Tubeless Tires for Clydes ?
 

Several of the lightweight riding buddies have been suggesting tubeless tires. But being a little larger than most of them I wasn't sure.

I'm 6"1' and in 230 range. I ride a Trek4300 but have a new 8500 coming in the mail soon. Last season put almost 2000km on the bike. And we have a 150km ride coming up in a couple months. Luckily (knock!, knock!!, knock!!!) no flats in the last couple years.

I've seen the videos at www.notubes.com and it looks pretty impressive.

I do most of my riding on the trails here in Germany so a bit of road, some asphalt/packed dirt trail, and a fair bit of forest road trails. No hard core downhill stuff. But some occasional mountain trails.

Any real life experience with this guys stuff? Good? Bad? Recommendations?


Thanks for the help

Why?

If you're riding off-road, there are benefits to UST wheels: The primary one being that you can run lower pressures without concerns for pinch flats. But there's a flip side to that... If you corner too hard or sideslip an obstacle on ultra low pressure UST setups you can unseat the bead.

If you're talking about a road bike, then there's no reason to do it. UST for road is just silly.

Are you talking the glue-on lace ups or the solid foam tires? Sorry, proxy won't let me view the page you linked to.

I wouldn't use either of them and here is why:

A: I'm far too cheap to buy lace ups.

B: A tube tire is much easier to repair when you are on the side of the road.

C: Solid tires blow. They are heavy, preform poorly, have a tendency to roll off the bead during heavy cornering, and expensive the last time I looked.

Seriously, just pick up some thorn resistant tubes and a set of tire liners. Call it a day and ride on!

The Trek 8500 is a mountain bike, so I'm assuming he's asking about mountain bike tires.

I got out of mountain biking just as tubless tires were becoming easier to come by, so I only have a little experience with them. What I did ride on them I really liked. For hard packed trails I don't know that they are much better than standard tires, but for muddy situations or places where traction is hard to come by, I think they work very well.

Neither. (Sew ups have tubes in them, BTW)

He's talking about a Stan's UST (Universal System Tubeless) conversion kit for his current wheels. It seals up the rim and allows you to use tubeless tires.


OP - Unless you're flatting a lot due to pinches, (at which point you should just run a higher tire pressure), and need to run an ultra low pressure on the trails, I don't see any benefit to the switch.

Agree. I run 30psi in my MTB tires and haven't had problems with excessive flatting. On the trails where I ride, I'm not sure I'd gain anything by moving to tubeless and running an even lower tire-pressure...

I have been running tubeless on my mountain bike for two years and it has worked great for me. I used the Stan's conversion on my stock redline wheels with no issues. It is tricky to get the bead to seat the first couple times you set them up, but it gets easier once you figure it out. I haven't had a pinch flat since converting to tubeless and I have only had two sidewalls tear, but those were regular tires not intended to but be run tubeless.