Both my new road bike and TT bike have tubeless ready wheels and I thought about switching to tubeless, but way too many people having issues with them. I'd stick with clinchers.

A lot depends on where on the gravel spectrum you plan on ending up.

If you're thinking of doing cyclocross or if you plan on spending any significant amount of time riding terrain where you're more likely to see a MTB than a gravel bike, then I'm going to put on my tubeless salesman hat and evangelize the Good Tubeless News to you.

If you're talking more graded fire roads, etc, then, yeah, just pull the stems, throw in tubes with the same tires.

"don't flat frequently"

I'm all in on tubeless, road, tri, mountain, gravel, fat. I NEVER EVER flat. Period. That's a win from my perspective.

That's really it. It's the balance of hassle with flats vs hassle of setting up tubeless. If flats don't bother you then there is no problem to solve and you might as well stick with what you know.

What swayed me was a couple of weeks when they cut the hedges on some paths I use to get to off road on my MTB. Thorns everywhere and I flatted every single time I went out. Switched to tubeless and it's a non-issue. When I have taken a tire off - worn out or big sidewall gash - then the number of thorns stuck in it is impressive. If I'd of had to change a tube after each one I'd of given up cycling a long time ago.

Your assumptions are all correct, just put a tube in and go. You can just remove that gunk with your fingers

There's really no need to clean your tires out every year. Top up sealant every few months and you're fine. Besides, I recommend instead riding enough that you need replace tires every year :P

You can get an airshot which replaces the need for co2, however I find I can usually seat them with a floor pump, if that doesn't work right away I manually seat the bead to either side of the valve for a few inches with a tire lever and then use a floor pump. Pretty simple once you have it down.

You say you rarely flat...is this on the road or for gravel? Especially with bigger tires, tubeless isn't that complicated if you put 30 min into learning about it. For offroad riding it really is a whole lot better.

If you live where you don't ride outside for 4-5 months of the year like me you remove the sealant, pull out any dried boogers and let them sit unsealed until spring.
Otherwise I'll have completely dried up sealant and unbalanced wheels.

If I have trouble seating my tires I take them to a gas station or car wash with an air compressor for car tires. Works like a charm.

I recently converted over to TL for my road bike. Was fun trying to set them up and making mistakes. Since set up, i haven't had a single issue with anything (despite spraying sealant all over myself pumping up for the first time....nice user error that one).

Pros: not having to carry spares whilst riding (just carry plugs now), lower pressures and zero flats 2 years running!
Cons: harder to set up, but no harder than when i was learning how to install tubes for the first time decades ago.

Def suggest giving it ago. At the end of the day its a hobby, have fun and learn something new!

Anyone got a solution to the valve continually getting blocked with sealant?

Every time I need to pump up my tubeless tyres I can't unscrew the presta valve by hand and I have to get a set of pliers to unscrew the valve..

I have five bikes currently set up tubeless. After an annoying first attempt at setting up tubeless, I resisted tubeless for years but I eventually transitioned everything over in 2017 and 2018 after having a really good experience with (shop setup) MTB tires. I've since learned how to set up tubeless tires myself.

My thoughts:

1. You don't need to "clean out" the tires every year. The bike you bought was likely sitting for a long time. In my experience, once you mount a tubeless tire you don't touch it until it wears out.

2. Setting up a tubeless tire is not hard once you get the hang of it. I've done it ~15 times myself at this point. The last time I did it took me about half an hour total in my garage, which included striping, cleaning and re-taping some gravel wheels and mounting the tires with new valves and sealant. Most of the "nightmare" stories you hear are from people who are attempting tubeless for the first time and/or are using cobbled-together materials. Also, it's become a lot easier over the past few years as bead and rim design and standardization have both improved. These days if you use real tubeless tires and tape, it's easy. (Note: 3M 8898 strapping tape is exactly the same thing as Stan's tape, available in lots of widths and super cheap. I'm currently using it on three bikes and it works great.)

