and latex tubes are a non-starter for the great majority of triathletes, because of cost, and because of daily leakdown.


Dan,

I respectfully disagree with this. I don't race, but ride a lot for fun, fitness and personal challenge. I've been riding on latex tubes for a few years now, all the time for all my riding - no, more or less flats than when I was riding on butyl tubes - on average, 1 - 3 on the road flats/year. With the main outdoor riding season now winding down. My flat total for the year - my biggest year of riding in 15+ years is, two!

Yes, I have to touch up the psi before every ride. Yes they are a bit more pricy, but not a ton more. Yes they require a bit of TLC and some technique on the install.

On high end clincher tires Conti 4000s or 5000s, the ride is outstanding! Well worth these minor details in my view!

On Road Tubeless - I'm still trying to figure out what I would be gaining over riding Conti 5000's with latex tubes at just the right psi??

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Steve Fleck @stevefleck | Blog

This. And also "absolutely cannot flat" doesn't make sense either. What have people been doing when they get flats? Fix them and keep riding. Not to mention if it's the sealant you want, it can be added to tubes too. It's not a big deal. Both latex and tubeless have additional maintenance required in some way. Both are equally fast.

There's no clear superiority unless you can get tubeless mounted by hand like tubed, you can pump it up with a hand/floor pump from 0 psi, and sealant doesn't dry and require cleanup.

I'll try tubeless eventually, but it's still a pain in the ass compared to a rare 5 minute tire change.

well, i respectfully disagree with your respectful disagreement. i'm not saying riding latex is a bad idea, or that it flats more, or that you shouldn't do it. i wrote that the large majority of triathletes - not you, but most triathletes - will not find latex an appropriate solution for any of their riding, tho more will move to latex for race day. i've got a lot of latex tubes too, but i have to get them all mail order, they're pricey as shit (between $12 and $20 ea), and it's down to 1 company that makes virtually all the road latex tubes. it's mature tech, brother. road tubeless is in its adolescence and has already meet or exceeded latex tubes in cost and utility.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

My biggest issue is,
I have enve ses 7.8 and 25mm schwalbe pros. I can't get these damn things to pop. I've done it many times with my heds before, with the neighbors whatever rim but and with my Reynolds.
For whatever reason the enve schwalbe combination don't really work.
I have a specialized booster and meanwhile even a compressor. They are leaking everywhere and don't leave the center of the rim.
Any advises? I'm using stans no tube to seal

Thx

how old are your enves?

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

Just bought them 2 weeks ago

i don't have your set up. but i do have ENVE gravel wheels - late model, G27, straight-wall (hookless bead), and on them are schwalbe G-One Bites in 53mm. not by any means like what you've got, but they are all late-model Schwalbe-ENVE, and this is my favorite (so far) gravel combo.

i just mounted the tires you're running, the exact tire, 25mm pro ones, on a cadex wheel, because i'm trying to figure out why cadex tubeless, wheel/tire combos don't leak down, at all, and that's before sealant is installed. i'm trying to figure out if it's the tire, the wheel, or some combo. these are also straight-wall wheels. the pro ones bead right up.

i don't have any theories for your issue. maybe someone has more wisdom on this than i do.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman

In a recent group ride, we had two guys get flats from tube punctures that I think would have been non-events with tubeless. First was a huge staple into the tire, the type you'd put in a staple gun, not a paper staple. The second was a tiny piece of metal that was hard to find. He wasn't able to find it until flatting twice, and then had to put a patch over the metal shard because he could feel it but unable to pull it out.

I've been running tubeless for the past few months on my new road bike, GP5000's on hooked rims. They were a bitch to mount, and yes I'm pretty experienced with tire mounting, including keeping the tire in the center channel. GP5K TL's are notoriously hard to mount.

Have you tried the soapy water trick?

Anecdotally, sealant doesn't work anywhere near as well in tubes as it does tubeless. It's not totally clear why. But it's not just me with this experience.

