I’ve been using it for the last few years in our house for racing only. I’ve settled on Orange Seal. It does always dry up and ruin the tube. You can extend the life by keeping tires inflated, but that of course Is difficult with latex.

I’m also not sure how well it really works. It is more insurance than anything. It didn’t work for me in a very long course TT a few years ago with a relatively small puncture.

I used to use the bontrager TLR sealant with Vitorria latex tubes. I think I put about 25 ml per latex tube in (I use it at whatever volume is listed in the original ST test of latex tubes). I may have used Stans once too. The TLR has saved me in at least one Ironman. I hit a pothole hard in the last 10 miles at IMWI, no problems, and there was sealant in the tire after the race so it did its magic.

I usually only use latex for my A races, so I can’t attest to the durability of this setup.

After years of not running any sealant because I was afraid of it drying up, this last year I started using Silca tubes with Orange Seal endurance sealant. I can’t recommend it enough. I was used to losing ~20-40 psi overnight and now I may go several days and remain above ~90psi.

I’ve removed small staple sized debris without any air leakage, haven’t had a flat yet, and overnight / intra-ride deflation is significantly reduced. When I’ve remove tires for different reasons, the latex inner tube is weakly glued to the tire, telling me that it has either saturated the porous latex and or filled many small punctures.

Even if I later find that it shortens the overall lifespan of the tubes (I doubt it, since I haven’t had a flat yet), it would be worth it since it has been an improvement for so long already.

I'm a religious user of sealant in latex tubes, flat attack, specifically, and have had very good luck with it. Sealed a hole I didn't know I had at IMLP and provides great durability for training. I won't say what I haven't had happen during regular rides for fear of the curse, but you get it. Usually do need to re-top off after a few months, but usually at that point it's time for a race anyway and a new set of tubes.

Andrew

How much are you putting in each tube?
Does anyone have a guess of what it does it anything to rolling resistance? Lol wouldn’t that be great, do all these things and then negate the benefits of latex.

I tried it for years, and, anecdotally found that sealant in latex tubes doesn't work anywhere near as well as pure tubeless.

It might be worthwhile for just racing - e.g. it did work sometimes. So it's better than nothing. But just pointing out my overall experience that pure tubeless is way better. In my opinion.

Probably effectively nothing, as long as the sealant remains a fluid. The losses come from the energy it takes for the material to deform and then resume it's normal shape. Nothing being deformed, really, if it's just a fluid sloshing around.

Testing by both BCRR and AeroCoach shows sealant to have a detrimental effect on rolling resistance in tubeless tyres - only slightly if you use it sparingly, though. I'd assume it was the same for a latex tube setup.

I think Aerocoach had some testing info indicating sealant did increase rolling resistance slightly. I seem to recall they tied the results to the amount of sealant used. Probably splitting hairs, but that’s in line with a lot of these incremental gains.

Sloshing = energy

Any movement of the liquid is likely to be worse than deformation of a solid as fluid is not going to return the energy via elasticity. However, since the volume is reasonably small and it probably stays fairly stationary w i th resrespoect to the tube walls during steady state rotation, I expect the losses are modest.
Actual significant sloshing would cause huge losses.

Sure, I'd just thought it wouldn't really be measurable. But apparently it's measurable (if not apparently still pretty small). Good to know.



I'd have thought the opposite, as the molecular forces in the deformation/reformation elastic material are measurably strong. Of course the force it takes to move a fluid is also measurable....I might have just had poor intuition about their relative magnitudes.

Does the "energy return" of a tire/tube returning from a deformation actually return energy to the forward progress of a bike-rider system? I wouldn't have really guessed that. I'd have thought it'd just be mostly lost to heat. Like I can easily see the energy of a deformed crank arm applying a torque to the chainring as it returns to its normal shape. Have a harder time visualizing rubber snapping back into shape on the backside of a wheel applying a rotational force on the wheel. Not to say that doesn't happen - it easily could. Just less intuitive.

