To tubeless or not to tubeless

[zigzag]

i do carry a 30ml bottle of sealant in case of emergency (and a spare inner tube which i'd use as a last resort). i'm using very thin and fast tyres without puncture protection - they feel great to ride and the sealant takes care of the punctures, more or less.
one other thing to bear in mind about latex sealant - if it gets sprayed  on your kit/clothes the stains will stay permanently. so if you are precious about your kit use mudguards, long seat pack or similar.

[Bolt]

It has taught me that you can't simply buy any tubeless rims, pair them with any tubeless tyres and expect them to work together.

So very true and for me this restriction in the choice of tyres that will work with a given rim is the biggest disadvantage.

[Brucey]

But you still have no knowledge of the tyres (and gear systems, brake systems) which you do not use.

 

Not so; I see problems with bikes every day.  It is sometimes a user error which creates the problem, sometimes is 'a problem by design/manufacture' and sometimes a combination of the two. Telling the difference is not always easy.  No one person can ride every type of gear very many miles nor has sufficient funds (or insufficient brain cells) to buy it either. That does not mean 'no knowledge'. 

There's quite a lot of kit which folk (somehow) make work having bought it but in many cases they have made the best of a bad job, having bought a rod for their own back. The supposed advantages of that kit often don't exist, are not relevant to them or come with downsides that are not at first apparent; hence my 'emperor's new tyres' comment...

At least your last post indicates some movement in your thinking.

Not really. Look back if you like but I said the exact same thing quite a long time ago.  There are quite a few tubeless users who derive little or no benefit from it, or who would probably be better off with something else, for the reasons described.

I actually have faint hopes for 'road' UST but the new mavic open pro rim is just a bit too light and flimsy, there are not many UST tyres and I have doubts about whether standard tyres always fit well on those rims too (meaning that you have less choice than you thought you did if you buy those rims). Bearing in mind that all the manufacturers who make tubeless tyres have fairly often made tyres that don't fit well on normal rims I remain somewhat sceptical that tubeless tyres will always be made well enough; they need to be made better than standard tyres.  Some previous incarnations of tubeless are very poorly executed indeed and are often a recipe for complete misery.

If tubeless were a panacea for all ills (rather than something that you can make work sometimes by dint of appreciable effort, to take two contrasting viewpoints) then the 'tubeless for dummies' thread probably wouldn't have run and run as it has. One has to presume that there are quite a few ways it can go wrong or there are lots of dummies.

Wanting to train on race tyres all the time is pretty much just daft BTW, whichever way you cut it.  If you ride such tyres and they get cut up by flints etc, they are often on the verge of suffering carcass failure whether they leak air or not.

cheers

[grams]

Not so; I see problems with bikes every day.

That's the problem though - you never even meet the people who use the same kit and have zero problems. You have no way to measure actual failure rate, so what you're likely to end up recording is what kit is *currently popular*. Same with your story about noting what type of tyres people who get punctures are using - how does this not just tell you which tyres are currently selling best?

[Hot Flatus]

But you still have no knowledge of the tyres (and gear systems, brake systems) which you do not use.

 

Not so; I see problems with bikes every day.  It is sometimes a user error which creates the problem, sometimes is 'a problem by design/manufacture' and sometimes a combination of the two. Telling the difference is not always easy.  No one person can ride every type of gear very many miles nor has sufficient funds (or insufficient brain cells) to buy it either. That does not mean 'no knowledge'. 

There's quite a lot of kit which folk (somehow) make work having bought it but in many cases they have made the best of a bad job, having bought a rod for their own back. The supposed advantages of that kit often don't exist, are not relevant to them or come with downsides that are not at first apparent; hence my 'emperor's new tyres' comment...

At least your last post indicates some movement in your thinking.

Not really. Look back if you like but I said the exact same thing quite a long time ago.  There are quite a few tubeless users who derive little or no benefit from it, or who would probably be better off with something else, for the reasons described.

