Loveless4577

Been wondering the same since I joined but I keep reading anyway...

3alarmer 

...coasting died. All the other drama has been pretty minor.

RPK79

Well that is sad news.

Heathpack 

Honestly I have zero idea but suspect this is one of those BF religion things. People either hate tubeless tires and want to overblow every drawback to them. Or they love them and want to minimize every drawback. Everyone should just take a deep breath and calmly discuss the pros and cons. Would be so much more helpful than claiming that Slime is the spawn of the Devil.

3alarmer 

...it's not a claim. Slime is the spawn of the devil, it says so somewhere in the promotional literature.

Velo Vol 

I don't want to.

mvnsnd

You avoid that by droping the hamer first, of course.

rpenmanparker 

I've seen that too. But being wizardry not everyone can see it. Only the pure of heart like you and me.

rpenmanparker 

The only place I would ever use sealant would be to seal a puncture on the road. Like Pit Stop. IF I had tubular tires. Or maybe even in clinchers tubes. No chance of ever getting inside that tube to encounter the sealant up close and personal. Nuff said!

3alarmer 

...as you are doubtless aware by now, helping is my very life's blood.

UnfilteredDregs

Tons of misinformation out there about road tubeless.

I've got over 5k on them ranging from utter crap NYC roads, glass strewn highway shoulders, plush asphalt, hardpack and railroad ballast sized "gravel."

I daresay you can't get much worse than NYC roads as far as inhospitable bicycle tire environs go.

As far as ensuring reliability goes, all the while having superb ride quality, road tubeless, smokes conventional tubed tires hands down, anyone who says otherwise has no practical experience or doesn't know the "how" of setting it up.. I don't get flats. The sealant handles all garden variety punctures that would take out a tube. At worst you stop for a few minutes, puncture side down wait a bit, add some air, and roll on. The sealant has gotten me home on what was essentially a destroyed tire.

Any shop that whines about dealing with sealant has no business being in the business.

All it takes is a little bit of research. Some good rims out there already, HED Belgium, or Belgium+ is a goto. There are a few carbon options as well, Reynolds comes to mind, DT Swiss, I know you can go tubeless with ENVE, and I'm about to tape up some RAIL52's I got from November Bicycles, etc..

As far as I can tell the only difference between mounting a tubeless tire versus regular clincher is a little more muscle, marginally more time, and for the initial mounting... a compressor.

Use the right size rim tape, use removable core valve stems.

Use a good sealant, Orange Seal hands down is the best by far.

If you don't want to gum up your valve stems it's as simple as adding sealant with the stem at the 3 O'Clock position, and always add air to your tire with the stem at the 12 O'Clock position.

I've got 500 miles on new Schwalbe ONE's at the moment. Amazing tire so far. What's shocking is the lack of cuts in the rubber compared to the Hutchinson Secteurs I was riding. I'm also riding at a lower PSI than what I was using with the Secteurs. the structural build of the Schwalbe's allows for it.

Lower PSI is another great reason to go tubeless...you don't have to ride rocks, and much better traction cornering. Another thing I was pondering is that for a given lower pressure these tires still have a relatively equivalently small contact patch versus a high PSI tire due to tire construction. A hunch. The Schwalbe's are akin to riding a cloud.

Ride report from this weekend's Century up next!

3alarmer 

...I don't think you'll hear all that much whining from a for profit shop. They will simply charge you more to deal with it.

Heathpack 

Right. I've watched it. What people are asking here is the impressions of people who have experience with the pros and the cons, people who they "know", so that they can weight the pros and cons for themselves. Sure any of us can refer people to a book or to technical literature. Once you read that, you will hear conflicting info. So then you turn to your knowledgeable friends and try to gather their opinions.

Meaningful and helpful:
"I personally have this experience and it is..."
"I know first-hand that person X has had this experience..."
"People I know who work with these tires and are open to new ideas have had this experience..."

Non-meaningful and non-helpful:
"I read this on the internet about them..."
"Logically (although I have no first hand experience), I would assume X about tubeless tires..."
"I don't like it because its new and I hope I never have to deal with it..."

I am in no way saying that tubeless tires are the thing for everyone. I'm not even 100% sure that tubeless tires are the thing for me. I'm open to trying them and I'm in the process right now of assessing my own experience with them.

Its just so counter-productive sometimes to have to wade through all the BF BS whenever something like this comes up. How about "there's pros and cons and here's what they are"? Not to be too straightforward about it.

UnfilteredDregs

I've seen the actual "Slime." Nasty stuff...lol. I would not let anyone within 10 yards of my tires with that stuff. But Orange Seal? No muss & no fuss. I add my sealant to my tires in the living room. 2 ounces into the injector, add it through the stem, and inflate. If anything maybe a dribble that can be wiped up with a kleenex.

The funny thing about the GCN video is the reviewer shows just how much he doesn't know about tubeless... At first he is running them at the same PSI as his tubed tires, which is ridiculous, he lightens up by 20 psi later on, when all the while that should have been his starting point.

The comparison to pure racing rubber is apples to oranges. Pure racing rubber will always feel great, has crap for flat protection, and we all know tubular is still King when it comes to racing tires.