I totally concur. I gave latex a try on my tri bike and it was such a revelation, I put them on my workhorse road bike shortly thereafter. Are people really put off by the cost? Vittoria latex tubes are $30 a pair on Amazon, or roughly twice the cost of a pair of standard tubes. $15 is a small price to pay for the 4-5 watts saved at cruising speed. And maybe it's placebo, but they seem to ride better to me, too. Yeah, they leak a lot more overnight. I've found that forces me to actually set the pressure every ride when I might lazily skip that step when I had butyl tubes. They haven't proven to be any more puncture-prone than the butyl tubes I was running, either.

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"They're made of latex, not nitroglycerin"

Years ago if tubeless had been introduced then, I would have bought them because they were a new thing and that’s what we did in the triathlon world (heck I even bought Tinely gear). Watching various posts on tubeless tires and disc brakes have really turned me off to a new bike purchase. While I would rather not flat, being able to quickly change a tire is absolutely critical for me. For training I’ll just stick with gatorskins.

Disagree. The advantages are tiny for road and the costs are real. Things you can't ever fix for road tubeless: (1) they will never be as safe, (2) sealant dries up in a couple months creating a messy chore and undoing any small advantage they had to begin with, (3) changing a tire is a messy chore, (4) fixing an unsealable flat is a messy chore. And for what advantage? Unless you are riding in thorn territory the difference in flats is very small for *road*.

As safe as what? I'd accept the argument that tubulars are safer. I still ride tubular on the track. But I'd put tubeless above tubed clinchers, just for the near-elimination of pinch flats, and general lower-likelihood of explosive flats.


I agree it's a chore. I'm not sure what advantage is undoes, though. Unless you mean waiting so long that the sealant is no longer effective?

I agree that tubeless is best for "daily driver" bikes, not as great for periodically used bikes.




You're overplaying that a little bit. There's, at most, 2 oz of sealant. You wipe it out in a couple of swipes.



Plug it! Don't have to take the wheel off even. I've had near-100% success rate with plugs. Works for almost every non-tear puncture.


Near-elimination of pinch flats. Means you can drop your pressure below 80PSI if you want, which is usually danger-land for tubes.

But, I agree, if you always ride in an area with mostly really nice roads and mostly use old-school tire pressures, probably not worth it.

I often ride in areas without nice roads. And in this day and age, I never know when a "road ride" is going to have a gravel detour, now that there's been a convergence of "gravel" into mainstream riding.

We're basically in agreement but with maybe different preferences. I have north of five bikes and ride almost every day. I run my MTB tubeless all the time and I will periodically run tubeless in a road race or gravel race if I think the conditions warrant it (thorns or very sharp pointy stones mainly, and a flat is often as good as a DNF in a road race). I normally run my gravel bike with latex and (knock on wood) I'm not even sure I've ever flatted on that bike. I can't even imagine the maintenance involved with maintaining my whole stable as tubeless.

A couple comments:
Explosive flats are a real issue with tubeless. I've now witnessed it three times myself and almost no one I know rides tubeless. Thankfully two were uphill and one the bike was just sitting in front of a cafe in the sun. Lots of letters to Velonews with people who ended up in the hospital after explosive tubeless flats. Yes, this will get better with newer standards, but without the tube to physically press the tire bead onto the hook, it will always be an issue. I agree that tubulars are the safest of all.

You can't plug a sidewall tear. You have to boot it and tube it. I don't flat very often -- can't even recall my last flat -- but when I do sidewall tears are common. (I ride road racing tires on lots of mixed terrain. E.g. on Sunday I rode a route that included 25 miles of gravel on 25mm GP5000s with latex.)

Aren't sidewall tears a problem with tubes as well? If the tube is coming out of the sidewall, the tube is going to blow no matter what you do

It depends on the size of the tear, but some are definitely plug'able - enough to get you home.

You simply put in a boot and you're good. It takes 5 seconds. Actually the boot can last months even. (A boot is basically a piece of old tire that you put inside to completely cover the hole.)