I actually have faint hopes for 'road' UST but the new mavic open pro rim is just a bit too light and flimsy, there are not many UST tyres and I have doubts about whether standard tyres always fit well on those rims too (meaning that you have less choice than you thought you did if you buy those rims). Bearing in mind that all the manufacturers who make tubeless tyres have fairly often made tyres that don't fit well on normal rims I remain somewhat sceptical that tubeless tyres will always be made well enough; they need to be made better than standard tyres.  Some previous incarnations of tubeless are very poorly executed indeed and are often a recipe for complete misery.

If tubeless were a panacea for all ills (rather than something that you can make work sometimes by dint of appreciable effort, to take two contrasting viewpoints) then the 'tubeless for dummies' thread probably wouldn't have run and run as it has. One has to presume that there are quite a few ways it can go wrong or there are lots of dummies.

Wanting to train on race tyres all the time is pretty much just daft BTW, whichever way you cut it.  If you ride such tyres and they get cut up by flints etc, they are often on the verge of suffering carcass failure whether they leak air or not.

cheers

Are you a professional bike mechanic? If not then  I doubt this claim. Unless of course you are referring to your own poorly maintained bikes

Being serious...You may well see problems. But that is all you are seeing. You aren't seeing equipment working really well. This is a point to which I alluded earlier and relates to your lack of actual experience. You are like an AA man who thinks that cars are crap because he's always seeing them break down.


It's all well and good farting about with somebody else's cock ups but you only get the real picture if you use the stuff yourself. I checked over 4 bikes yesterday. One of them had slipping gears. Turns out the chain had never been replaced and chainwheel teeth were worn. I encountered a similar issue with a clubmates earlier this year. He is a very decent rider on the cusp of getting a 2nd cat licence. Another cat 2 rider with whom I ride gets through parts on a weekly basis. He doesnt own a car, so all transport is by bike. Every time I ride with him there is an issue. Do I conclude from this that Sram is shit and falls apart? No. I recognise that he is mechanically incompetent. Should he go tubeless? Probably not.  But the Tubeless for Dummies is a record of how to make this stuff work well. It is nascent technology, and it is a learning process. That doesnt mean the core notion or the available materials are poor.

Where we may agree is that tubeless should probably not be used by idiots. 

[Ben T]

Are you a professional bike mechanic? If not then  I doubt this claim. Unless of course you are referring to your own poorly maintained bikes

No, I get the impression Brucey is a professional mechanic, or at least in the cycle trade in some way - hopefully he will confirm or deny?... but if so then that means the people that he sees are necessarily self-selecting as those who have got problems. And therefore any experience based on them will necessarily be biased towards the negative.
Tubeless tyres (like disk brakes and Di2 for that matter) are possibly over represented in problems being presented to bike shops not because they are crap, but because they are relatively new. If you were a bike mechanic in the late 19th century you would undoubtedly come to the conclusion that there are simply far too many people having problems with chains for them to be relied upon, best stick to a penny farthing.

[Hot Flatus]

Brucey is admirably knowledgeable about many if not most things concerning bikes, but not everything. He has a peculiar blind spot regarding other people enjoying benefits which he just can't see or are not important to his riding, and an inability to understand that what he regards as fatal flaws might not be to others. For example, he sees the £250 replacement costs of a Di2 rear derailment as a fatal flaw and doesn't understand that I am fully aware of how much they cost as I am sprinting up a hill banging through the gears with a touch.or a finger-tip and a massive grin on my face in a manner which would be impossible on his steel bike with bar end shifters 

[Brucey]

Everyone seems very keen to make assumptions about what I do and don't do, and the kinds of things that I will see and not see.  I meet and talk to cyclists every day. Few of them have nothing interesting to say about the equipment they use, but I am genuinely astonished at the things that some folk will tolerate or consider a priority.

 I see a lot of bikes that are broken for one reason, but are almost invariably well on the way out for another, or are actually broken.   'I hadn't noticed that...'  'Is that not, normal...?'   Well in many cases it is 'normal', normal for that type of equipment....

