this is surprising, this is the first time i heard of this too. i thought it was one and done.

in anycase, i'm still curious. how hard is it too clean up the sealant after a puncture provided it isn't like someone shot my tire or something?

like is it a pain to get off your down tube or forks or whatever?

what about cleaning it off your rim if you decide to go back to tubes?

It will wipe/rub off with a cloth, a little simple green will work also

Yes, it comes off pretty easy. I've also taken the film of dried sealant off the inside of a tire, it was kind of fun, like a shed snakeskin or the best sunburn peel ever. I've heard other people had it a lot harder, probably to do with the inner surface of the tire.

The problem on my wife's tires was, everywhere she got a puncture and it sealed, the liquid would weep out the hole. Her tires always had streaks. My tires didn't do that, mine wept out the bead. FWIW, my tires are Kenda smallblock8 John Tomac edition, hers are I think WTB Nano. Tires not marked tubeless-ready, but the rims are WTB TCS.

Even then, Joe's Sealant is about $20/liter or maybe $8/yr if you're generous with the sealant.


How do you know if your tire is accumulating too much sealant?

I was using TruckerCo, $21.50/L free shipping, includes a syringe which is nice. And that price/rate is multiplied as I'm looking at taking 2-4 bikes tubeless.

As for too much sealant, everything I've read says don't worry just pour in more sealant. As it dries, I'm sure most of the weight is lost with the liquid, and if you're riding enough, your tires should wear out within a year or two.

I did kind of an autopsy on my 2 tubeless tires when I replaced one of them a couple wks ago; the sealant fresh out of the bottle is white and milky, the stuff in the tube was brown and stringy and not really flowing. I don't know how often to refresh it, I have not had problems with too much sealant although one time when I pushed in the presta valve before topping up the pressure a bunch of sealant blasted out. I might have accidentally unthreaded the valve core though instead of the tip.

I have not had a great time removing sealant from my frame and brake caliper but have not yet tried a solvent. It does come off my calves OK in the shower.

Before pushing in the presta valve, you want to put it in a like 4:00 or 7:00 position for a few seconds so it can drain any sealant that might be in there, and it's not sitting right over a well of sealant. That should minimize spray.

That might have been it too, usually I put it up to 12 but not that time

So they do. I was inspired to add sealant by all the talk here and the seal broke when I pulled out the cores. Next time I'll try it on a stand and see if that helps. In any event, while I couldn't get them back on with a floor pump, I was pleased that a regular service station inflator gave enough airflow to get them sealed.

My takeaways are to keep carrying a tube, add a spare core to my toolkit and aspire to tubeless rims that will move me on out of the ghetto to the tire burbs.

Re other questions, my Joe's Super Sealant says it won't freeze so that's a good thing. And cleaning up the mess was easy. It dries to a very thin rubbery layer that is barely visible and easily removed.

Overall I'm very happy with tubeless and don't want to go back.

I used skinny strippers on my tubeless and ghetto tubeless. Best benefit: if they lose the seal, they just pop back on with no air loss. Just removed the cores to trail sealant, and they aired back up with a hand pump, even when the tire pulled away from the rim.

Depends on the tire. A "Tubless ready" tire needs sealant to seal the tire (sidewall). A heavier fully tubeless tire can be run without sealant.

'skinny strippers' -- needs to be googled carefully!

I don't get it -- why would I pay for these when I could just split open some old tubes?

But without sealant, you still flat from punctures (goathead thorns), so what's the benefit of no sealant?

Wow what great info! Thanks everyone!

Good points, especially the first point.

#2. They are cheaper than tubes, but if you have old tubes go ahead and use them.
They are lighter than tubes (which could be good or bad)
They are latex - meaning latex sealants for a nice bond with them - making a tubeless tire essentially a "tubular" tire. I can deflate the tire and inflate with no loss of sealant, even if the bead unseats.

Nothing wrong with using old tubes though...

Question for tubeless riders: I picked up a large (1 1/2") two-pronged staple in my tire yesterday. The staple diameter was maybe 1/16". Would the sealant take care of a hole like that if I removed the staple?

Same as with using tubes. Do you use Slime in your tubes?

