I was using Orange Seal (regular formula) in my Vittoria Corsa Speed 23mm, and it failed to seal at 91 psi, spraying sealant out the puncture hole until the pressure inside the tire got down to around 40 psi, then it started to seal. I was just wondering if the Silca sealant will have the same problem for inflation pressures above 85 psi. Does anyone have related real world experience?
I’ve tested it at 100 psi and it sealed fine.
My experience is unless you are running 28C or larger tires, don’t bother with tubeless and/or sealant.
Get TPU tubes. They’re ultra light, low RR, highly resistant to puncture and they hold air as well as butyl tubes.
I was using Orange Seal (regular formula) in my Vittoria Corsa Speed 23mm, and it failed to seal at 91 psi, spraying sealant out the puncture hole until the pressure inside the tire got down to around 40 psi, then it started to seal. I was just wondering if the Silca sealant will have the same problem for inflation pressures above 85 psi. Does anyone have related real world experience?
I haven’t tried Silca, but the only sealant I have tried that could seal reliably above ~40PSI is Stan’s Race Sealant. Which as the name implies, is not great as an everyday sealant because it’s fantastic at sealing your valve stem.
Your experience is not atypical. In my ~5 years of 23-25mm road tubless I’d put it roughly at
45%: didn’t even know it punctured and sealed until I got home.
45%: down to ~30PSI, choose to limp home or stop quickly to throw in a plug and top up.
10%: @%#@*# full tube install and/or boot.
In my ~5 years of 23-25mm road tubless I’d put it roughly at
45%: didn’t even know it punctured and sealed until I got home.
45%: down to ~30PSI, choose to limp home or stop quickly to throw in a plug and top up.
10%: @%#@*# full tube install and/or boot.
I wonder where the 23mm tires fall in there. I’m starting to think there literally isn’t enough air in them to work tubeless. 25mm and larger seems OK.
As for TPU tubes, I’d suggest reading BRR’s recently updated review of them - including the “Comments” - https://www.bicyclerollingresistance.com/specials/tpu-inner-tubes
I wonder where the 23mm tires fall in there. I’m starting to think there literally isn’t enough air in them to work tubeless. 25mm and larger seems OK.
Most of my years experience was almost purely 23mm (though am now 25/28), so my approximation is largely 23mm-based.
They “worked” at 23mm well enough for me to easily justify the extra hassle of tubeless in exhange for much less time at the side of the road. Around half the flats involved me pulling over to get from 20-30PSI back up to 80+…but that’s still worth it for me. Superior to taking the wheel off, getting out the tire levers, etc.
i’ve only had one pucture with it. that was at about 70psi and it sprayed sealant for several minutes before finally sealing. it was only a pin prick hole so i was very surprised - i’d expect any sealant to plug that quickly. i did still have rideable pressure which surprised me given how long it was leaking for.
visually, the silca sealant seems to be very thin - like milk, not at all what i expected from “fibre foam”, neither foamy nor full of fibres.
i think i’ll be going back to muc-off. i’m not normally a fan of their products but the sealant works well in my experience
The best way to think about sealant performance is to think in probabilities… we have a test rig that punctures a tire every 10 degrees with a fixed puncture pin that can be changed out for size and shape.
If we look at 90psi and 5mm puncture pin, we see that SILCA sealant will (on average) seal ~2-4 of this punctures in 1 revolution, 26-30 of them within 4 revolutions and the other 2-4 within 6 revolutions and 0-1 not sealing at all.
With Stan’s that same test typically yields, 0 sealing in 1 revolution, 16-20 sealing in 4, 6-10 sealing in 6 revolutions and the remainder not sealing at all…
Orange Seal is slightly better but still 8-10 of the punctures won’t seal at all at those pressures for a 5mm pin…
I could go on with examples, we’ve done more that 80 tires worth of these tests during development with a dozen competitive sealants and all the variations of our own. What I can say is that we are statistically the best option out there right now, but of course, still not perfect.
The key things to remember here are that this is also lab testing, so thing that happen in the real world like the nail you ran over being covered in motor oil, or the razor blade shard you ran over cut ALL the casing fibers in both layers that it touched, etc, are likely to change outcomes in ways that are really hard to lab test with any consistency.
Finally, the hole you see is on average ~1/3 the size of the actual puncture for most cases, and if the puncture pin is sharp enough can be even less than that… ultimately it’s really all about how many casing fibers, and in how many layers of the casing were cut by the offending object so that’s where the variability comes in, even when using the identical puncture pin in lab testing.
I like to say that SILCA sealant is like counting cards in blackjack… especially at higher pressures, it can really bend the odds in your favor and really improve your chances of sealing for any given hole… but just like blackjack you can have odds 90% in your favor and still get a losing card, there just isn’t a 100% option (yet!).
Thanks for clarifying and that on Christmas! I was wondering if there are distributors for your brand in the EU of that everything is B2C?
Thanks.
Jeroen
Jeroen,
We work with Saddleback in the UK, Hartje in Germany and Benelux, Mohawk in France, and Mussette in Spain, plus we have either distritubutors or large retailers who distribute in most all of the smaller countries if you are outside of this list. Plus we sell consumer direct from www.silcavelo.eu
J
Thanks, I will contact Hartje next week.
I need to carry this ‘stuff’ ;-).
Jeroen