79pmooney

Embracing diversity - I rode Tuesday totally tubed. 2 on each wheel; one inside the other. Stuffed like a sausage. And the ride? Sublime! (Well it was 50 miles on a fix gear so my quads had issues with that "sublime" part.) And like tubeless, a messy liquid was involved, only it was completely dried before the ride started.

Shades of an era long gone. Sewups. Now modern materials but the hand labor to make them hasn't changed in a 100 years. Glued on just like I did when I raced 45 years ago with the same glue. And fun! Tire widths are a different game. I'm riding 28c's but 28 in tubular is like 32 or 35 in clincher/tubeless. Never rode so wide in my racing days. (Well I did go around the block on a friend's Del Mondos; those huge 30c tires. I'm guessing the tires I raced were 21c. In those days, I never saw or heard the tire widths. Those narrow tires rode just fine when the pavement ended. My current spare tires are 19c. We'll see how long it takes to need one. I have a few very light! 23c race tires. And a pair of 30c's just to see what that's like. Modern Del Mondos. Tuesday I wore one of those 30c's around my shoulders like the old photographs; just so I'd have 2 spares. Never tried that before but now i know why so many did it. When riding, those tires worn like a backwards bra disappear. You don't see them, you don't feel them.

Now the post flat routine is completely different. Peel off the tire and stick on another one. I have to be completely self-sufficient. The only thing anyone else will have that can help is air. But the flip-side - it doesn't matter what happened to the tire (or even the rim if it still gets through the brake blocks). The ride home is on a completely different unit. (And rim damage often does not cause flats. I've bumped home several times on destroyed rims.)

So that was my first ride back on the ancient system I rode 25 years and loved. My plan is to swap all my good bike wheels over. If I find the right tires, my winter/rain/;city bikes might go that route also. (I loved the ease of tire changes, especially in the dark and in bad weather and the fact that you cannot screw up a change to unrideable. Well, you can, but a sewup so crooked the tread staggers like a drunk will get you home just fine!)

phrantic09

I wish someone had told me earlier what a fool I was for buying into the nonsense from Big Tubeless

Seattle Forrest

You can't into a thread about somebody being happy after a bike ride to complain about Britney Spears and smoking?

tomato coupe

The last I heard, Britney is still an influencer for both Orange Seal and Marlboro.

Ogsarg

It cracks me up when I hear people say that anyone making a different choice than themselves must have been duped by big (insert your favorite evil industry/company here). Tube/tubeless, rim brakes/disc brakes, Elect/mechanical shifting, Carbon/steel frames, etc. No,No, No! It couldn't possibly be that others have different needs or make different value judgements as to the worth of a given technology. Honestly, I don't think people are that easily swayed that they are all choosing technology that is bad just because some marketing people told them to.

Five years ago, I didn't imagine that I would go tubeless but when I started doing a lot of 50+ mile rides and suffering a half-dozen flats a year, I decided to give it a try. I haven't done a roadside flat repair since. I accept that changing tires and adding sealant occasionally is a bit more work but I prefer that to swapping out a tube on the side of the road in the hot sun mid-way through a 60-100 mile ride. I also understand that others in my position would make a different choice and don't consider theirs to be any better or worse than mine.

tomato coupe

You work for Big Marketing, don't you?

prj71

Doood... Put the pipe down before getting in front of the keyboard. That was a whole lot of rambling about nothing.

Trsnrtr

Calm down everybody; we’re all friends here (or should be). We all make choices to fit our needs so try not to belittle other’s choices/experiences.

Oh, and I found a nice little orange blob on my front tubeless tire this morning. I have no idea when the tire punctured but it makes me smile when I see one of those little sealed spots.

WhyFi

As long as it's not an orange splotch on your bibs.

chaadster

Yeah, I’m kinda old school. I have ridden 28, 30, and 32mm rubber on the road, and currently roll 35c file tread tires during the summer on my gravel bike, so I get the experience essentially, however, I just vastly prefer the taut, precise, crisp feel of high-pressure 23 and 25c on a wide, tubeless rim. It’s a moot topic, though, because I don’t think the bike at issue would take anything wider than a 25c tire on these 19.4mm IW rims anyway. I’ve got a pair of 25c Michelin Power Road TLR on the way in, so the days of 23/25 F/R on this bike will probably be relegated to the past.

beng1

It sure would be.

beng1

It is also a common fallacy to assume that your subject is common.

Koyote

I’m going to be charitable and assume that English is not your first language.