jowilson

There is an on going debate at my bike co-op about the use of Slime and Stan's NoTubes Sealant. One guy in the shop says "Slime" in just about every sentence when he's talking about wheels, tires, or tubes. If another worker in the shop hears that, he blurts in that Slime will degrade the tubes after time and afterwards, suggests getting a latex based sealant like Stans. They both have their contradictions to the others statements about which sealant to use. I've used slime before, but my tubes haven't degraded since I put it in 3 months ago. I have used Stan's without my knowledge but a torn valve forced me to throw it out.

So my question is this: Which is better assuming you want your tubes to last as long as possible? Should I present the Slime obsessee (if that's a word) with the evidence and tell him that it's not a good thing to suggest?

TIA,

Josh

fietsbob

Thorn Resistant tubes, instead of slime, etc. are my choice.. and they hold the PSI longer..

bikeguyinvenice

Kevlar belted tires for a bike that's going to be ridden in an area with a lot of puncture potential debris. For my rail trail bike I just use regular tires and tubes, not much debris there.

J.C. Koto

I've had hundreds of tire punctures in my life so I say this with a bit of experience having used different sealants:

Neither. They both do little to help seal punctures and they both make patching the tube significantly more of a hassle

Clawed

Thorn resistant tubes are the moral equivalent of garden hose. Think, heavy, stiff, they come in a box three times bigger than regular tubes. They are a royal pain in the butt to install. But they work like a charm, and the tire pressure lasts forever. Add in Kevlar tires and they are bullet proof. Fine if you don't have hemorrhoids; a little stiff.

Jimi77

I used to get a lot of flats from goat heads on the trails by my house. Slime cured that problem and hasn't caused me any problems.

Nakedbabytoes

I haven't ever tried Stan's. I commuted and was car free for 10 years, all my tubes had slime and I never once in all that time had a flat. Ever. Either the crap hardened enough in them to make my tires essentially solid OR it doesn't degrade and is still useful after all that time. I went through tires though, worn out treads time and again.....so it wasn't like I didn't ride.

rat fink

This is where I'm at.

Burton

Stans is a latex based sealant aimed primarily at cyclists running TUBELESS setups. It seals beads extremely well but 'cures' to a non-liquid firm and needs replentishing if flat protection from punctures is the objective. Expected life expectancy is given by Stans as six or seven months.

Slime markets a variety of products including seperate products for flat protection in tubeless and tube set-ups. The life expectancy is given as two years.

The best anti-flat protection for tubes comes from FlatAttack who offer a five year warranty on their products. However, they state that their product us NOT intended for tubeless installations.

Myosmith

IMHO, Slime is one of the worst products ever marketed to cyclists. It makes a mess, adds unnecessary weight, plugs valves, and doesn't prevent leaks worth squat. Get yourself some decent tires and tubes and forget you ever heard the word Slime.

DX-MAN

This mirrors my experience with Stan's; less than impressed.

Agree -- you'd have to PAY me to use Slime.

I don't consider ANY tube 'additive' to be worth a damn; each and every one I've encountered has been due to having to clean them off some dilettante's wheel after a blowout.

Looigi

On road tires, I've had Slime kinda work for goat heads. Kinda meaning it sometimes worked and sometimes just leaked out of the hole making a mess, about 50/50. Specialized Armadillo tires worked much better, reducing goat head flats to nearly zero.

FrenchFit 

+1. Gatorskins have been my cure for thorns & goatheads.

Leebo

Get rid of your tubes, run tubeless. There are good systems for both road and mt bikes.

tagaproject6

You, sir, have angered the flat tire god, Taergopsssht! Carry 3 spare tubes on your upcoming rides for the rest of the year. I cannot believe you did that!

fietsbob

Read a story from a guy who blew the Slimed tube out , in the basement..

worst thing was catching the Cat, who was looking at the tire being pumped, at the time.

so he could wash off the slime from the, now neon green splotched, Cat.

fietsbob

BTW, I'm not in a Hurry.. in my Bike Friday TR 406 tube was not that much more weight

'97 I used 700c 40 wide tires, P/V TR tubes , zero Punctures on a 6 + month tour
and sitting in Pub Music sessions of Ireland and Scotland..

imi

Slime is for snails.

linus

Tubeless is way to go, but Slime doesn't seal as well when it comes to road bike tires.