I was/I am a strong advocate of road tubeless. The ride is smooth and it's lightweight but more than anything, no flats. I had literally zero flats in 2 years! And if I would have a flat, I can put a tube in and ready to go.
Its just the initial setup that drives me nuts. And as mentioned, I got the Reynolds and schwalbe on with a normal pump! No issues at all. When I see the rim design and compare that to lets say cars, it should be a flat bottom surface without any holes or additional profiling. And that simply isn't the case for most rims. Its still a Hybrid situation where people are using the existing molds and make them tubeless ready. Going forward hopefully with increasing development industry and R&D will take of that

  

i reluctantly switched to tubeless on my cross bikes, and i have to say i regret it.

- i feel uncomfortable out on my own if i am in too remote an area now because i have had so much trouble getting tires off and on if i flat.
- so many niggling little issues with selant and valves negates the putative value over tubulars for racing - that its easy to switch tires before a race. i still find i need a few different sets of wheels with different treads, just like i did with tubulars.
- burping
- being able to ride to the pit flat.

but man i feel so awkward saying this because people usually reply and say that i'm overblowing the flat-repair issue and "well tubeless is good enough for pro crossers so y not u".

And yet all those reasons are so totally reasonable. On your second point, I DNF'd a pretty big race once because of a slow tubeless flat through the valve due to sealant getting in there. Such a bummer.

I run tubeless GP5K on my main road bike and about to convert to tubeless on another road bike I have incoming soon.

For the new bike, I just mounted 28mm GP5K tubeless on Reynolds 58/62X wheels. I was expecting a knockout wrestling match to mount them, given what I’ve read about these tires. Happy to report that it was pretty easy. For the front, I was able to get it mounted by hand except the last 6-10 inches so I used a tire bead jack to finish. I might have been able to work it on by hand but the tire jack makes it so easy.

The rear wheel is slightly wider, and I was actually able to mount that one completely by hand. No levers or tire jack needed.

Thumbs up to Reynolds wheels if you want to run GP5K tubeless.

Dan,

Do you think tubeless will ever get to the point where female cyclists aren't afraid of it? Tubeless has been a big deterrent for a lot of cyclists in my area (mainly females). They have gotten new bikes with TLR wheels, but they cannot get the tire off or get the tire back on without help (and they know how to change a flat). A couple friends of mine have gotten so worried about it, they sold their wheels and went back to non TLR clinchers.

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blog

The reality is that the industry is all over the place with tubeless tubeless ready etc

There are no standards at all and some tire, wheel combos are nigh on impossible or so difficult to fit it'll be too hard to take off.

I found out the hard way spending an age 'upgrading' the ordinary Giant Gavia tires to Continental GP5000 TL.

Gave up and took bike for a service who said I would find it very difficult to get the tyre off by the roadside.

Not convinced the extra cost and faff are worth the benefits

if you look at this article, up day before yesterday, the idea beyond this series is to see what makes tubeless user friendly. not for women. for everybody. now, for most of the good wheels, recent models, out of molds that are less than a year and a half old, that conform to ETRTO regs, and for the tires designed for them, this is pretty easy. i can get a tubeless tire on a rim with my hands. it's at least as easy as getting a tubed tire on and off. so, no issue there.

then there's overnight leakdown. i'm working on that now. this is where i'm going keep the pressure applied to the wheel brands.

as an anecdote, i have a cervelo caledonia that i'm switching over from tubed to tubeless. i almost had to cut the vittoria rubino pro tubeless ready 30mm tires off the rim. these are the tires that came on the bike, OE. i don't remember the last time i had to cut a tire off off the rim. i couldn't get it off with tire levers. i needed flathead screwdriver, which rim beads don't especially like. so, in that particular case, that would not have been a user friendly solution. for anybody. very few people could have fixed a flat on that wheel on that bike out on the road, as came spec'd from the manufacturer.

i but the tire itself, once off, was very easy to remount. it'll be interesting to see what happens when i try to take that tire off again, this time without the tube taking up space inside. i took out the tube, put in a tubeless valve, and pressured the tire back up, as part of this series i'm writing on what wheels/tires don't lead down.

in this particular case, i like the reserve wheel with the rubino pro TL ready much more as a tubeless than as a tubed solution, and i mean that not simply in terms of performance, but ease of use. i think we're getting there.

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Dan Empfield
aka Slowman