chaadster

I know this is not a really a big deal, and not news to tubeless users who've been there already, but I had my first puncture (well, that I'm aware of) this past Tuesday, and it was really cool! I mean, cool in the sense that everything worked as designed, and getting underway again was quick and easy!

So I was with my usual Tue AM group, about 6 guys, whistling down Huron River Drive, which was well-wetted from the night's thunderstorm. I knew I was pushing my luck with tires as they were well-worn, down to the cords in a few spots on the rear. I didn't want to ride that tire, but replacements ordered online came back out of stock just the day before, and I had no time to source new ones; my secondary wheel set needed spoke tensioning, so that left me no choice.

A few miles in, I hear the telltale hissing or swishing noise beating away in time with wheel rotation, and a guy behind says, "you have a flat." I was initially hoping I'd picked up a piece of debris that was rubbing the brake pad or something, but looking down I saw a fine mist ejecting from a spot on the tire. I pulled over and checked it out. However, as I turned the tire, I saw only a tiny little bubbling, so I wiped the tire to get a better view of what was going on (it was wet and dirty), and used my nail to scrape what I thought was just a stuck bit...whoops, that was the plug in another, bigger puncture, so it started hissing again! Stupid.

I decided to remount and ride a couple hundred yards ahead to a better pull-off area. No hissing or bubbling. Pressure decent. I pulled out my pump, gave it some more air, and took off a couple of minutes later...completed the next hour of riding no problem. Cool!

For those interested, I was running a Schwalbe One with about an ounce of Stan's sealant.

When I got home, I pulled and trashed the tire, replacing that rear with another tire of the same. Great tire (and the new Pro One promises even better...I can't wait!).

I don't know if I ran over something that gave two simultaneous punctures or a single piece punctured, but the sealant really did its job quickly and perfectly. I know some will prefer to run without sealant (maybe Shimano still suggests against it for some of their wheels?), but boy, it was nice not having to make the time and effort to remove a bead, put in a tube, and pump from zero! Sealant is cheap insurance against a fairly routine occurrence.

WalksOn2Wheels

I've been running tubeless on the Domane for a while and have yet to have a flat. But now I've probably jinxed myself. One section last night was just littered with debris and broken bottles. The road was so rough, most of the glass probably just fills the cracks in the road. It's a really bad stretch. I thought I might have gotten a flat one day on that stretch, but I just kept plowing along and never lost any significant pressure.

As far as sealant goes, the deal with Shimano was that one of their rims (either Ultegra or Dura Ace) was bare metal on the inside and Stan's sealant was corroding the rim itself. I honestly forget which chemical it was (the ammonia?) but there are other types of sealant that don't corrode the metal. There is probably a list somewhere.

But yeah, I wouldn't recommend running no sealant, although I knew people that did. I had a customer come in once complaining that the tubeless rear tire on his MTB wouldn't hold air. Yeah, he didn't have any sealant.

gsa103

I'm really curious about the Pro One. I'm concerned about the lifetime of the Pro One though. That's something I like about the current One, I can get about 3k miles per tire (similar to a Pro4SC), so they're a great everyday tire for me.

UnfilteredDregs

Yeah, don't pick at it, a stubborn puncture may seal more assuredly if you rotate the tire puncture side down and let it stand for a few minutes...always inflate with the stem at the 12 O'clock position or you'll clog it, etc..

chaadster

Sealant isn't required for airtightness on true tubeless systems, only for conversions that use a standard clincher, right? UST tire/rim combo for MTB doesn't need sealant, nor does road tubeless tire/"tubeless ready" rim combo, if I understand things correctly.

chaadster

Same here. I wanted to go with IRC Formula Lights to replace Ones, but chickened out at the last minute for that very reason (in combination with cost), and ordered the IRC Roadlites, which backordered. I mean, if I could get tubeless tires for $50, I wouldn't mind getting 1.5-2k miles, but at $70+ a throw, I'm a little more circumspect as I'm not racing for cash!

chaadster

Hmm, I usually do 3 or 9 with the valve, and haven't noticed any clogging issues yet, but I do make sure to spin the wheel to pull the sealant out of the valve stem first, so maybe that's why?

