak. I had some sealant in MTB tubes, they help pressure fine when stopped, but when you were rolling you very slowly lost pressure, so you start a ride at 20 psi and end at 10 psi. Then it's difficult to patch because the sealant leaks out, so you need a fresh tube. For a short ride, it's enough to ensure you get home, but you still need to patch and install a new tube.

And you need to find tubes with removable valve stems.

yannisg

I have been using tubeless road tires on all my Brevets and races since 2011. I use tubeless on Brevets and races, and not for training.
I have had to install an inner tube twice. The first time my tire got ripped, and the second time the sealant had dried and couldn't seal the hole. These are the only incidents I have had since 2011.
I have had a few punctures, but the sealant, so far, has always sealed the hole.
There is nothing like repairing a flat on a Brevet in cold rainy weather.
YannisG

unterhausen

how about repairing a flat in cold, rainy, weather at night?

Vuk

I've been using Ritchey WCS Shield 2.1 650B tires on WTB Frequency Team i25 rims for about two months tubeless. Totally awesome for gravel (high volume means comfort), very good for light trails through the woods, good speed on pavement also due to less rotating mass. I plan on using this setup for longer distances and am optimistic it is the right choice vs. tubes, because one can pick much lighter tires such as these instead of going for heavy tires like a Schwalbe Marathon Plus to protect the tube from punctures. I used 60ml sealant per tire.

joewein

Last Sunday, as I had already passed the final PC of a 400 km brevet around Mt Fuji (report with pictures here) and was only 16 km away from finishing the event in rainy weather, I suffered my first puncture ever in a Randonneuring event, from a glass shard that went through the tread.

My Elephant NFE uses tubeless-ready Velocity Blunt SL rims, but I was still using tubes because the Compass Babyshoe Pass EL tires aren't certified for tubeless use. That gave me the worst of both worlds - no self-sealing of punctures yet and a tubeless-optimized rim that is so hard to get a tire off or back on that I was worried I might actually break my tire levers on it.

I had been about an hour ahead of cut-off time at the final PC 36 km before the goal, but by the time I finally managed to swap the tube, re-inflate and reinstall the wheel, I had used up most of that. I finally arrived at the finish line with a mere 4 minutes spare, after 26 hours 56 minutes and 403 km / 3400 elevation meters. It would have been a shame to DNF that late in the ride.

I am ready to take the plunge and go tubeless with sealant. It will not prevent all punctures and I will still be carrying spare tubes as I did on the weekend, but for the kind of mishaps that sealant can take care of it will save me a lot of hassle.

unterhausen

I had a slow leak last year at about 400k on the 600k that I eventually ended up dnf'ing. Would have been nice not to have to fix that.

mtn.cyclist

You will add 1/4-1/2 pound of rotating weight to your wheels by doing that.

unterhausen

I asked my LBS about this and they were moderately hostile to the idea. I was a little surprised due to them pushing tubeless for other applications

Steamer

Meh. My bike when fitted for rando, weighs about 35 lbs.

dim

According to this article, if you use tubeless tyres, you should not exceed 60 Psi pressure?:

https://www.velovitality.co.uk/blogs...ss-ready-tyres

joewein

I think the significance of rotating vs. non-rotating mass is overrated outside of racing. Randonneuring and other long distance cycling does not usually involve a lot of sudden acceleration. In racing, acceleration is important for sprint finishes, keeping up with break-away groups, etc. but when you're maintaining a constant speed on a flat road or climb at constant speed, there's nothing special about the mass of the tires, tubes or rims compared to any other mass that makes the bike heavier.

revchuck 

I'm an interloper, just noticed the tubeless thread. I'm pretty sure the article refers to those specific tires rather than tubeless tires in general. Standard road bike sizes (700x23-28) list roughly the same pressures for tubeless as for clinchers.

mtn.cyclist

I agree that rando type riding doesn't necessarily require weight weenie obsession with grams. It's certainly your right not to, but I do pay attention to weight and especially rotating weight. I live in the Rocky Mountains so I climb a lot, sometime for miles at a time. If I change to heavier tires it is apparent. There would be no typical situation where it would be an advantage to add tire sealant to tubed tires, which was my point.

joewein

My point about quoting you on "rotating weight" was not about weight as such but about you distinguishing rotating from non-rotating weight. That distinction is largely irrelevant for randonneuring. In our sport they're pretty much interchangeable.

All weight has to be lifted up mountains or accelerated when you speed up, but rotating weight has to be spun around faster on top of that when you accelerate, so it carries more effectively momentum than non-rotating weight. You don't really feel momentum unless you try to change speed. It matters in races such as when you accelerate in a sprint-finish, but Randonneuring outcomes are determined mostly by relatively static speeds. Therefore your emphasis on *rotating* weight is really misplaced.

Sorry for taking this thread somewhat off-topic!

fietsbob

Do the Math...

Sealant weight vs Tube weight,

and the fact the air tight tire casing will be heavier than one that does not have to be air tight because the inner tube Is..

thebulls

Well, I can do math, but in this case it has to be abstract algebra since I don't know the quantities involved. So which is heavier? tube + good-quality regular tire + regular rim? Or sealant + good-quality tubeless tire + tubeless rim?

