Back in the 1970s' my then-girlfriend-now-wife and I wanted really good bikes so we bought Mercier racing bikes, though naively we wanted them for touring, and they came with sew-up tires. I presume those are the same as tubeless. So we carried full self-supported loads on our various tours in Michigan and Ontario, without too much trouble.

When we did our cross-country honeymoon, we brought six spare tires. It seemed we would get a flat tire about every three days, just as the sticky glue-grime wore off our hands. Twice on the tour we had to ditch the bikes in a motel and hitchhike to a city to buy more tires (in Flagstaff, AZ and Pueblo, CO), losing two otherwise rest days, plus all the delays and time expended fixing flats.

We switched wheels soon after arriving in Boston.