I just bought a new road bike that came with tubeless ready wheels so I figured, what the heck.....I'll give road tubeless a try just to find out for myself. Had it spec'd with Schwalbe Pro One tires and as soon the tires show up.....guess I'll find out. Like has already been mentioned, tubeless on MTB and Gravel bikes is a no brainer. I recently converted my gravel bike with non specific tubeless rims to tubeless and setup was simple, easy (single CO2 shot seated each tire 1st try) and the ride has been nothing short of perfect (Maxxis 40c Ramblers).

It is interesting, I have not personally tried tubeless, but when I read accounts and reviews of various tubeless setups, usually is just a long a litany of quite significant problems and issues. Not super encouraging for me to take the leap.

Another thing, after a flat or tire cut while out on the road, is it possible on a road tubeless set up to get your bead to seat and seal (if the seal has been lost) with a hand operated pump by the side of the road, and not using a floor pump or a CO2 canister? My understanding is that (but correct me if I'm wrong) this is very very hard to do with road wheels. Or impossible.

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I just pulled off my tubeless schwalbe pro ones last night... installed turbo cottons..what a PITA.. Then I remembered my other tubeless wheels has Silca tape.. so I pulled off the Stans tape and installed silca. Still PITA but finally got the TCs on with out pinching a tube. I serious pinched holes in 1 tube and destroyed 2 tire irons and lost one (went flying) it was pure comedy.

If you get a large cut, I doubt you lose the bead. I've had 3 large cuts now that have required new tires since experimenting with tubeless and I have never lost the bead. If you do though, I do think you will need CO2 at a minimum to get that sucker back on.

Pretty sure I'm gonna stick with tubes and clinchers from now on
All I can say installing tires on Non-tubeless ( or 2bliss lame specialized) wheelsets is a heck of alot easier.

This, basically. Until there is a tubeless equivalent of the GP4000, I'm sticking with tubes.

I just pulled off a brand new pair of Schwalbe Pro One 28's (so not even stretched one bit) off a set of DT Swiss PRC 1400's (tubeless wheels). Although I used metal tire levers, it wasn't all that difficult to pull the tires off. First bead I needed the levers, 2nd bead I was able to pull off by hand. Installed a pair of GP4000 which I actually think were tighter but was still able to install by hand, but it took some effort to roll the last 4-5" on the rim. I think it's VERY important to make sure at all times that the tire beads are sitting in the center of the rim channel and not along an edge. Could I do this on the road?.....sure, but I'll make sure to pack metal tire levers.

I'll also have to play around with the tubeless tape used on the DT rims as it "looks" to be on the thicker side. A thinner tape would make mounting and removing a bit easier. I've been using this tape on my gravel wheelset (2 layers) and it's pretty thin (and strong). Tesa 4288 Tape for $10.99 Tubeless Rim Tape 19mm x 55 Meters. I bought it on ebay a few months ago but no longer see it listed so it may have had a name change.......https://www.tesa.com/industry/tesa-4288.html

There was 2 layers of stans when I was running tubeless and it was kinda lifting in places here and there.. removed and used 1 layer of 25mm Silca which I have been running on my Enve 7.8 with Turbo Cotton with no issues. Tires were a little bit easier to install on my Enve 2.2 after using the Silca tape..., but my thumb are still suffering....

Dont feel good about using metal levers on carbon wheels though.

Set up my new Roubaix with Spesh Turb Pro 2Bliss and have been pretty happy with them. They mount super easy on the Roval CL 50 rims. I run the size 28 rubber which measure out to around 31 and go with pressure in low 70's depending on ride. I tried the Roubaix Pro tubless as well (size 30) and surprizingly they fit ok in back but rubbed fork on front. Those are more durable but heavier.

I am really sold on the whole road/disc/tubeless revolution. I avoided carbon clinchers with rim brakes for years but now no worries.

Benv wrote:

I ride with Hed Belgium's on my road bike which are tubeless ready and as much as I'd be interested to try it topics like this one always convince me to stick with tried and trusted GP4000 and a tube. It seems there is nowhere near enough consistency in ride quality, puncture resistance, and durability with tubeless compared to a good tire with a tube.