WalksOn2Wheels

Yes and no. With a perfect tire and a perfect rim, not at all. But the majority of wheels I've set up tubeless for customers, especially on mountain bikes, you always get some seepage from the bead when you first set it up. The procedure was to inflate the tire without sealant first and then fill the sealant via the valve stem, so yeah, any true tubeless system is going to hold air for a little while, but sealant makes a big difference in some cases. For the MTB customer I mentioned earlier, It wasn't leaking at an accelerated rate that you would even notice on a short ride, but overnight it was near flat.

HardyWeinberg

Maybe I haven't read the literature enough but I have schwalbe ones on fulcrum 2-way-fit rims and they do not hold air for more than a couple of hours. The fulcrum manual just said to 'wet' the beads before applying, but the fulcrum protocol I could not follow at all anyway (the manual wanted first one bead fully seated and then the other... not happening!). I am going to add sealant but I think I am going back to tubes for tomorrow's long ride.

Glad to hear the sealant worked great for a puncture!

gsa103

Schwalbe Ones definitely hold air without sealant. Most likely you have a small leak at the valve stem or something.

chaadster

Perfect tire/perfect rim? Isn't that exactly what the UST standard is for? Mavic explicitly states that UST is airtight.

I don't know that we need to get too deep into an MTB standard here in the Road Forum, but it underscores, in my mind, the urgent need for tubeless road standards, because if folks like us-- a shop pro and an avid enthusiast-- can't get it straight, how is the average cyclist going to understand it, and perhaps most importantly, why would they choose tubeless when they can't make sense out of it?

So, in any tire/rim combo, there's the possibility of losing air through the rim, at the bead interface, and through the casing, right? Tape handles loss through the rim (when necessary), and in the case where a tire is not constructed specifically for tubeless with a secure bead shape and air retentive lining (buytl or latex; IRC offer tires with both, for example) sealant can handle loss through the bead interface and casing.

in the case of road tubeless specifically, since we are not dealing with standard clincher rim and tire conversions (because of high pressure issues and burping), aren't all road tubeless tires lined for air retention? However, because of the lack of manufacturing design standards for bead profiles (unlike UST), it is possible to have a tubeless road rim and tubeless road tire bead interface which is not airtight, and which would require sealant for airtightness.

Do I have all that right?

WalksOn2Wheels

It's definitely not as standardized as it could be, but it's not far off. The UST thing with Mavic was more marketing than anything. So now everyone else has to label their own standard to avoid copyright or some such, but essentially they are all pretty much the same.

More realistically, though, I don't know why people seem against running sealant. That's a huge benefit of tubeless. This whole thread was started because you were excited about how well it held. But some people insist that because it's "supposed" to be air tight, you shouldn't have to run sealant. I don't get that. Sealant is awesome. Why not put it in? And when you do, all this issue of what tire works best with which rims, etc. really means nothing.

Compared to the heavy duty bead of a car rim plus the tire and the standardization in that industry, it's not hard to imagine that a substantially smaller bead on a much smaller piece of real estate is not going to always be perfectly air tight.

HardyWeinberg

Even if it is airtight you are always just a pointy object away from losing that airtightness.

chaadster

Yeah, and sealant only costs about $1 and 30gm per tire, and can seal multiple punctures over many months.

As I said before, it's "cheap insurance."

