Veljonz

Looking for some guidance.

I’m currently riding a 2017 Cervelo R3, Ultegra Di, Dura Ace 9100-c24 wheels. Rim brakes. Not looking to trade the bike, very happy with it. The wheelset is great. They spin up fast, roll like the devil and dance up hills.

All things being equal, should i expect a noticeable difference in comfort or speed if I go tubeless?

Dura Ace isn’t offering a tubeless rim brake variant - all seem to be disc. Hed and Zipp are. Thoughts about one or the other?

Thanks!

cxwrench

Who knows? With so many differences in pressure, tire type/shape/size it's impossible to answer yes or no. Give us some more info or you won't get a worthwhile answer. What do you have? What are you thinking about using? Come on, help us out.

urbanknight

Comfort, probably. Speed, probably not.

Maelochs

Tubeless tires are just tires. Tires will not make you faster. A motor will make you faster. EPO or steroids, hard training, drafting will make you faster.

With tubeless you can run lower pressures without fearing pinch flats. However, if you run low enough pressure your wheel with shift back and forth over the contact patch which can be unsettling, and even dangerous. Also, if you hit a big enough bump you might burp the tire off the rim and dump all the air .... which I don't think is a good thing.

Unless you want to ride exceedingly low pressures, you can test the comfort level of tubeless by riding with your tires as soft as you would run tubeless. Just don't hit any sharp bumps.

If you ride gravel or dirt, you can run much lower tires pressures for much better float .... doubt you are riding gravel on your R3, though .....

Only other thing about tubeless is that in a lot of cases, small punctures will repair themselves ... if you have a lot of small punctures ......

Veljonz

Thanks. That’s more or less what I thought. Appreciate all the feedback.

biker128pedal

For added comfort how wide can you go? A wider tire you can run at lower pressure for more comfort. Even if mix sizes front and rear. Run latex tubes. I’ve not but heard they help with rolling resistance.

WhyFi

A lot of the fastest tires out there are tubeless, but even I - a big fan of road tubeless - wouldn't adopt tubeless solely for the potential of a handful of watts.

If you regularly get flats from relatively small punctures (~ <4mm), absolutely.

If you're a highly competitive time trialist that's willing to learn new skills and put up with a potentially frustrating learning curve to shave some seconds off of personal bests? Okay, that seems like an awful lot of trouble for the gains, but "different strokes," and all that.

If neither of the two scenarios describes you, and if you haven't already, I'd go over the rolling resistance charts and try out the fastest clincher and tube combination that seems realistic for regular use on your roads - https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/

WhyFi

Lol.

bruce19

I went with Mavic tubeless about 4 yrs ago. Put them on 2 of my road bikes and my wife's road bike. So far, zero flats. I weigh 187 lbs and run them at 80 psi (rear) and 70 psi (front) and they are more comfortable. YouTube videos show them as lighter and quicker to spin up and that has been my experience as well. If they are "faster", and they might be, it is not enough for this recreational rider to quantify. The best mod I've done in 40 yrs of cycling. And, I was originally extremely skeptical.

deacon mark

Tubeless if you have problems with flats but otherwise I see no advantage. In fact might argue you go faster on good tires and tubes, not going crazy wide like many. Comfort would be subjective, I ride Ti and 25 mm at 95 psi, fine not beat up.

terrymorse 

Especially since, once you install sealant, the rolling resistance advantage of tubeless vs. a latex tube disappears.

WhyFi

Okay. I guess that this is a good argument to buy a good tubeless tire even if you plan on running tubes.

bbattle

I had a tubeless wheelset built using HED Belgium rims, White Industries hubs and Sapim spokes. I am a fan of tubeless; no flat tires in three years and I ride on some poor roads and gravel. Schwalbe pro ones and then Maxxis Padrone-TR. Wheelset is bombproof, tires are great. Still true, spokes evenly tensioned. No complaints.

Faster than the Bontrager Race Lites I replaced? Maybe a little; they spin up faster. I am using 28mm tires at 80psi; I weigh 160lbs. They are more comfortable but I can't say they are faster.

