Koyote

You always seem completely unable to understand that some other people have different priorities, preferences, and riding conditions than you.

tomato coupe

Of course you do.

Chandne

I just replaced my fatbike tires with "summer" ones vs. studded snow tires. The sealant I used was the Orange Seal Endurance version which is supposed to last longer. After 3 months, there was a decent amount left (maybe 70%) so that may be a good option. HOWEVER, I have heard anecdotally that the regular Orange Seal seals punctures better. I usually use Orange Seal Subzero sealant on the fatbike and it definitely is 70% gone after 3 months. These are random musings about the three diff types of Orange Seal (my favorite sealant now).

tempocyclist

That's about on par with my road tubeless experience. Two punctures so far, both sealed after a few wheel rotations of sealant spurting out and the pressure dropping to around 50psi (from 85psi). Did the job for sure, but could be better.

tempocyclist

Mountain bikers aren't anywhere near the fence. I don't know a single mountain biker around here (and this is a serious MTB area with some gnarly trails) that still runs tubes apart from a few "old schoolers" who ride a non-tubeless-compatible wheels, and even most of those would go tubeless if they could. Tubeless is absolute king offroad.

I'd say it's the exact opposite of that. Most satisfied tubeless riders are on gravel roads, or rough offroad trails.

Actually come to think of it, there's many "satisfied good road tubeless riders also" as many of the long-course triathletes are now running tubeless.

urbanknight

It’s true that I was being snarky, but I carry uninsured protection which isn’t legally required. The point being to prepare for the rare and unexpected.

I actually used to carry those when I ran tubes. Do they hold air with tubeless tires? By the way, a dollar bill costs half as much and is almost as effective.

urbanknight

They don’t prevent punctures, per se, but they seal most of them so quickly that you can just keep on riding until the end of the ride.

Fredo76

Scientists have discovered that you can actually put sealant into inner tubes.

urbanknight

Those scientists are probably long dead by now.

wolfchild

Many years ago I purchased 2 slime tubes by accident. I was in a rush and just didn't bother taking a closer look and reading all the details written on the box until I got home. So I installed them tried pumping them up, let some air out, pumped them up again and it was a complete disaster. The presta valve would keep getting clogged with sealant and it leaked and it was impossible to pump it up again. Slime tubes are one of the worst products ever.

wolfchild

I think that tubeless tires actually end up having more punctures because many tubeless specific tires are made out of much thinner materials to reduce weight and provide a plusher ride at lower pressures and most of them lack proper puncture protection because the whole tubeless system relies on sealant to seal those tiny punctures.

Atlas Shrugged

If you riding on garden hose tires you are correct. One poster even recommends solid rubber tires. I prefer my tires, wide, soft and supple.

Koyote

Oh, yeah, I've used the old dollar bill trick - with tubed tires. In fact, I once used a bill to boot a cut tire, thinking that I'd deal with it properly upon getting home. About six months later I pulled the tire for replacement -- George Washington had done his job for a few thousand miles.

But a bill works with a tubed tire because the tube pushes it against the inside of the tire...I suspect it would not work in a tubeless tire, hence the Park Tools boots -- they have some adhesive. Though that might not work on a tire filled with sealant. I've not yet had to try it, but carry a couple anyway - just in case.

By the way: we carry loads of auto insurance, and a million dollar umbrella liability policy, too. So, yeah, I'm risk averse, too. And I carry two tubes (and boots and plugs) on my tubeless rides. But unlike the OP, I don't complain about it. I still appreciate the fact that almost all punctures do not require roadside (or trailside) repairs.

Leisesturm

Thank you for your honesty. Some here are acting like punctures enact no loss of performance and you just keep riding, oblivious. I would not be oblivious to a 30psi loss of pressure. I notice 5psi and 10psi would need a top up.

Leisesturm

No they don't. According to the poster above you would be down 30psi after one puncture. Personally if that happened on the outbound leg of anything other than a commute it would be ride ending unless there was a way to re-pressurize the tire to optimal. Two punctures in one ride? Quite possible with the light, supple, plush riding tires in vogue.

Leisesturm

Pot meet kettle. This thread exists because those in the cult of the tubeless ones need to convince yourselves almost constantly so you insist that everyone could benefit from light, supple, flat-proof and with amazing ride qualities, tubeless.

urbanknight

Putting Slime in regular tubes was even worse if you ask me, but Mr. Tuffy tube liners topped even that. They frequently moved out of place and failed to protect the tube while adding a noticeable amount of "rotating" weight.

Huh, I always figured the opposite, that tubeless tires needed to be a bit thicker to counter the loss of an additional layer of material to go through. Most of the tubeless tires I shopped came in about 20-40g heavier than their tube type versions... which I figured tipped the favor to tubeless after factoring in a 60-120g tube... which was probably tipped back to about even with the weight of the sealant.

urbanknight

Even then, just having to stop for a moment to pump 30 psi would be better than having to pull the wheel off, remove the tube, find the offending object, put the new tube in, pump it back up from ZERO, and put the wheel back on.

But my experience is that most punctures aren't even noticeable and your only clue is maybe seeing a tiny bit of dried sealant where the puncture was. To date, I have had 2 flats that required me to add air, and one of them was ok to ride to the rest stop first (the other was a solo ride).