My experience has been the opposite....stopping at the roadside is a very rare occurrence for me since going tubeless. While going tubed, I'd have to stop and swap out tubes may a dozen or so times per year (~10K miles). Now it's maybe once per year. Sealant is pretty incredible stuff. It works (almost) every. damned. time. But I live in an area with a lot of pinch flat risk (potholes, ec), and goathead risk. If you live in an area with more pristine road surfaces, I could see the additional setup and maintenance factor factoring in.

My next bike I'm going UST (probably stuck with disc brakes which is why I dont get it now). Goatheads out here are bad, and in one week I had 8 flats and was spending over $100 a month on tubes. Since then I commute to work on my tubeless CX bike, and most of my road bike or TT rides are on Gatorskins. If UST works half as well as my CX tubeless and as well as the UST system is reviewed it will be a great buy. If not, I can just put my GP2k's on them.

yeah I'm pretty worried about goat heads too with Summer approaching and I've been riding with some friends out in the central valley (ca).. but all my flats on tubeless (that I know of) have been cuts.. tire killing cuts. Yeah I've had cuts on Turbo Cottons too.. put some super glue in them and continue. However the cuts I've been getting on my tubeless schwalbe pro-one have been tire life ending, call of shame to my better half for a ride home... it sucks.

I have a hard time taking advice from someone who has 12 flats per year or one every 833 miles... I have a flat on average once or twice a year. Either way, I think the feedback on tubeless tires is much more inconsistent than on clinchers with tubes; the percentage of people having a bad experience with, say, a Conti GP4000 is very low whereas topics about tubeless always show very mixed feedback. I'm not going to try something with mixed feedback if I have a setup that has worked very well for many years and for the most part others have the exact same experience.

Yeah, like I said if you live in an area with nice roads, it may not be worth it. And I'm not "giving advice," just giving my experience with road tubeless. Relax, it's OK.

an sworks tubelss on an enve rim is the hardest combo i have ever endured, by a lot. used it last year and did not bother with a repair kit cuz there was no way without ample sudsy water. and i can get 90% of normal combos on sans tools.

I'm a bike course guy for an event company (mostly tris) and have changed many tubes/tires. I encountered my first combo I COULD NOT change last weekend. A Reynolds tubeless wheel and a Conti Gatorskin... seriously the bead for the tire was so tight to the bed of wheel I couldn't move it over a mm to use a lever in... I pinched, pulled, etc to no avail. It was not a tubeless setup... but a tire/tube on a tubless ready wheel.

My theory is it was probably a pinch flat... new bike, new wheels and tires with less than 100 miles.

I'm guessing I might see this one more and won't spend as much time fiddling with it next time. Tubeless wheels with super tight tires...

I'm assuming most of this comes down to goat heads? I have plenty of !@#$ roads, but no goat heads. With around 5,000 road miles I usually get around 1 flat a year running GP4000 + butyl tubes. Usually from a sidewall cut after rain washes sharp gravel onto the road.

Yup. This is why I think that many (but likely not all) government conspiracy theories aren't real. In most cases, I think it's less likely that the conspiracy is true, and more likely that they're not actually organized enough to pull it off (and that everyone involved would keep their mouths shut).

The other thing about road tubeless that a lot of people forget is air travel. When I was traveling and racing all the time, I had to deflate my tires most or all of the way, depending on the bike box used. That's a recipe for a sealant mess, and it made much more sense to use inner tubes.

I'm in the camp of "tried tubeless for every application - tons of different tires, tons of different wheels... I'm mostly back on tubes". I do use it for MTB, because of the arguments laid out in this thread (i.e. the advantages are clear). I'm also very picky about what wheels and tires I use. I don't have an air compressor, and I don't want to cut tires off because they're too tight (been there). I've had great success with using Hed Ardennes/Belgium rims (yes, they're approved for XC mountain use... and the inner rim profile seems to be very well done), with Maxxis tubeless-ready tires. They inflate with a floor pump, and I don't need tire levers. I've also gravitated towards Caffelatex and Orange Seal. The Bontrager TLR stuff seems to seal very well, but I had trouble with it separating over time... the bottle looked like mostly water, with all of the chunks glued to the inside of the bottle (no amount of shaking did anything). Seemed to do the same thing inside my tires, and it leaked quite a bit. I had a sealed/unopened bottle that sat for about 2 years - completely unusable when I opened it.

