marcpotash

I've had tubeless on my road bike for over a year using a Stan's wheelset with Schwabe One tires. Yesterday I had a puncture and Stan's fluid shot out in a thin stream as the tire spun. I stopped and put the punctured side down against the pavement, hoping that would seal it quicker. After losing a fair amount of fluid it stopped leaking and I used my Co2 to add air, being careful not to put in too much. The seal released and more fluid shot out a few seconds... then there wasn't any more left. So I had to use a tube to get home.

What is the best position for the hole to have it seal better? Up or down? Pressing a little against pavement or not? My friend had a puncture last year but it sealed without any issues.

Andrew R Stewart 

Make sure the object that punctures the tire is smaller? Can you measure the cut and report back how large/long it is? Sealant does have it's limits.

We have a lot of customers with tubeless mountain set ups but only a few handfuls with road ones. A few who have tried road tubeless have gone back to tubes due to their poor results with tubeless. Andy.

marcpotash

The hole was very small, maybe 1/2 mm round puncture. I normally put 85 PSI in the tire.

Andrew R Stewart 

While the hole is very small in the way we usually think of things the higher (WRT mountain bike levels) is quite high (although by road standards still low). Your experience mimics closely that of a couple of our customers. Small hole and lot's of sealant spray with limited plugging. One rider experimented with a few different sealants (don't remember which but Stan's was one and likely was Bontrager because that's what we stock) with no better success. Good luck. Andy.

dsaul

A .5mm hole is very small and should have sealed within 3 to 4 revolutions of the tire. I've had much larger holes seal without a problem. How old was the sealant? The latex has a tendency to fall out of solution and solidify on the inside wall of the tire over time. This leaves just the carrier solution behind which can spray out, but has no latex in it to seal the hole. I usually put fresh sealant in every couple of months.

marcpotash

The Stan's Sealent was about 4-5 months old. I didn't notice anything on the inside wall of the tire when I installed the tube but maybe that was the problem.

marcpotash

Thanks for the info but:

"What is the best position for the hole to have it seal better? Up or down? Pressing a little against pavement or not?"

alcjphil

If it is going to seal, it will seal no matter what position the wheel is in. For the most part, if it seals, you may not even notice it. A few years ago, Hutchinson was one of the sponsors of Steve Bauer's cycling team, and they were racing on road tubeless tires. They would notice at the end of races that tire pressure was down for riders who had suffered minor punctures, but the riders had completed the race on tires that were down a few PSI. If your road tubeless tire goes flat on a ride while you are using sealant, then the only fix is a patch on the inside of the tire, difficult to do on the road if you are using sealant,so no matter what, having a spare inner tube while riding tubeless is prudent, as you found out. I was working for the Canadian Hutchinson distributor at the time that they introduced Road Tubeless tires and have used the system for 5 years now. From my experience, I have been riding road tubeless tires WITHOUT sealant for the last 4 years. In that time I have suffered 2 punctures on the road, one of which could not have been repaired with sealant, and the other, I pumped my tires up and was able to ride 25 km home, that one would have self sealed and I would never have noticed it.
CONCLUSION: Whether you ride with or without sealant, Road Tubeless will reduce the likelihood of flat tires, it will GREATLY reduce the incidence of pinch flats. The only thing that holds it back is that installing road tubeless tires can be more difficult.
Still, nowhere nearly as hard as properly gluing a tubular