JamesInSJ

In lieu of starting an entirely new thread asking about this topic, thought I'd ask here first. Just got a pair of Shimano 9000-24-TL wheels, and have new Hutchinson Intensive tires arriving any day now. I've read a few years of stories about the DA-9000 getting internal corrosion from Stan's sealant, and someone else I think had Orange and had the same problem. Anybody know if any of the sealants out there have this sorted? Seems to be a problem with the ammonia in Stans, but someone ran a definitely non-ammonia sealant and said they had the same pitting/corrosion inside their wheels too (appears to form on the inner sidewalls of the wheel...middle seems to be anodized/coated better). I want these wheels to last many years of service but want the benefit of tubeless, and wondering if any particular sealant has eliminated this problem with their composition?

chaadster

The User Manual for those wheels, which Shimano updated earlier this month, says they do not recommend the use of "general purpose alkaline puncture repair agents." Further, the Dealer Manual has no provision for sealant in the tire installation and removal instructions.

Ammonia, as a sealant ingredient, would qualify as alkaline on its own, but it could be diluted down. And there could be other alkaline components; how you would find out sealant constituents, I'm not sure outside Of contacting manufacturer.

Is Orange Seal alkaline? Is it a general purpose repair agent? Dunno. I'm using Joe's EcoSealant myself right now, which they say is "ammonium free."

UnfilteredDregs

Orange Seal, the company, is running their product in a few wheelsets at the office to keep up on this nonsense with Shimano. Last time I checked all was well.

Leave it to Shimano to have the one-off wheelsets that corrode when in contact with well established sealant/agents. Plenty of other fish in the sea wheelwise, no reason to buy Shimano considering the inconvenience.

chaadster

That's a confusing comment; do the Shimano wheels corrode under well-established sealing agents? Do they not corrode under Orange Seal? Or is Orange seal not "well established"? And what of Joe's ammonium-free EcoSealant? Why not use that in Shimano wheels? Or are you suggesting Joe's doesn't work? Or Joe's is "well-established" and so of necessity doesn't work?

The issue, you see, is that JamesinSJ already has the C24s.

UnfilteredDregs

Stan's has been the defacto gold standard for years. As I understand it Stan's corrode Shimano.

Last time I checked with Orange Seal and asked there had been no apparent corrosion of the Shimano wheels via their product. Orange Seal is ammonia free.

I don't know anything regarding Joe's EcoSealant simply because Orange Seal outperforms many of the other sealants out there by a wide margin according to the slowtwitch comparison therefore I haven't tried any others since switching to OS.

bikebreak

I heard that the continental revo and caffelatex sealants are made without ammonia, I would check those out.

JamesInSJ

Thanks all! I saw the Slowtwitch comparison and I was trying to get my hands on some Bontrager TLR sealant, but haven't been able to find a shop anywhere around here with it and don't feel like buying a large bottle initially. Saw that Orange Seal was also very good, and I was ready to pull the trigger on buying that once I got a little more feedback here. Sounds like the Orange Seal guys are testing it out to close the book on Shimano wheelset problems. I'm willing to be a "tester" on this too and report to the community...I have the wheels, Hutchinson Intensive 2 tubeless tires arriving any day now, and if I see any corrosion after ~6 months (assuming I don't have to pull the tires any sooner for any reason) I'll clear that and just switch back to clinchers and skip tubeless for now. I mainly chose the C24 wheels for the wheels themselves, not tubeless, but riding tubeless is an extra benefit I'm hoping to enjoy, just didn't know I'd have to consider all these hassles getting a sealant that won't damage the wheels.

TobinH

You threw away the tire? Do you have to throw away the tire if you get a flat when running tubeless?

gsa103

I've been running Orange Seal on my C24s for about 4 mo now. No sign of corrosion when I popped the bead to inspect. Orange Seal claims to be non-corrosive and that they were running it on some older 7950 rims.

One thing I did do was to apply several coats of Boeshield to the internal rim. Given that the whole reason for the product is Al corrosion protection, it seemed like cheap insurance.

gsa103

His tire was worn out. I had the same thing happen with mine. First flat was when it worn down to the cords and sharp rock was enough to cause a flat.

TobinH

Ah right. But for the second part of the question, what do you do with a tubeless tire when you get a flat?