There are quite a lot of things that you can make work for you, with a little effort, but that doesn't mean that it is the best solution or that it is the only solution. Folk will tolerate different sorts of effort, too.  Everything has its plus points and its minus points. We are all different, too; some folk get very excited about new things and become almost evangelical about them.  Bully for them, but if the real advantages of that thing are limited in scope and/or relevance, (or requires certain sorts of effort to make it work) then it is as well to consider that in a sober way rather than go off on one when anyone (with good reason) says "yebbut....."

For example..... many years ago I got cheesed off at the rate at which my training bike consumed derailleur transmission parts in the winter months. There are many ways of addressing this problem but I thought an IGH might solve it, in good part because it would use a cheap and durable chain and sprocket rather than a load of more expensive/easily damaged stuff.  The idea was that the transmission would tolerate periods of neglect provided I did some maintenance every now and then. I chose about the most complicated IGH then available. Folk said it would be

- unreliable
- expensive
- complicated
- inefficient
- full of the wrong ratios
- difficult to repair
- would let the weather in

 and so on.   In mitigation of this I had a (simpler) spare internal ready in case the original one let go: however I never had to actually use it.  I can report that a few of the possible problems are intrinsic to the device but most of them are not.  I guess I made that transmission work for me, mainly by doing fairly simple things. I would  not recommend that transmission as being 'better' than any other necessarily, I'd just mention the intrinsic shortcomings (things that you can't change and you need to be able to put up with) and explain what to do  if you wanted to avoid the other things.   FWIW I rode that gear on chain gangs (so clearly the inefficiency and the bad gear ratios were no real handicap after all), I learned to fettle it, keep it well lubricated, and in fact only three times has it given any trouble whilst out riding, and two of those were when the adjustment was wrong.  In quite a few years of use and many tens of thousands of miles I overhauled it two or three times and it consumed about £3 worth of new balls and springs. Even these were not worn, but they were a little corroded (my fault).  Eventually it gave me trouble on the road for a third time and this time it was serious; the axle broke in half.  But this was after decades of hard use and about 70000 miles or so, during which time it had spared me countless hours of tedious cleaning and many hundreds of pounds worth of worn and broken transmission parts, not to mention accidental damage and breakdowns on the road (of which I had plenty on other bikes).  The old axle warned me it was on the way out (there was an unusual noise a week before it broke) and it broke for  a reason; I installed an improved version and the experiment continues.....
So I regard that experiment as something of a success; even so I would not recommend the same gear to others in an unequivocal fashion; they may have different needs and preferences, and may have preferred different sorts of 'effort' to me.   So I don't wax evangelical about it, just explain the pros and cons as I see them and why. That is all you can do.

I don't think that tubeless tyres are much different to my IGH, except that this technology appears to 'solve problems' that I don't really have and in so doing creates a load of new ones that I am not sure are any more tolerable than the ones I started with.  I daresay some folk would say the same thing about my IGH (or indeed any piece of cycling kit); that is their prerogative. What I do take exception to is others getting terribly excited if you hold a different view to them, to the point that they go about slandering you, poking childish jibes, second guessing what you do and don't know. etc. There's just no need for that. 

 Are we not here to exchange information/ideas rather than trade insults?

cheers

[Hot Flatus]

So don't use tubeless tyres then. Simples.

Not sure why you keep posting on this thread 

[Brucey]

If I were an advocate of  tubeless tyres, I would at least mention some of the possible downsides to them, and see that folk actually needed whatever advantages they might offer, rather than paint them in a rosy hue, say how wonderful they are, and start insulting anyone who held a slightly different POV.

Why does anyone post on any thread?

  In this case my main objective is to see a more balanced and reasoned discussion than might otherwise arise.

cheers

[Hot Flatus]

Perhaps you should have a re-read of this thread.

You've posted more than anybody else on this thread....and you've never even used the tyres in question 
Funnily enough, neither has Samuel D, who is the only other person to post vociferous opinions on tubeless tyres. Im seeing a pattern here 

Rose-tinted view? Nope, an informed and experienced view. Unlike yours.
 