3. I have enough tubeless bikes that bought a 6gal compressor and a Prestaflator in 2018 when they were a Black Friday deal on Amazon. Total cost was about $180, which is about the same as a "pressurized chamber" pump, but a compressor + Prestaflator is a much, much better solution. blowing the beads on any rim is simple with my setup. I have had success setting up road tires with a floor pump, but the compressor is basically guaranteed to work. So yes, this is an investment I recommend if you're looking to commit to tubeless.

4. The benefits of tubeless are not small. I have (knock wood) NEVER flatted a tubeless tire in years of use. MTB, gravel, fatbike, road, cross... NEVER flatted. I run the 28mm road tires at 65-70 psi which offers great grip and comfort while still being fast and flat free. I run gravel and cross all the way down to 20psi without issue. I can't even imagine running the MTB or fatbike with tubes, that would just be foolish. No flats, more grip, more comfortable, as fast or faster in tests... tubeless is better in every way in my experience.

Cleaning the threads with some hot water usually works. If they become too gummed up, buy some replacement valve cores from Amazon (they're inexpensive) and swap them out.

Having switched from latex tubes to tubeless this year, I love not checking the pressure for every ride.

The Silca calculator puts me at about 45PSI for my setup. I've found they settle in at about 35PSI after 2 weeks or so. I can live with that and it makes life easier.

I know this sounds silly. I tried tubeless last year ended up going back to tubes, it wasn't the set up that troubled me, it was sealant. The notion of putting a large amount of liquid inside my tire gave me the creeps. When I'd grab my bike getting ready to ride, the wheels were all unbalanced, knowing there was just a heavy pool of sealant in there. I couldn't sense any wheel imbalance while riding, but it was something that bothered me, mentally. Also, the faff and uncertainty of "topping it off" turned me off. How do you know when, how do you know how much to put in? I went six months and some say that's the time to top up, but I could feel there was still a lot in there, but should I put more in? How much is too much? There's no way to tell how much is in there without unmounting the tire, which is a huge messy pain.

I would maybe go tubeless again someday but it's the idea of sealant and all these questions/issues that make me stick with tubes for now. I don't see many people gripe about sealant like this so I feel crazy but it's weird to have puddles of milky shit sloshing around in our tires, no??

Those questions put me off for awhile also. I ended up just getting a syringe/extractor kit. I pull the valve core and suck out the fluid to see how much is left. See how comes out, add more if needed.

Not trying to hijack the thread, but your (or someone else's) answer to my question may help others following. My bike with tubeless has been hanging on the wall since October, with me only on the trainer. I've topped off the air numerous times, but in reading this thread, I'm now concerned with the sealant pooling (does it harden?) and causing issues for when I get back on the road. Will this be an issue, or will the sealant disburse throughout the tube after a few blocks?

Thanks in advance.

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"I drank what?!?!" - Socrates
Poor Swimmer. Weak Cyclist. Slow Runner.
TriDot Ambassador / Sacramento Triathlon Club

Spin the rim and see what happens.

What Jim said. Sealant will dry out, eventually. I use Orange Seal Endurance. It is supposed to last longer before drying out. That is why it is good practice to monitor the sealant in you tires. I usually do an ear test to see if I can hear the sealant sloshing around before adding more. If I can hear it I add an ounce. If I do not I inspect the tire. I pop a bead off and take a look. If there isn't any wet sealant in the tire I find where the sealant has dried or has been used up. Usually if it is just dried out there isn't much left in the tire to cause a major balance issue, but on a road bike it could be worse than on a MTB. I then take care of that and add fresh sealant and reseat the tire and pump it up. This is typically only every three to four months.

I always carry a tube, lever, and CO2/pump on my MTB and recommend to anyone running tubeless, because I know that plugs aren't always a viable solution and a tube and boot will get you home.

