trener1 wrote:
I don't think that you can seat a road tire without a compressor or one those special pumps, I am not sure about cx/gravel.
Just replying to you because it gives me a good point to start with on the subject. I’ve tried tubeless on MTB, Gravel, and Road tires.
For my mountain bikes, I’m a tubeless concert for life. I have two sets of MTB wheels (Mavic Crossmax Pro and Bontrager Line 30). I can seat tires with hand pumps on both. I’ve only had to resort to a compressor one time on the Bontrager rims. I’ve installed and seated tons of tires on the Mavic rims, which are UST, with complete ease and never had to resort to a compressor. In terms of flats, tubeless is clearly the way to go. I can’t tell you how often I find flats that fixed themselves without me noticing during the ride on my mtb tires.
For my gravel bike it’s been a mixed bag. Again, I have two wheel sets: a set of Reynolds ATRs in 700c and a set of FSA 650b wheels. With the Reynolds it’s a mixed bag when it comes to mounting and setting up tires tubeless. The 650b wheels are a total disaster and nearly impossible to set up tubeless. I’ve re-taped them so many times I stopped counting. There either isn’t enough tape and the tires feel like they’ll fall of the rim or there’s too much tape and I can barely seat the tire with a compressor. I’ve successfully mounted one set of tires tubeless on the 650b wheelset and didn’t experience a single flat in 500 miles of riding over some pretty chunky gravel. I have had flats using the same tires with tubes on the same circuit prior to getting tubeless “right” on that wheelset. The 700c wheelset also hasn’t seen a flat either (at least that I’ve noticed) while set up tubeless.
On the road side the only straightforward setup I’ve used has been the Mavic CXR UST wheels. Tires were easy to install and seated with a hand pump. No flats and I’d race them... if they rolled a touch faster. I experimented with the Corsa Speeds on my HED wheels... screw that. Install was a huge pain and that tire was crazy fragile. I flatter twice in my neighborhood on roads that are literally perfect. Neither flat sealed in a way that I would want to ride for an extended period of time.
Summing my own observations, I’ve noticed that installation and setup gets more difficult as tires get narrower and the ability of the tires to seal a puncture gets worse as well. Not sure if that’s due to air pressure, casing thickness, or a combination. Also, Mavic is doing something right with UST. The tire bead and rim profile need to be designed together and quality control for both (Millimeters matter). ETERO supposedly is about to release their Tubeless Road standard, that will probably make installations much easier going forward. That said, I’m not sure tubeless road will ever seal as consistently as tubeless MTB. I can change our a tube in about a minute on a normal road tire. If I have to put a tube into a tubeless road tire... longer. Possibly much longer. And it’s a pain. Really wouldn’t want to have to do that in a race.
To summarize:
MTB: tubeless convert
Gravel: unsure but probably tubeless
Road: tube for training, tube for racing long course, tubeless for racing short course (because if I flat I’m off the podium anyways so might as well trade a bit of extra flat protection for a more difficult flat repair).