Latex based sealant wins but you need to service your tires every season. I like latex because you can make your own sealant to your needs.

jowilson

Just read through all the comments.

I might have said something wrong in the first post but I never said that I was questioning what to put on my bike, but rather the customers' bikes. We get quite a few road bikes in the shop and I don't know if running tubeless is a good thing on those bikes. I thought the main reason tubeless was popular was because mountain bikers hated getting pinch flats at low pressures. Maybe I haven't kept up with tubeless
technology but that's what I have always thought.

This shop is also registered as a 501(c) which, in English, means non-profit organization, but we also call ourselves an educational organization. We mostly run on donations and people without knowledge of flat repair. Getting bulk tubeless systems for low prices would be hard to find, but if anyone has any connections, please shoot me a message.

Josh

Burton

In my experience they ALL work for the applications they're really targeted for. Slime works extremely well in low pressure, high volume tires. In road tires 2oz isn't enough to be reliably effective and the higher pressures compound the situation. In mtb and hybrid tires 4oz is typically used.

Same for Stans. In a low pressure high volume tire loaded with 4oz of liquid - its very effective and great for tubeless. In a high pressure road tire, 2oz is a lot less effective. For ebikes that typically run 26x1.75 tires at 65psi its a godsend. Disconnecting a wiring harness and dropping a rear wheel to change a flat on an ebike is long, inconvenient and not something you want to have to pay a shop to do frequently or even do yourself by the side of the road in the rain even once.

rekmeyata

Slime is crud, it will not seal a leak in a tube with 75 of more psi in it.

Thorn tubes do very little to thwart punctures, maybe 2% with a 50% weight penalty.

Your first line of defense against flats is the tires. Depending on how good you want your flat protection, but the best for the weight of the tire is Specialized Armadillo All Condition tires, these are very tough but on the heavy side and rough riding. Next up is probably the Continental Gator Hardshell and about the same the Bontrager AW3 Hardcase. Below that any number of kevlar tires.

Then once an object makes it past the tire the tube becomes like butter, so you need to stop it before the tube with a liner, the best liner is the Panaracer FlatAway liner. If you combine the Panaracer Liner with the Conti Gator Hardshell your flats will become a thing of the past.

itsthewoo

Serfas survivors and cheap bike shop tubes have had me puncture-free for more than a thousand miles.

rekmeyata

Must be a new tire from Serfas, last year they didn't have them. I read their site about them and they do seem very promising. I hope you keep us informed as to how well they do by the end of the cycling season. A 1,000 miles is not a good test...yet. I've gone over 4,000 miles on my current set of Kenda Konstrictors that are almost 1/2 the weight of those using ultralight tubes...but this set of tires have about 4,000 miles and I got a flat yesterday, mostly due to rain and the chances of getting a flat increases when the tires are wet. I sure love my glueless patches, I just buff, stick and go, no waiting around for glue to dry. But I digest, I'm glad I don't live on real trashy streets like I use to because that brings down the flat occurrences a lot.

How do they feel while riding?

Have you ever used the Specialized Armadillo's? If so how do they compare?

MEversbergII

I'm currently running an off the shelf Schwinn self-sealing tube and a Sunlite thorn resistant tube (front and rear respectively). What I've noticed is that the self-sealing one hasn't so much as lost air pressure much since I installed it 6 months ago, or there about. The thorn resistant one seems to bit by bit over the course of a week, but never very low. However, I have noticed that Sunlite's tubes have shorter valve stems than the Schwinn ones, and don't extend from the rim enough for me to use a floor pump. Because I am incredibly lazy, I've just been using a CO2 gun thing, which screws on and pulls the vale up just enough for it to seal and inflate. Going to have to replace that this weekend...

M.