You should be using latex tubes.

 

Latex tubes prepped with sealant prior to the event.

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Once, I was fast. But I got over it.

I have the same Vittoria Pitstop along with an extra tube and tire changing items in an empty bottle behind the seat. Along with a second bottle behind the seat with nutrition and a camel back tube up to where I can drink out of it while remaining in aero position

I have a similar set up, rim brakes, tubolite. I have an extra tube with the extension for my deep wheels already mounted and tested for leaks. I use this set up even when training. The tubes are easy to patch when I get home and much tougher than latex. I had to change the rear tube on my last ride and it only took a couple of minutes even though I wasn't in a hurry. Then when I got home I patched the tube and tested it.

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Not a coach. Not a FOP Tri/swimmer/biker/runner. Barely a MOP AGer.
But I'm learning and making progress.

Patching a tube without removing the wheel seems to be a lost art. More often than not, the offending item that caused the flat, is still in the tire. When you flat, stop immediately and look. If you see the nail/screw/glass/goat head in the tire, you know where the hole is. Remove just enough of the bead to pull the tube out, patch, remove object from tire, stuff tube back in, reseat tire, air up and go. With todays glueless patches, and CO2, this can be done in no time. We got really good at this back in the old days, before Kevlar beaded tires and sealants. I’m always amazed at how many folks I see at the side of the road, wrestling with wheel remove/install and folding tires and uncooperative tubes. Or hearing stories of folks installing a new tube, forgetting to find and remove the thorn or whatever, flatting again, and not even having a patch kit.

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Athlinks / Strava

I don't know how close you are to the pointy end of the race, but for someone like me who is MOP and just looking to get to T-2 if I have a flat, here's my input for people like me.

I ride with clinchers and tubes. I always carry a spare tube and a CO2 inflator. (I don't race 140.6 anymore, but when I did I put an extra tube in my special needs bag.). If I have a flat, I just figure I'm going to be adding about five minutes to my bike leg. (I know, it's possible to complete a change in less time, but I'm extra thorough about checking for what caused the original tube to go flat.) I've flatted in sprints and I still do the same thing.

You won't win the race, but it beats having to wait for the sag wagon or walking back to T-2.

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"Human existence is based upon two pillars: Compassion and knowledge. Compassion without knowledge is ineffective; Knowledge without compassion is inhuman." Victor Weisskopf.

I practiced changing tubes with my front wheel several times and now I can change it under 3-4 min. Some tires are so tight, you will have hard time changing it, so make sure you practice with it. After a long ride, your hands are going to be sore and lose some grip strength too. Mine is Zip wheel with GP5000 and somehow, it's really easy to change. I would take my time, change it and don't worry about it.

I run latex, with a tubolito spare (to save space & weight in the flat kit).

IME, it's less about a quick hack to get the flat fixed faster and more about being able to get to T2. Things like superglue might work in select cases, but it's not very reliable. I have a CO2 (for speed), but also patches and a micropump (AirStik) for 70.3+ so I can complete the bike leg even with multiple punctures.

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ECMGN Therapy Silicon Valley:
Depression, Neurocognitive problems, Dementias (Testing and Evaluation), Trauma and PTSD, Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI)

Wow, I can't even imagine doing this without removing the whole tube. Changing the tube and popping the tire back on takes 5 minutes or under. Finding the tiny sliver of metal/glass/thorn that punctured the tube is often 10+ minutes of running my fingers around the tire interior hoping to catch a nick.

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Oh I don't know about that...I never get sick of watching this video. :-)

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Thanks for all the great replies. The reason for not going tubeless is that I live as far north in Norway as possible. So, even my local races are 1500km south of me. I actually live 1000km north of the arctic circle... I have read that traveling by plane and using tubeless is possible the only drawback, beside removing the goo... :)

I am in the top10% in my age group, so I won't win any races. But I still want to be as fast as possible and doing long triathlons, living where I live, is once a year experience :)

I thank all your input, and will probably go with a spare tube and Vittoria pitstop to try this at first. My next race is Challenge Roth, July 3. :)

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Argon 18 E-119 Tri+ Disc, with DT Swiss ARC wheelsets
Arena swimgear and Trimtex/Surpas racegear.

You can travel by plane without any issues with a tubeless setup. No need to remove the sealant, maybe deflate your tires a touch (not all the way) and that's all. I've been tubeless on the road for a few years now and flown with my bike many times.

Love that. Along with the Norm Stadler meltdown.

Had a few flats in my time which is one of the reasons why I race tubs.