Now I have heard horror stories about larger punctures that spray the rider and bike with goo, and how messy it is to put a tube inside a tire with a pool of sealant in it, so I can definitely see that as turning some people away. Plus the hassle of refreshing the sealant every month or two. For me, the reduced down time repairing flats won me over.

surak

There's a way to repressurize the tire, it's called a pump.

​​​​​​"Ride ending" is getting a flat while running tubes, going through all you and your friend's inner tubes and CO2 cartridges because you didn't find all the pointy stuff in your tires/rims and/or you messed up and pinched the replacement tubes, then flatting a second time and getting dropped by the rest of the group where a good portion of the others are running tubeless.

Leisesturm

And he happens to be right. Gatorskins and Marathon Plusses exist because tire manufacturers understand that the game is lost if the tire carcass is breached. Flatproofing makes a tire heavier and slower. But it doesn't make it garden hose. Filling a tire with goop and losing 30psi to a puncture. You can still ride, but is it as much fun? Automotive tubeless still aim to prevent punctures with robust construction and reinforcement. I'm pretty sure (but maybe I shouldn't be) that tubeless come in a range of flat resistance and the highest levels of FR are every bit as heavy and slow as the tubed version. It's the majority of tubeless adopters trying to have it both ways that use flimsy race ready tires with sealant as a backstop. I've never used tubeless. My total bias against them comes entirely from the many threads I've read right here, over last few years that started like this one did an o.p. not having the greatest time with their tubeless tires. There are many more threads about the heartbreak of tubeless than there are threads about how wonderful they are. Maybe when that is fixed I'll revisit the issue. But probably not.

tomato coupe

Of course you haven't. The most vocal critics of most new developments are people that have never tried it, yet they always insist it doesn't work as well.

urbanknight

Bad news travels faster than good news.

I will say that I have yet to see a tubeless Gatorskin available, so you're probably right about tubeless appealing mostly to the smooth-ride-at-all-costs crowd. I'm still happy that punctures take little or no time to repair, but it does come with a cost.

elcruxio

Yet curiously you describe two of the worst riding garden hose tires to exists... And I'm bot against marathon plusses. I just put a pair of them on my touring bike. They have their place but I don't try to fool myself they're nice tires. They're not. Nor are gatorskins.

It'd need to be a pretty big puncture to lose 30psi. Have you not heard of pumps? They're pretty nifty. They make small ones too.

Now I'm fairly certain that you lack the ability to evaluate this topic based on all the available data. You've certainly shown that you cherry pick the worst case scenarios and pivot solely around those ignoring everything else. But if you've just been a bit selective, here's an interesting thing about tubeless punctures.

Often when you swap a worn tubeless tire for a new one the tire might have these small white specks. Sometimes there quite a lot of them. When you look at the inside of the tire there are the same specks on the opposing side. These are punctures the sealant has sealed and you've probably not even noticed. The loss in pressure has been so low that it hasn't warranted a check (probably less than 1psi) and the puncture has sealed so quickly that no spray of sealant can be found anywhere on the bike. With a tube all those small white specks would have warranted a stop and a new tube.

Now I'm no expert but I'm under the impression that repairing or swapping car tires on the side of the road is a somewhat more laborious event than with a bicycle. But not an expert so I might be wrong.

puncture protected tubeless tires are still much lighter and faster than say, marathon plusses. If you take the marathon allmotion for example, you've already got a thick tread for more wear resistance and puncture protection belts under the tread. If a puncture does get through all that, there's going to be quite a long narrow tunnel for the sealant to coagulate in. That's actually exactly the situation where sealant works best.

It's more of a case that it's now possible to use fun fast tires without the fear of flats. Running marathon plusses on a road bike or marathon mtb plusses on a mountain bike is the safe choice but it's not really a fun one.

I try to avoid going on foam at the mouth rants to threads about subjects I have zero experience in. I could go harass people in electronic shifting threads but so far I've felt that wouldn't be a fruitful way to spend my time. Maybe I'll revisit the issue. But probably not.

I will admit that road tubeless especially had a rough start with bodges and doing it without incompatible components (like I did). But nowadays the tires are generally pretty great and consistent and rims are actually tubeless compatible with bead shelves that actually hold the tire. I haven't used an air compressor in a few years now since all of my tires have just seated with a floor pump.

There are downsides like with everything else. But for me the upsides far outweigh the downsides. And even more so the bigger the tire gets. I sucked so hard to ride a fatbike with tubes. That's one of the only places where I'll take this hard stance. If you're not using tubeless on a fatbike, you're doing it wrong.

staehpj1

Being down 30 psi is possible, but plenty of the time you will be down much less many little punctures amy be unnoticeable or minimally impactful. This is especially true for those using fatter tires. On my mountain bike I used to get a flat a week and with tubeless I seldom am aware of getting a puncture. It is rare that I lose enough air during a ride that I need to use extra care to avoid bottoming out or burping a tire on the way home. I have never used my pump to add air in the mountain bike during a ride since I went tubeless and I have worn out a set of tires and am on the second set.

On any training ride or pleasure ride most of us would be carrying some means of adding air. A mini pump isn't that much of a burden. So losing a bit of air typically wouldn't be ride ending.

Koyote

Show me where I've tried to convince anyone that they should go tubeless. Seriously - show me. Feel free to quote me.

btw: correcting your misapprehensions about tubeless, as I did in post #67 (and as others have been doing in other posts) is not proselytizing about tubeless; it's merely about getting the facts straight. I don't care what type of tires you run. And again, I challenge you to show me where I've tried to convince anyone to do anything.