[Cudzoziemiec]

I never carry sealant and don't see why anybody would. I carry the exact same items I would with normal clincher. The difference is I almost never have to use them. If you find you get a puncture that won't seal, you put a tube in. Simples. Ive never had a puncture fail to seal because of a lack of sealant. Twice in 3 years Ive had to put a tube in (then quickly sort out the issue at home)

Doesn't the slime that's inside the tyre make this harder or at least messier than putting a tube in a normal clincher? And what sort of pressure do you then need in the tube? (Probably these questions would be better in the Tubeless for dummies thread, but as it's been raised here... )

[Hot Flatus]

In most situations necessitating a tube there is unlikely to be any/Much sealant left in the tyre.  If there is, it's easy to tip it out.

Pressure? Same as when normally putting in a tube...which is more than you would need when tubeless, because with tubes you can't run low pressures without risking snakebite punctures. This is another of the advantages of tubeless especially for MTB but also for people who want a more cushioned ride.

As I said earlier, generally, with tubeless you carry what you would carry with any tyre. But the difference is you might never use it.  The workload is when you mount the tyre for the first time...But if you know what you are doing it is quite a satisfying job.

[Cudzoziemiec]

I was just wondering about this specific situation – I appreciate it's probably quite infrequent. Didn't realise the sealant would just tip out, though it was more a 'slime' than a liquid. Thanks!

[Hot Flatus]

It's like milk. Surprisingly runny.

[zigzag]

is anybody here using tubeless setup on multiple bikes? i'm planning to install tubeless on my second bike, but would also need to start using a task management/tracking software or a system to assist me with the sealant schedules. i think two bikes would be the max i'm willing to maintain (without contracting someone else to manage the fleet! ). quite a lot of "failures" happen after the sealant dried out, similar to di2 battery going flat - which is entirely preventable providing there is an automated reminder of some sorts.

[rafletcher]

Yes, but I’m using Finish Line sealant which (according to the manufacturer) doesn’t “go off”. Otherwise change/top up quarterly.

[Hot Flatus]

Yes, I am. 3 sets of wheels across two bikes.

Again, the sealant drying out isn't a massive biggie. It's not a panic. You just slap a tube in...just like you have to do with every puncture on a tubed tyre.

A bigger issue is not using the bike for weeks and the tyres going flat. Usually, you can get away with topping up the sealant and re-inflating, but occasionally you have to do a full remount. The only pain is scraping off any dried up sealant from the head.

[zigzag]

It's like milk. Surprisingly runny.

it's somewhere between milk and single cream when fresh. it turns goopy(ier) when stuck to the inside of the tyre and it's quite messy to deal with, something i'd be not willing to do on a ride.

[Hot Flatus]

Ive had to put a tube in twice in 3 years. Wasn't a problem, wasn't messy. First time was because I hadn't topped the sealant up and there was none left to plug a fresh hole (this was after almost a year). Second time was when sealant wouldn't plug a hole and dumped all the sealant. I was glad I had mudguards on though.

[Samuel D]

Bollocks.

It really would help if posters didn't opine or give advice about things of which they have NO experience.

You mean it would be helpful if no-one who disagreed with you posted.

Ignoring your introduction since this forum has long given you special dispensation for vulgar rudeness, I don’t see how your complaint applies. I didn’t make claims outside my experience.

I’m just another poster on forums like this, but among my riding companions I am a mechanical wizard able to command such magic as indexing gears in five minutes without YouTube. Consequently I have been asked to help people with their tubeless problems. There’s enough of them that I can claim some hands-on experience.

Not that I have your high reverence for experience. Life – experience if you prefer – has taught me that understanding is usually worth more than long, dumb experience. After all, our technical progress has relied utterly on language reducing the need to experience things personally. No-one need reinvent the wheel. Of course experience allied to understanding is the ideal.

I don’t have much respect for the equipment choices of top cyclists either. It doesn’t take great insight to see that many of the Transcontinental Race bicycles are perfectly on-trend but ill-suited to their job. Riding ability is distinct from the ability to exercise fine judgement on technical matters in a consumerist maelstrom.