I use slime tubes where I really don't want to change the tire or have higher risk.
I use a slime tube on the rear of my commuter bike/.
I use regular tubes on the front wheel (which rarely flat, and are a little easier to fix) or on a race bike.

Sealant only fixes small pinholes. A tear in the sidewalll requires an inner tube to get home.

And, if you live in goathead country, use sealant. The rest of us may or may not need it.

Yes, it should take care of that easily.

imho sealant is an essential component of running tubeless. It's needed to mount the tires in the first place and get them inflated and it's what prevents puncture flats going forward. It seals more than small pinholes (though not gigantic gashes) and there's not much point of going tubeless without it.

Tubeless is AWESOME. But some nails and pieces of glass are just too big... but for the most part anything a tube will survive with a patch would have been sealed by a tubeless setup.

I went to finally try it, mix a batch of WSS and my latex that I bought in 2015 was like cream cheese silly putty :eek: maybe soon

Like most innovations, the tubeless conversion seems targeted at competition. The selection of tires available turned me off. I have used Stan's sealant in my tubes this year. I've had 5 punctures and only one flat. The four times they didn't go flat, the tires lost enough air to get squishy. I removed whatever was in the tire, pumped them up and went on my way. The one that went flat was penetrated by something through the center tread and kevlar belt of a Schwalbe Big Ben tire, went through the optional anti-puncture I had put in and left a hole in the tube that Stan's would not seal. I still carry a tube. The sealant seems to be a nice convenience, 4 out of 5 is not a bad run at this point.

Marc

I agree there's still a gap in the overall lineup at commuter tire level, unless you want to buy a Marathon Supreme; and probably at smaller wheel sizes. But in MTB it's at all levels now except the bottom; and you don't have to use a tubeless-specific tire at big width, though it makes things better.

Don't pull it out then. I had a Slime filled tube once and had a huge nail in it for days before I realized I had a hole in the tire (the slow leak was my clue).

leave a bigger object in the tread, and I can ride home. Pull it out, and my tire is going to go flat.

IMHO, anything below 32mm may be better off with a tube. Specifically, anything than needs more than 60psi. Tires do blow off of rims, and at 120psi any hole is going to spew out a lot of sealant and air before it seals up. Smaller tires can't afford to lose much volume of air.

You should be able to find anything you need in Schwalbe's line of tires, and there is a decent set of smooth tread gravel tires that make great commuter tires from companies like Panaracer and Hutchinson.

So yeah, nothing by Continental or Michelin (road oriented) - but there are plenty of alternatives.

Stan's conversion kits all suggest a limit of 40. It does seem like a risk to go to road bike sizes and pressures without both a tubeless rim and tire. I've been keeping an eye out for stuff in the 35-37-42 sizes. So far it seems like the Supreme is it.

I rode IRC tubeless tires on H Plus Son Archetype rims, albeit ghetto style, and I never refreshed the Stans in them and I rode for over a year accumulating some 3500 miles. I had a lot of punctures from goatheads, but no flats. I wore the tires right down to nothing and replaced them with Schwalbe Pro Ones. The Schwalbe's went flat twice in less than 150 miles. I now have a new set of IRC's on my ride and hoping for a lot more flat free commuting. Two of my bikes have tubeless and I carry a tube and CO2 with me every ride.

That is because they are designed to work with non tubeless tires, and to finagle that they slightly increase the rim diameter to reduce blow offs.

Still, a lot of tubeless rims have pressure limits much lower than the standard road bike clincher rim.

And road tubeless has less excuse for jacked pressures than clinchers since no pinch flats. I run 28s at 80-85 actually that is about the same as I run 28mm clinchers.

I did have a blowoff last spring and it was really bad but I blame my installation not the tire/rim/pressure combo. When I put a new tire on the rim this summer I didn't scrimp on a) air pressure seating the bead (took it to gas station for air pressure) or b) time (3 days) making sure it was seated and holding pressure.

Got a front tire puncture this morning, which I had been dreading because the sealant is old and goopy in the front and I have been meaning to add new stuff but... anyway it did seal up and I didn't lose noticeable pressure. No roostertail either which was nice. Glad this bike has some kind of integrated headset so the fork doesn't have a giant hole giving sealant full access to headset bearings.