Veljonz

Comfort might sway the decision. I’m 5’7” 170lbs, running 25’s which look like the max for this frame. My typical rides are 25-35 miles. Longer leaves me feeling a bit banged up, which could be age (63) and conditioning.

Symox

Tubeless and disc brakes are similar in that they have large benefits for MTB, but little for road riding on tarmac in decent weather. Imho

unless you are riding a road bike in the rain or possibly gravel, I prefer rim brakes. Lighter, stop plenty fast for me

unless you are riding very low pressures that cause the tires to smush, I prefer tubed tires. Less hassle, more availability, no messy sealant. I don’t get many flats anymore with better tires and paying attention to road conditions

Veljonz

Newer graphene compound may be the equalizer. The R3 came with a set of Vittoria Zaffiro Pro Graphene. I’ve put over 1000 miles on each of the past 2 years (low by some standards) and zero flats. They are just starting to show enough wear that I’m thinking about new rubber.

datlas 

Should tubeless be more popular?

Maelochs

No, no, no ..... it isn't a question, it is a statement: "Tubeless Tires / They should be more popular"

That way everyone who doesn't have a tubeless friend who they invite to parties and introduce as one of the "cool kids' is part of the problem.

"Nobody wants to date my tubeless tires .... They should be more popular!"

Ricki Lake still on the air?

vtje

For what it worth: I have 2017 Cervelo R3 with Ultegra, upgrading from stock wheels to custom built wheels with tubeless gave me about 5-7% performance increase across the board.

Veljonz

That’s interesting. Can you share detail? What did you build? What did it replace? What increase did you measure? Thanks!

vtje

Kinlin XR31T rims, laced to bitex hubs, sapim laser spokes. Total wheelset weight just a hair under 1500g. IRC RBCC 25mm tyres.
I had PowerTap power meter at the time (it is broken now), compared my benchmark no stops/no traffic lights 12 miles 1200 vertical feet ride on multiple occasions, with the same average power see average speed/total time improvement of about 5-7%.
Don't remember what where the stock wheels, but they were a lot heavier with not so great tyres.

Veljonz

Thanks for sharing. That is an impressive gain.

The DA 9100’s spec at 1471 for the pair. All this great feed back leads me to deciding that I’ll ride this set till the braking surface goes bad.

bruce19

Some see an advantage to tubeless. I would agree. And, if the vast majority of riders feel more comfort is that still subjective? I see value in that "metric."

deacon mark

This is meaningless in some respects to me as I don't race but I do like to ride many miles and go pretty fast. For myself I want the least hassle tire combination I can get as long as I am comfortable. My Habanero is very comfortable I don't feel beat up after riding and I ride more than 8000 miles year. Putting a tubeless on might be ok but I don't have to deal with sealant and frankly a tube in the tire and take off. The value in the video of gaining a few watts as I said is just not any reason to go tubeless. If I had a lot of flats then no question, I would go tubeless that seems to be at least for me the only gain. Another advantage of any tire at least for me would be the size tire I could run. I probably could not run a 28 on the Habby but unsure. I am also limited that I cannot ride on any gravel and need good hard pavement and no recent chipping of the roads. Going bigger for me the advantage is not comfort, but where I could ride. Frankly I still like the roads but if I live in some other area that might change.

Silver Steve

The Dura ace 24 rims are very narrow compared to the latest width trends. Inner width is only 15mm (outer 20.8mm). Newer rim brake rims have internal widths in the 20mm + range. The wider rims allow the tire to spread out more and narrow rims make the tire taller. I'm guessing this might contribute to your frame limit of a 25 tire.

I recently switched to tubeless last week (Michelin Power Cup 28s). For the past 6 years I used 25 Vittoria Corsas with latex tubes. I'm running the 28s at 65psi front and 70psi rear compared to the tubed 25s at 75psi and 80psi. Interestingly, the Vittoria Corsas with latex tubes were noticeably more comfortable. I think if you upgraded from the rubinos to the tube type corsas and added latex tubes you are going to be a happy camper! It's like riding on clouds.

Also, make sure your tire pressures are not over inflated. The Silca tire pressure calculator is awesome!