I use tubeless on my MTB only, and use latex for road and time trial. The flats that I get on my road bikes would still be flats no matter the set up of tires/tubes/tubeless. The last flat that I had on the road, knock on wood, was running through a field of literal razor blades that had fallen off of the back of someone's vehicle. I did not see them until it was too late. Ended up with a one inch cut in the tire. Tubeless would not have prevented that flat and plugs are worthless. I have pulled metal wires, small nails, and small thorns from my road tires with latex tubes without the tire flatting. My MTB flats, when they happen, are either small punctures (e.g. thorns, etc.), small punctures from roots or rock, or pinches on rocks caused from a hard landing that usually cut the tire. The sealant will close up the punctures but cuts usually require a tube. In some cases cuts can be small enough to be plugged but its hit or miss.

Get different tubeless stems. I got some now that are just hollow tubes I can put the tube on my syringe all the way in and shoot it into the tire vs down the tube where it would tend to block things up. My old tubeless valves were also a PITA three piece design by zipp... but yeah the stems getting clogged up and gunking up the presta valve and even gasket on the presta valve can be a pain. I also had a few times where the screw in presta valve wouldn't seal all the way and would have a trickle leak. Repalcing those saved me a lot of different issues I had... initially I was having a real hard time getting new tires to seat. Turns out the stems were just gunked up barely allowing air to move through.

Summary different valve stems worked for me. The simpler the better. For me the best was a tapered rubber cone on one side, threaded outer for a lockring on the other side with a plain hollow inner.. presta valve threaded in. I put sealant in via a syringe and plastic snorkel that fits inside the valve stem so I can shoot it directly into the tire directly. The stems don't really get any sealant in them now.

I have 2 whole rides on a tubeless MTB. Flats both times... dented rim and bead-cut the tire too. Still not sure why it leaks while riding but not sitting.

This never happened when I used latex tubes...

. Find a new mechanic…

Gravel or cross, you're on the losing side of this argument. MTB started the trend way way way back and it caught on in cross and road now. Anyone with MTB tubeless issues.......go chat a MTB forum, you're just DIW if you're having that much trouble. It's the defacto way to go.

Cross tubeless with a liner? No more messy last second tubular tire installs night before a muddy or dry race. Just swap out whenever quick and easy. Mounting tubeless cross tires is simple.

If that's a gravel bike, it's the worst thing to go back to tubes. Tubeless for cross/gravel I've had success mounting with a normal floor pump by hand with the valve removed. You can run lower pressure, won't pinch, etc..... If you run gravel/cross tires pumped up enough you never pinch flat.........you ride like a sissy OR you have them pumped up way way too hard.

After 12 months of road tubeless, I have to say I am considering going back to clinchers. And I am a huge fan of the theoretical and practical benefits of road tubeless.

My issues have been all on first generation continental TL tires.

1. 2 sidewall cuts. Bad luck, bad luck plus weak sidewalls?
2. 2 punctures that really ought to have sealed, but didn't, despite fresh 60ml sealant in the tires.
3. Stan's Dart. 50% success with 2 uses.
4. GETTING THE DAMN TIRES OFF AND ON ROADSIDE.

I could live with 1, 2, 3. But whatever Continental was thinking when they thought a road tire with a bead as stiff as that of the first gen TL tires was ok I have no idea. It is a huge battle, especially if it is in the rain or sweaty hands and fingers. Just insane.

So right now I am trying to decide whether to try the new Continental TL tires or go back to clinchers where I got about the same number of flats and they are much easier/faster to fix. Thoughts?

1) Unless you are running 28C or larger, forget tubeless. Higher pressures on narrower tires means less likely to seal. Narrower tires are also much hard to seat and remove.
2) Your rims may suck for tubeless. I have a set of "tubeless ready" from about 5 years ago that you can do tubeless but you need the strongest hands ever to get tires on and off.

I gave up on tubeless until I had 28C tires on new 25mm internal rims. A dream to seat and remove.

I'd go with Aerothan tubes for narrower road applications instead of tubeless. Ultra light, low rolling resistance, good puncture resistance.