I've tried a ton of them at this point...and I find myself continually crawling back to Stan's begging forgiveness like a wayward lover returning home. Stan's just has a great balance. Seals pretty well. Lasts a good while.

The weakness I find in many is being too thick. Thick is great when the sealant finds its way to the hole. Often it appears not to. The very viscous Stan's will immediately find any hole, and because it's so viscous it tends to squirt out quite a bit, but will eventually usually seal up small holes.




There is still conflicting evidence on this front, but other credible sources corroborate the Silca ballpark. I don't think you'd go far wrong with Silca. I typically go to the Silca # on the gauge, and figure the loss of air on valve disconnection and natural small seepage over time will lower it just a bit, and I don't stress over that.


I have no idea why the pros would veer away. But as a pure TTer, and a huge road tubeless fan, I also very often run latex for my race TTs.

1) I only use the race wheels for races. So it's tedious to do a tubeless setup, race it for an hour, then the next day clean out the sealant so it doesn't dry out in my race tires before the next TT. For "A races" I will set them up tubeless to protected against flats. I never carry a flat kit for 40K TTs. If I flat, my race is done.

2) If a pro gets a flat and it it seals at suboptimal pressure early in a long course bike leg, say <50PSI, they're probably going to stop and do a tube swap anyway. In training, I'd stop, throw in some bacon, and try again. I could see a pro just going straight for the tube option and not risking a second stop in case of bacon failure on a sliced tire.

3) Flats in pro-grade races are pretty rare?

The big payback for road tubeless is (IMO) from daily riding/training.

I'm opposite of you on this. The big payback for me is a better chance that I won't have to fix a flat during a race. But for daily riding / training, I'm perfectly happy with an older bike. I care about ease of maintenance over speed. Aluminum track clinchers, gatorskins, done. I don't have to screw with sealant or difficult to mount tires.

Thanks mate - quality input as always. Appreciated!

On 1) My LBS tells me that people here (Spain) are using X-Sauce, hope that will do and not slow me down :)

On 2) Excellent point - did not think about this!

As another response to #3:

I've moved away from tubeless on my race bike largely because it is difficult to travel with. You need to take spare sealant (since they aren't all compatible), you go through more valve cores and need to be prepared to cuss at the valve that doesn't want to take air race morning, and it's annoying to try to clean sealant out of your bike box.

The race bike is latex (usually Silca, but somtimes vittoria). Everything else is tubeless including mountain, gravel, and the road bikes. It is awesome on the mountain and gravel, and worth it on the road bike that never flys anywhere.

Hi folks.
Long thread, so this might have been covered - apologies.

I'm very new to tubeless ( < 3 months), and ran over something this morning & punctured - luckily, I was ~1km from home, so I walked.

I plugged the hole & it became apparent that I needed a bigger plug, so I re-did it with double the size. At first, it seemed to hold the air, but no, it is still leaking.

What's the standard protocol from here - is it likely I have a hole that's too big to plug? If so - what would be the next step?

Few things, and don't be discouraged from tubeless, early teething issues are not unique.

So you may need to use a sticker patch on the inside of the tyre it it's a big cut. However, did you top up the sealant and how much had come out through the puncture? Could be the case of topping up the sealant, spinning the while so that the hole is at the bottom and then slowly pumping up.

Out of interest, what tyre, what plugs, and what sealant are you using? Oh and just to get all the info, what pressure are you running?

Thanks for the reply..
Slug plug kit (i.e. this one: https://www.99bikes.com.au/slug-plug-kit-bulk )
Cadex Race - with whatever sealant was in the tubes :)
~80psi

I might need to put some more sealant in - I think a fair bit sprayed out, so maybe that's the issue..? Regardless, I am also thinking of the patch inside the tyre as a more long-term solution.

Anyone here using the WTB Vulpines on their gravel rig? I am thinking of picking up a pair and wanted to get some first hand feedback.

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Are you using tubes?

No.

Ok, so 80psi is pretty high. That said if these were the OEM ones I'm guessing 25mm not 28mm, and so you would need to run higher than most of us on tubeless where we've put 28mm on. The point here is obviously with higher pressure the plugs/sealant needs to do more work. Lots of debate above, but use the silca tyre pressure guide for your weight and tyre width.

New tyres will need an initial batch of sealant and then as some gets absorbed into the micro pores in the tyre over the first week, then a second top up is needed to leave some 'free' sealant. Same as over time then it will gradually dry out and needs topping up.

Yep, 25s.

In a prior post, you said:

"Thanks for the reply..
Slug plug kit (i.e. this one: https://www.99bikes.com.au/slug-plug-kit-bulk )
Cadex Race - with whatever sealant was in the tubes :)
~80psi"

I meant tyres.