How tubeless just about outclasses everything is by rendering the overwhelming majority of punctures irrelevant all the while providing a still excellent riding quality tire. You simply can't have this kind of flat resistance and excellent rolling quality built into the same tire. All those Gatorskins, Armadillos, yada, yada, yada..."armored" all roll like a bucket of rocks.

The Win/Win with tubeless is unsurpassed puncture protection and excellent rolling quality.

BillyD

Now see, that's just wrong. What is college without coeds?

Congrats, btw!

How are your grades, btw?

BillyD

Blasphemy! This is the 41 dontcha know!?

BillyD

Besides, don't take away our only opportunities to ban somebody. We have so little fun as it is.

LesterOfPuppets

I used to run Slime in MTB tyres when I lived in AZ. Worked great for all the goat heads, cactus needles, scorpion stingers and rattlesnake teeth!

Now I just do Mr. Tuffies in MTB and road tyres. I would need some pretty good incentive to consider getting or making an airproof pair of rims and getting a compressor or one of them piggyback chamber floor pumps.

If it ain't broke don't fix it. Steel is real. DT friction are the best shifters ever created.

Road bike technology peaked in 1989 and has been on a downhill slide since then

rpenmanparker 

Here is what I don't understand. At what point does lower inflation pressure endanger your rims. No tubes, so no pinch flats no matter how low the pressure. But how much less rim protection do you have at such reduced pressure? How do you know what's a safe pressure for the rims?

UnfilteredDregs

Well...

I went Coasting this past Sunday.

Did 108 miles, a circle route...across into New Jersey, Northwest to Harriman State Park, North through the park, summit at Bear Mountain, crossed the Hudson river on the Bear Mountain Bridge, then South a bit along the riverside until Ossining, then traversed two ridgelines to the East until finally getting onto the old NYC Putnam Division Right of Way which has been converted to a bicycle path...



Great ride, stupendous weather, it was a bit of a grunt at parts but nothing major. I wanted to go faster but my compadre, and old, broken, former CAT3, with some trophies, kept us at an overall 14.2 mph ..He's got hip, back, pain issues...

Anyhow... we warmed up for the first 40 miles to Sloatsburg. Complained about life, people, significant others, family, etc.. Was a brisk mid 40s in the morning.

Now, pardon the photos, my cameras settings were a bit bonked, and I kept hitting the wrong buttons, etc...so, my exposures ain't up to my usual snuff.

At our first "nature" break, somewhere close to the Saddle River, this copse of trees caught my eye:



I didn't take too many photos traversing Joisey suburbia...Here's a little crook, just passed the Southern entrance into Harriman State Park:



Where the magic begins... Seven Lakes Drive, Northbound to Bear:





I had packed some of MY Cubano sandwiches for the ride... Jamon Serrano, cilantro, lime & cumin marinated pork loin- sliced thin, all on a fresh toasted and smashed baguette, with melted aged Gruyere, schmeared with French butter, Dijon, and dressed with some organic bread and butter pickle chips. Here's the lunch spot by the side of Lake Tiorati:



Not quite Spring yet in these parts, we're just flirting with some green. Anyhow, Rak, my riding partner, wasn't feeling doing the Summit to Bear because his hip was bugging him, but I'm like a moth to flame, I didn't ride 67 miles to not climb Mt. Bear...Not a bad ascent at all, 4.5 miles of mostly 5%, pitches to 11% here and there, nothing a little grunt & spin can't take care of..From the top:



I did the descent but was ticked off because I got stuck behind a car doing about 27mph on the way down. I managed to pass them at a point and open it up a bit.

Picked up some water at Lake Hessian and then headed on to the bridge:



Bear Mountain Bridge... (Rak...):

RPK79

That's the best part!

UnfilteredDregs

Across the way there is Route 9D:





we ascended there for a rather inspired descent into Peekskill, a nice twisty 3 miles.


Choo-Choo along the Hudson:





Bear Mountain Bridge:





The Hudson, looking South:





After ascending 9D to the vantage point, we parked the rides and soaked in the view for a bit:














Descended into Peekskill and picked up a few 24Oz PBRs:





Peekskill was the 80 mile point. Funny how the body changes after a bit, you get all warm & giddy, the endorphins wash the pain to a dull thud in the background and it feels like you can ride another 80...or maybe that was the PBR's?




Anyhow...got back on the old rail-trail and spotted some interesting trees again:







A great ride. I thought a lot about Coasting. I'm 44 . I barely knew him, but he struck me as a very funny chap with that dry English acerbic wit. the world needs more folks who make us laugh at ourselves.


Smooth riding, and perpetual tailwinds @coasting.

UnfilteredDregs

Schwalbe ONE Tubeless in the 28mm format are rated at 40psi minimum. So, taking that, one's weight, riding style, a little trial & error, etc.. ought to get you in the ballpark. I rode my century yesterday at 70f/85r. I weigh 210# at the moment.

RPK79

Here is my 'before' picture from the Miesville FiftySix.



I don't have an after, but it mostly just looked like me passed out on a couch.

mzeffex 

I pretty much only get As.