If you read my post again you will find nothing to complain about except inconvenient truths. Anyone who claims tubeless is a panacea that does not involve more mess, less certainty, more time, and more cost should be dismissed as a shill. Honest advocates accept those downsides for benefits that mean more to them, as they see things, than they do to me.

[Hot Flatus]

Here's what the guy from Hunt Wheels says"

"Have you had any issues with certain brands of tyre not fitting properly?

“Not really, we have to say that pretty much all road tubeless/tubeless-ready tyres we have tested from major brands, especially the 2016/2017 models, seal and fit pretty well nowadays.

“It’s often a case of knowing the tricks.

“While there is a learning process to tubeless we liken it to the first time we had to fit an inner tube in a 23mm tyre; it’s always a struggle get it all in and how many of us have nipped or punctured a tube with a lever or left the tube stuck under the bead creating an almighty bang when it explodes?”

Hunt are strong advocates for tubeless technology

Why do some combinations just not seal?

“While we definitely find some tyres are easier to get sealed, often it’s down to rim tape or valve installation.

“We tend to find even if an initial seal is harder, a few days of being inflated with a good sealant tends to fill any small air leaks.

“Something to note is that seating and sealing in warmer conditions is easier, so a trick can be to put the wheels in a warm house for a couple of days after set-up to help them get a good seal.”


Pretty much accords with my experience. You have to do a good job of setting the wheel up which means a really clean and dry rim bed ready for taping with the correct width tape, fitting the valve properly, prestreching the tyre (not always necessary but easily done), installing tyre with soapy beads, filling with correct amount of sealant, then riding and re-inflating regularly for a couple of days.

It's very easy to do these things.

Samuel D:

You may have attempted to offer roadside help to people using a system you know little about but you absolutely don't know anything about how the tyres were mounted in the first place.  Therefore your comments regarding tubeless tyres are pretty worthless.

In fact, you yourself admit that the people you encounter having problems with tubeless are incompetent mechanics..

among my riding companions I am a mechanical wizard able to command such magic as indexing gears in five minutes without YouTube. Consequently I have been asked to help people with their tubeless problems. 

It hasn't dawned on you that your sample is self-selecting and provides no basis on which to claim any sort of balanced understanding.

Sorry, but my experience (not dumb, it takes understanding to fit and use the system effectively) is worth more than your hot air. It matters not one shit to me what  equipment you or anybody else chooses to use, but when I read ill-informed comments from people (with a history of equipment bigotry) and no meaningful experience then I will highlight it for the benefit of the person who asked the question in the first place.

[teethgrinder]

is anybody here using tubeless setup on multiple bikes?

3 bikes with 8 pairs of wheels.
If I suspect the sealant is dry, I just put some more in. I always carry sealant with me anyway, so if my wheels have dried up and my tyre goes down, I can top it up on the road. The other way would be to put new sealant in every wheel every few months, or maybe just check them.

[Chris N]

is anybody here using tubeless setup on multiple bikes?

Yes.  4 bikes, until recently* all tubeless: MTB, 2x road and CX.  Varying degrees of faffage setting them up, but funnily enough it gets easier the more you do it.   I check the sealant about once every 4 months.  Only one puncture in 3 years and about 10,000 km - that sealed well enough to get me home but needed a worm inserting to plug the leak.  Keep them topped up and everything seems just fine.

* I switched back to tubes on one set of wheels because I want to use up a decent set of non-tubeless tyres.

[hubner]

The main benefit of tubeless is the ability to use low air pressure for better traction without getting pinch flats because there is no tube to pinch between the rim and an obstacle

If that's correct, then tubeless for road use is completely pointless.

If your tyres are that soft, you need to pump them up! Soft tyres are crap because you will dent your rims and because of higher rolling resistance.

It seems sealant is the essential part of tubeless, but you can still get the same "benefit" on a tubed tyre if you can put up with the mess.