Just imagine a retarding force (pointing back) when first being compressed over a bump, and the tire’s springiness pushing rearward as it expands on the other side. The efficiency comes from how much it pushes back after losing energy to heat (or any random motion that doesn’t return, like liquid sloshing or a rider’s belly).

Indeed:
https://www.aero-coach.co.uk/...d-rolling-resistance

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https://besse.info/
https://www.strava.com/athletes/2012033

My 1:1 here is I bought a set of used wheels and didn't realize the person ran the tubes in it this way. My fault I didn't replace both the tubes and tires to new known good stuff.

The tubes had been deflated for a good bit, sealant hardened.

I don't think it contributed to my sprint crash in a race back last year, but when I got home from the hospital the front tire was flat and when I pulled everything apart the latex tube and sealant looked pretty old/dried up and almost like the latex tube had failed from previously being stuck to itself inside the tire but trying to expand with air pressure in other ways when pumped up.

Given this, and that I refuse to top up a latex tube often enough to not have that happen...........I do not run sealant in mine.

Once bitten, twice shy.

 

I would think this a little differently.

Once the wheel is up to speed, would not the centrifugal force push the fluid against the outermost (crown?) of the tube where is would remain stationary? Not saying there is no increase in rolling resistance but that the sealant in not sloshing about.

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

I use Orange Seal. It has managed to save a TTT result because we needed to finish 3 riders, so maybe that counts triple.

Just a general question to anyone, not necessarily the OP. Is sealant necessary for latex? In my limited experience, latex tubes are less prone to flatting (if installed correctly) than butyl. I've always assumed that they are so much more supple that it allows them to flex further before puncturing. I don't run sealant in butyl so never really understood the need for it in latex.

Sounds like I am likely mistaken or missing something because this topic comes up pretty regularly.

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"It's good enough for who it's for" - Grandpa Wayne

Yeah, it's conceivable to imagine. Just that I'd prefer like an analytical model. Particularly since "conventional wisdom" often hasn't fared well in tire-road dynamics (it wasn't long ago that everyone here was pumping their tires to super high pressures)

Yeah, as I pointed out above, it's only a marginal safety net for latex tubes. In my opinion. I'd call it possibly worthwhile only for races. Not worth the hassle for training.

Well, tires don’t have nice analytical models that are meaningful at this level. In practice, all the data is from testing rigs and fit with a function that captures the behavior, but is also not based on physics. I think the best you can say without tons of this data is that everything has some coefficient of restitution, and the better it is, the more it acts like a perfect spring without damping.

In practice, it isn’t just the tire being disturbed, the rider and bike get jostled up and down and they have their own energy damping mechanisms. Liquid in the tire can be one, also in water bottles, or humans.

I tried to fire up a thread about this some time ago but it didn’t take. I don’t think the Crr vs pressure curves which explode upward at a certain tire pressure taken from road rides have as much to do with the tires themselves as with the rider and how they ride. I’m sure several tire geeks have split those hairs, but try for yourself riding rigidly over a bumpy road versus with loose arms and legs.

the fear of flats and you willing to trade off some crr then just do away with air completely and go solid tires:

https://tannusamerica.com/pages/tannus-airless-tires


I have them all on my bikes (Al wheels) except my carbon wheel race set since they dont fit

Never said I feared flats and not really willingly ready to trade off some crr. Was more just curious about it and wanted to hear what others who are actually doing this used and what their thoughts were.
Thanks for not supplying any information on the actual question asked.

I really recommend these for casual slow rides, but I wouldn’t want to corner or brake hard in these things, not very grippy, or comfortable. Below 20mph they’re fine though.

Anecdotally, I’ve had less flats with latex than butyl, but I like how much less I worry about tire pressure on training rides, or that my tires will be airless the next morning now that I use sealant.

"Some" is an understatement according to Warbird in another thread, "The rolling resistance on the ones we tested were through the roof. It took about 70w more to maintain 20mph than my GP4Ks."

Yeah, not going to race on those.

He also said they're harsh to ride.

Maybe a decent commuter tire.