I'm somewhat intrigued by tubeless but in my preferred size of 650Bx42 road tires, e.g. Hetre's or Babyshoe Pass, I don't see any comparable-quality fast, tubeless tires available from anyone.

pmt

Yep, Road Tubeless with sealant would likely have made that a non-issue. I've done plenty of kilometers on a slight flat that sealant stopped; I either added air/CO2 later, or repaired it later. No need to stop the ride because of a minor puncture.

joewein

Yeah! I made the leap to tubeless today!

For the switch I decided to downgrade from my Compass Babyshoe Pass EL tires to the standard (non-Extralight) version because the EL sidewalls are really thin. The switch-over was relatively unproblematic.

First we removed the tires, tubes (Schwalbe) and rim tape (Tioga). Then we installed the Effetto Mariposa Caffélatex tubeless tape and tubeless valve set and mounted the tires. As expected the beads would not seat with a floor pump alone, the air would simply escape without popping the tire if there was no sealant.

We removed the valve core and injected 50 ml of Caffélatex sealant into the tire and reinstalled the valve core. After that we hooked up a can of Caffélatex Espresso to the valve and started spraying from the can. These cans rapidly fill the tube with latex foam, providing sealant and gas at the same time. The tire started bleeding foam around the beads and we smeared it around to help seal. After the 75 ml can was used up, we switched to the floor pump and started pumping like mad. On the first tire we inflated, the bead popped into place from the spray can alone. While it still foamed it finally sealed after some pumping. I pumped the tire up to 60 psi, the maximum permitted for tubeless use. On the second tire I could not keep up with manual pumping because my arms were too exhausted by then. My friend had to take over the pump and finish the job. We spun the wheels around vertically and horizontally to distribute the sealant and to expose the sidewalls to it.

I was glad to see that both tires held their pressure, without leaks. Soon after that I rode home 10 km without any problems. I will be leaving the tires inflated at the maximum pressure over night to help seal the tires. Tomorrow I'll drop the pressure to something more comfortable and appropriate for everyday use.

As for mounting the tire on the rim, it was really much easier to install without tube than with tube. However, for a major puncture or tire damage that the sealant won't take care of on its own, I will still have to install a tube since installing a spare tire tubeless is simply not practical by the roadside without access to a compressor, pressurized sealant cans or sufficient CO2.

I am curious how the tubeless standard casing BSP will compare speed and comfort-wise to the BSP EL set up with tubes, my previous configuration. I will find out soon

thebulls

Thanks for the report. Look forward to the longer-term report. What kind of rims are you using these with?

I am "tubeless curious" but not entirely ready to make the jump. I do have one Velocity A23C tubeless rim on a rear 650B wheel, and I need to rebuild my Schmidt hub and replace the rim, so am considering a second tubeless rim to give myself the option.

So is your backup plan to ride with both a spare inner tube and a spare tire, or just a spare inner tube?

For my tubed setup, I usually ride with a couple of spare inner tubes and some patches. Only occasionally do I go to the trouble of carrying a spare tire, as well.

Nick

unterhausen

I think it makes sense to get a tubeless ready rim. I'm a little annoyed with myself for not making sure my new road wheels were tubeless ready. It's possible they are, I think they have ledges for the bead.

I looked up my rim, it's a DT Swiss TK540. All I found about tubeless is someone that had trouble with it. DT Swiss product page is no help. Sure looks like a tubeless ready rim though.

joewein

@thebulls - My rims are Velocity Blunt SL rims, which are disk-only and tubeless ready.

My backup plan for punctures is just an inner tube and tire boot, no different from when I rode with tubes. I don't normally ride on gravel / rocks / off-road, so the risk of sidewall cuts is not particularly high. Even regular punctures have not been frequent, maybe once or twice a year (I ride 9-10,000 km per year).

Since with disk brakes I don't depend on a brake track I can even wrap electrical tape around a sidewall cut to limp home in an emergency.

On my (non-tubeless) Bike Friday I only had two incidents with tire damage that went beyond regular punctures in 35,000+ km. In one case a 5 cm long wood screw went straight through the rear tire, sticking out at both ends. In the other the brake shoes made contact with the tire when the pads got too worn and caused a sidewall cut. In both cases a spare tube with a tire boot saved the day and I made it home alright. I would not want to carry a spare tire for the next couple of years on that track record alone, unless I was going on an expedition across South America ;-)

Quick update: I left the Elephant NFE on the bike rack for 48 hours, just spinning the wheels around once or twice a day. I didn't ride on Sunday but went out with the family. On Monday, before I took the bike out for a ride I checked the pressure to see how well the tires are holding air. Pressure had dropped from 4+ bar / 60+ psi to about 3.5 bar / 42 psi, which is more than enough.


I could not see any sealant bleeding through anywhere on the tires, though the valves were a bit sticky. I opened and closed them a few times to clean them. I also loosened the retaining nut on the valve, so I would be able to remove the valve with my fingers if I ever had to install a tube. My friend who had helped me with the conversion had tightened the nut very well to help the valve seal.


I dropped the pressure further to 2.7 bar front / 3.0 bar rear before heading out for a 50+ km ride on Onekansen, a rolling hill course near here that is one one my favourite sub-3 hour exercise loops. I came back with a few PRs on Strava and the best results in 3 years on several other segments. This is fun!