Problem with patching is that it does not work (the patch wont hold) when it is warm, say >30°C. I had that several times. I carry two spare innertubes now, butyl, not latex or tubolito. I ride latex, but had blowups filling latex with co2 , so carry butyl as spares.
Think about valves and valve-extensions beforehand. I carry 2 co2 cartridges, but also a minipump.

But I really wanted to mention that I absolutely love my Lezyne Pocket Drive minipump. I used to use all CO2, but the disc wheel has special challenges - it was impossible for me to reliably get a CO2 head into the cutout area with a good seal, even the smallest ones - they'd fail at least 30% of the time (I went through over 12 CO2s in practice trying to get it right!) and the rapid inflation is risky for my disc due to potential pinching of the latex tube.

The Lezyne Pocket drive solves everything - it screws onto the presta valve so no pump head to get blocked in the cutout, stores super small (I put it in a normal bento box easily with tube and other flat kit prep), and pumps really well for a minipump - I can get to 80+psi without problem or struggle. Love that I can pump slowly and check the tube mount before I get it all the psi all the way up. Have flatted several times on training rides since, and this pump has been awesome.

I'll also add that one thing I recently added to my flat kit are adhesive tire boots for rips in your tire. I had one in a race and then another recently - with a tire rip, your tubes will blow out the rip so you're totally screwed unless you can boot the rip. I never thought this sort of stuff would happen to me, but turns out even GP5000s will get shredded if you have badluck and hit sharp debris fast. For $6-8 on Amazon for several adhesive tire boots, I'd highly recommend you throw this in your flat kit for training or racing.

??? I’ve been patching tubes for nearly 50 years. To this day, I’ve never had one fail. I’ve got two patches on my rear tube from after IMAZ 2019. I’ve been meaning to replace the tube, but haven’t gotten around to it. I’ve raced it three times since then. If done correctly, patches are stronger than the original tube.

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Athlinks / Strava

Sounds like a potential solution for disc wheels

What disc wheel do you have?

Premier Tactical disc wheel.

At home, I use a floor pump with the $100ish Hiro chuck which fits into the small hole for the disc.

But on the road, the Pocket drive works awesome. It actually grabs the presta valve better than the Hiro chuck, but with the Hiro you don't have to screw it on-off all the time, and with latex you know you're doing that every single ride, so it gets old quick. For a road flat that's rare, it's actually better to have that guaranteed no-leak seal given the small hand pump (everyone knows otherwise how frequently mini pumps don't seal right at the presta valve attachment, especially when pumping hard.)

Of note as well, I do carry a tiny valve core replacement tool in my flat kit since there's a chance that if you overscrew the Pocket drive onto the presta, you'll unscrew the whole valve core (and lose all your air) when unscrewing it - the core gets stuck in the pump head and is nearly impossible to remove without the tool (so you're totally f-ed). I've practiced this a bit so I know that you just have to screw the pump on just until it seals, and don't go all crazy, but the core replacement tool should be in there just in case.

We sell Tubolito tubes and recommend them as a spare since they are so small and light, but I would not be racing on them and definitely not using them with sealant. In our testing the Tubolito with sealant is at best 50% successful and the tubolito patches are even less effective. More specifically to racing, the patches are incredibly finicky about cleanliness and while they come with an alcohol swab, it's hard to get it to work well with clean hands on a work bench, I would not trust the process at all on the roadside.

I would recommend latex tubes with OrangeSeal and a tubolito as backup, we've successfully run that combo with 2 WorldTour teams for the last few years with incredible success. You will end up replacing the tubes every 6-8 months as the sealant dries out, but this combo will heal probably 90% of flats experienced in road/tt and if you do flat, you can quickly and cleanly get the tube out and the tubolito back in.

You could also look at the Effeto Mariposa Cafelatex with Zot instant hardener.. the Cafelatex is nearly as good as Orange Seal, but the Zot allows you to sort of instantly glue larger punctures as it reacts with the sealant to instantly harden.

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I'm interested!

Just to clarify, are you putting the OrangeSeal into road latex tubes (100psi)? Or are you talking about tubeless setups?

And I'm assuming if into latex tubes, you are injecting the sealant directly into the latex tube?

(I looked on the OrangeSeal website, and it's heavily, almost exclusively directed at tubeless setups)

Yes, you can put OrangeSeal in a tube.

Cool - I guess the followup question is what should one do, say, after 120 days (the upper limit of what Orange Seal recommends before you replace the sealant) if you are running latex tubes and putting Orange seal into the tube itself.

Should you just check that the sealant is still sloshing around in the latex tube? Or should you replace the tube entirely at that point? Or should you just add a bit more into the latex tube 'just-in-case?"

Just add more.