If road tubeless can get to a consistent level that's easy to install, I'm open to trying again. I see a lot of bike industry people being in support of it, but most don't fly to race often or do a heavy triathlon training schedule, and they can mess with their bikes/wheels/tires at the office during their work day. And in many cases they're getting free wheels and/or tires. Nothing against them - it's just not your average triathlon/road consumer.

This is a handy solution for draining your tires of most of their sealant prior to deflation: https://milkit.bike/en

I've had two successful, reliable tubeless setup in four attempts on gravel, fat, MTB and road wheels. All setups were incredibly annoying to get done. Also, I was always nervous about both getting a tube in there if I had to on the side of the road and storing bikes with tubeless setups in my hot garage. I don't need this stress. I gave up on tubeless. Swapping a tube takes no time at all and I very rarely flat anyway. I even run tubes on my mountain bike.

Personally I've had an internal battle over this issue. I have a set of 404 NSW wheels that I've taken to A2 and raced on a few times. Changing tubes/tires on those wheels is so easy and so fast that I wonder if tubeless is worth it. Excluding the time it takes to get the wheel off, it probably only takes me 0:45-1:00 tops to get one bead off, pull the tube out, pop a new tube in, and get the bead back on... and I'm it's not like I'm frantic during the process. It's smooth and stress free. I can't say that any of the tubeless tire installations I've done have been stress free and I'd imagine a tubeless repair would be a nightmare.

If I were racing long course, this would be a really easy choice: I'd use non-tubeless rims (such as my NSWs), latex tubes, and fast tires. If I flat, no big deal no matter how bad the flat is. One to two minutes isn't the end of your race in long course (IMO).

I primarily race short course which means one to two minutes to fix a flat is the end of my race (no chance at the podium). That's why I'm experimenting with tubeless. My calculus is that for every frustrating ten minute flat repair I have with a tubeless tire I'll save two repairs from a minor puncture properly sealing. Since there's no difference in short course between a ten minute repair and a one minute repair, tubeless should on net be a better choice. In theory.

I have been on road tubeless for many years and almost never on a road tubeless specific rim. I have said a lot of hecking hecks. The loudest hecking hecks have been with Corsa Speeds and a Swiss Side rim. Last night, I put a pair of Corsa Speeds on the most recent HED Plus rims with just my thumbs. One was brand new. They came off with one blue lever. That being said, I'm going to run tubes with those tires because tubeless punctures do a crap job of sealing anything bigger than a pin prick and retaining 70+ psi. Now that I know I can get a tube replaced in 'normal' time and there's no tubeless rolling resistance advantage vs. a latex tube, I'm going to stick to the clean and easy route.

Tube free on mt bike, cx and gravel forever though.

pretty much all my wheelsets that are clinchers are tubeless readt... I had for sale a custom wheelset Enve 4.5 w/ extralite hubs that are not tubeless... well I'm thinking of keeping them now. :)

25mm Corsa Speeds?

No, the original lever busting 23's from 2016. I had bought three and used two. After seeing how well the used one (that broke a tire lever coming off my old wheels the day before) went on, I tried the new one and it also went on with thumbs only when properly in the center channel. I would have cried tears of joy if I knew how to cry.

I can't decide if HED, Vittoria, or both have some serious variations with regards to bead seat diameter. I have a HED Belgium+ rim that I could mount any Continental tire to with my toes but when it comes to my Jet+ rims it's virtually impossible for me to mount a Corsa Speed tire... and I know I'm not alone in that.

FWIW - Mounting them without being perfectly in the center channel would have been ridiculously hard. The thumbs-only was without inner tubes. I tried throwing an inner tube in the rear afterwards and mounting the tire bead became a bit harder. They didn't seat until ~90psi so I don't think the BSD is undersized. My Ardennes *seemed* to be a very similar experience. Deep center channel for mounting tires, but a tight fit on the 'shelf' once in place. I wish they had a bit of a ridge to lock the bead in place at low/no pressure for less tubeless mess, but I'm happy otherwise.