It took me nearly a week of on and off reading in between training sessions and work but I’ve finally finished reading this entire thread; every word of every post.
It was fascinating to see the progression through the posts over time from when the thread started in July of 2019 to when it kind of petered out in around 2022.
I’ve been running butyl tubes in 23 and 25 mm clincher conti gp4000 and 5000 since I started road riding in 2013 in non-aero wheels. I usually run around 115 psi (175lb). I can’t say I flat a lot but since I want to upgrade to aero wheels (in hopes of increasing my kona qual chances in the coming year) I figured I should find out if I also wanted to go tubeless.
Going into post 1 I knew nothing about tubeless and now at post 540ish or so I feel like I’ve learned a lot. I want to thank everyone that’s contributed to this thread but especially gregk and slowman as their posts and answers to user questions advanced my knowledge the most.
As I mentioned, this thread was a bit of a wild ride for me. Around post 100 I was sure I wouldn’t be going tubeless. It sounded like a nightmare to set up, maintain, and worse could leave you stranded during a race if you can’t get your tire off or seated again. I’d much rather finish a race an hour or two later than DNF. Plus, no way I was going to buy an air compressor to seat a tire onto a rim. That sounded insane to me.
Then at post ~150-250 I started to have a lot of my questions answered. It seemed at this point the standard for tubeless came out and started to make it much easier to find a tire and wheel that “worked” and could be installed either by hand or simply by using a tire lever. My confidence grew and I started to think I might be able to do this roadside.
I really appreciated the posts by gregk whenever a new article came out. Stopping to read those articles added a lot to the discussion. I’d also like to credit various youtube videos in the articles and others that popped up in my youtube feed throughout the week as I was researching.
Anyway, enough of my commentary. I thought Id use this post as an opportunity to summarize a lot of the stuff I learned.
General procedure for install with recommendations I learned
1) buy tubeless wheels that fit your budget and a tubeless tire (seems the three most discussed/preferred are the continental gp5000 TL, vittoria corsa, Schwalbe pro one). I did find out conti put out a new tubeless STR tire last year that I have not seen mentioned in any of the posts.
2) install 1-2 layers of rim tape, cut a hole for the valve core and install it
- Ensure to overlap by a few inches on the last layer
- Pay attention to what your wheel manufacturer recommends for layer count
- If you get leaks another layer of tape can help or if you have trouble fitting a tire one layer can help installation ability
- Pull tape tight during install to ensure no bubbles between the tape and rim
- Press it down in the channel after install
- Run a tire lever long the wall to channel edge to ensure it is pressed down on the sides
- You can install a tube to ~90-100 psi and tire and leave overnight to press tape down for a better air seal before you install the valve core
- Stans tape is preferred or whatever comes from your wheel manufacturer
- Tape must be centered in channel and go all the way to the walls
3) Install tire by hand or using a tire lever and pump up using a floor pump.
- If you must use excess force, an air compressor to seat the bead, or clamps on the breaking surface of the wheel to install the tire then you have a wheel/tire combo that is unusual or doesn’t conform to the new standard. This seemed to often be the case in 2019 but is no longer always true in 2023.
- IMHO if I had to use anything but my hands or tire lever then I’d not use that combo. These combos would prevent the installation of a tube in a worst-case scenario to get to T2.
- Some people in the thread are happy to ride these hard to install combos but it seems they either
- ride within cell reception
- don’t care about DNF at a race or ride something different during them
- end up cutting a tire off a rim at some point (one guy with only 400 miles on the tire ugh!)
- There were some recommendations to spray the outside of the tire with soapy water before pumping it up. This seemed kind of silly to me as you won’t have this roadside but perhaps can help with initial seating of the tire.
4) Remove the valve core with a valve core tool and pump/pour in the sealant, followed by rotating the tire around to ensure it thoroughly coats the inside of the tire and wheel.
- Seems the amount of sealant varied by wheel and tire size but generally was something like 40-80ml and was best installed with a specialty syringe that you wash immediately after.
- It seems throughout the thread the preferred sealant is Stan’s. Honorable mention for muc-off, orange (regular formula, endurance formula was reported to last longer but not seal as well), or just whatever came with your wheels from the manufacturer.
- There was an interesting discussion at a few points about whether sealant was needed or not. There were some instances of tires holding pressure without sealant. There was another where a tire did not hold pressure until the sealant was added. Regardless the sealant is what makes tubeless puncture resistant, so this point seemed a bit moot to me and was only interesting for install
- There was some discussion about adding sealant directly into the tire before it was fully installed. There was a way to do this without creating a mess, but I didn’t see an advantage to this over using a syringe.
5) replace the valve core, pump up tires, and ride
- Tire pressure varies significantly depending on a lot of factors but there are tons of matrices to determine what’s best for you from your wheel manufacturer
6) Every 3-4 months remove the sealant and pump in another 40-80 ml
- Sealant drys out after time. This time varies by where you ride and where you store your bike and humidity levels.
- Some got away with it every 6 months, some only made it weeks.
- Some people used dip sticks to check how much was left or just kept adding a set amount. These seemed very unscientific and the remove and re-add seemed best to me
- Make sure you ride your bike once a week to keep the tire coated with sealant.
7) Every year do a full clean out of the inside of your tire and wheel to get rid of dried-up sealant. Simple green with a rag works well.
- If you live in a climate where you don’t ride for winter, then do this before you store your bike so you don’t have to mess with it in the spring
8) check/replace your valve core from time to time as it can also be clogged with dried sealant. Seemed there was a suggestion to replace these yearly as well
Pros of Tubeless - Eliminates pinch flats that come with incorrect installation of tubes. Also avoids pinch flats that come from hitting a big object or pothole as there is no tube to pinch. It seems in a tubeless setup the tire can distribute the shock of an object over a larger area, especially if you are running larger tires at lower pressure.
- Performance benefit (speed and handling) vs butyl tubes. There seems to be some debate on this one. From what I could gather there was parity with latex tubes. I honestly had never heard of latex tubes until this thread. <strike>but I personally immediately discarded the idea as they seemed to pinch flat easier and lose pressure much faster. </strike>.
Edit: this comment wasnt true. See white papper from Vittoria where it was found latex tubes are slightly more durable than butyl but dont hold air as well which over the course of a single race isnt a big deal unless you have a slow leak I suppose. I'll update my comment
https://www.vittoria.com/us/en/white-paper - Better ride quality. Tubeless tires work best with 1) larger tires 2) lower pressures. These two conditions lead the tires to seal punctures more effectively. It seemed the range for pressures was around 50-80 psi vs say 100-120 for tubed 25s. There was some debate about if this got you T2 less fatigued. Sounded plausible to me.
- Puncture resistance to small problems. Running over small debris (nails, burrs, small shrapnel, etc) can cause punctures through the tire that let air escape.
- With tubed tires these punctures immediately puncture your tube and you get a flat quickly thereafter requiring you to stop and put a new tube in.
- With tubeless the sealant will rush out with the air and if the puncture is small enough seal the hole without you having to stop. In these cases, you might never know you got a puncture until you get home.
- If it gets worse and doesn’t seal to the point where you notice you an stop and rotate the puncture to the 6 oclock position to allow the sealant to do its work
- If that doesn’t work, you can use a plug to help it seal
- At this point you can air up again with co2/mini pump or continue riding. Rider’s choice. Its possible additional pressure could cause the puncture to reopen. Many got to t2 or home on very low pressures after punctures.
- Recommendation was a dynaplug. They even had a neat option that combined with a co2 cannister.
- If a plug doesn’t work then your option is call home, DNF, or install a tube. I believe you’d also want to install a tire patch to the inside of the puncture before you do this. This is where the ability to get a tire off and back on with hands/tire lever is important as you’ll not have clamps/air compressor road side!
Cons of tubeless
- Expense! Tires are more, wheels are more, sealant cost (minimal), valve core replacements (minimal)
- Additional maintenance, see above
- Some tires/wheels don’t mesh and are hard to install. IMO this shouldn’t be here as I’d not accept a tire/wheel install that isn’t easy, but it gets a mention.
- Can be frustrating when it doesn’t work. There are a lot of install steps that need to go well to get a good seal and are very prone to user error, especially for beginner cyclists.
Personal Conclusion So, will I be going tubeless with my new aero wheels? I’m going to try it over the next few months. TBD if it’s a long-term commitment for me. The worst case is I run tubes again as all tubeless wheels can be used with regular clincher tires and tubes. This thread was enough to get me to try it. Without it I’d still be fretting about a pinch flat every time I go out.
Let me know if I missed anything or summarized anything incorrectly and I’ll happily update it.