Hey Jon, can you expand on this? I can 100% see being careful working with tubes when you’re using hookless, e.g. carefully monitoring pressure as if doing tubeless inflation. But I’ve never heard of an issue with using tubes with hooked rims, e.g. never seen manufacturer’s warnings.
For nearly a decade now I’ve regularly used Vittoria Corsa Speed tires with latex tubes on the track and on the road with zero issue…on Flo, Zipp, HED, and Reynolds wheels…
Great question. Yes, primarily in the hookless department it is a no go and unsafe so this needs to be considered and will be based on the wheel being used.
With a hooked rim you are generally fine but your rolling resistance will suffer greatly. Racing in this situation you’re giving up a ton. Obviously a flat in a race likely means you’re out of competition but I’m just pointing out the major issues on the Crr side with tubes in tubeless tires.
I’m assuming you meant hooked and one is running a butyl tube and not latex?
Thanks for the catch. Early morning typing. Yes, hooked. My conversations with Continental have led to the issues with tubes in tubeless tires. While I cannot say I have personally tested a latex tube in a tubeless tire I do trust the team a Continental.
Had tubeless/hookless for 3 months, no disasters yet and some pretty hard riding.
Jon, can you clarify? You’re saying that even on a hooked rim, a tubeless tire (assuming TLR, not tubeless only) with a tube in it (let’s assume latex), that RR will suffer greatly?
I started a thread on this topic recently and was getting info that basically the difference is negligible.
That’s my understanding as well. Here’s BRR’s test of tubeless vs. a bunch of different tubes on the 5000S TR.
Tubeless wins by a little bit over latex - but just a few tenths of a Watt @29KPH. That might go out to near a Watt at 40K TT speeds, but that’s still not a lot.
I don’t have links at hand, but I think a few other independent sources have suggested the same thing…that the difference between latex and sealant is not much at all.
Yes, I have not personally tested this. All of this was based on a conversation I had with Continental. The design of the tubeless tires is not meant for tubes and I was told it impacts the rolling resistance. I would however love to see this tested.
Swiss side and DT swiss, which work closely with continental recommend TPU tubes on their wheels. To the point your have the option to buy the already installed in there wheels.
However, I checked with both and they would recommend the non tubeless gp5000 for similar RR and lower weight for that setup.
I guess that has been tested and is coordinated with continental too. For those that do not know, both have hooked wheels.
Yes, I would agree with what you are saying. We also use hooked wheels for safety and customer tire selection reasons.
What I am saying is different. I am stating that a tube in a tubeless tire creates an increase in rolling resistance vs. straight tubeless or tires designed by tubeless.
Again, I haven’t tested this, the information was given to me from Continental.
I understand you may not be at liberty to share specifics of your conti conversations, but what you’re saying conflicts with BRR and aero coach, who HAVE tested this and said the difference is either negligible or there is absolutely no difference in rolling resistance.
If this has been studied I’d love to see the link. As I mentioned this was in a conversation and not something I’ve tested.
So reading this article from BRR it appears to support the conversation I had with Continental. Especially on the butyl side. The conclusion states it doesn’t makes sense to use tubes with a tubeless tire. Am I missing something here?
I have a set of tubeless wheels that I have not been bold enough to try and set up yet
I did not know about the humidity. I live in a desert where the humidity is around 8% or lower most of the year - can you expand on what I’d need to keep an eye on?
If I am mostly training on a trainer and wheels are sat, how frequently should I ride them, what do I need to do to keep them / sealant in good condition
You said that rolling resistance will suffer greatly and that you’d give up a ton racing that way while BRR show the difference is only 0.2w with a latex tube and Aerocoach show no difference, so that’s probably where the disconnect is.
Except for some Veloflex tires and a few others pretty much all the low CRR options are tubeless ready at this point so for anyone not wanting to ride tubeless, but still want a fast tire, the most likely choice will be a tubeless ready tire with a latex tube.
It does, although I think you’re conveniently avoiding all of the other statements/conclusions as well. from aerocoach, “There is also overall no difference in rolling resistance between the same tyre set up tubeless, and using a latex tube.”
and, I think you’re avoiding with BRR’s article, the results for latex tubes. we all know butyl is slower than latex. it is not up for discussion that tubless is faster than butyl tubes. but if we assume and look at the data for a latex tube, their test shows a 0.5w difference between a GP5000 S TR set up tubeless vs. a latex tube. This is essentially negligible, in terms of amount of additional RR.
I 100% agree that a butyl tube is slower. and if you take BRR’s conclusion statement (that tubeless is less RR) 100% literally and in a vacuum, yes it supports your position and the conversation you had with conti. But…with latex tubes (which anyone who cares about this discussion, is probably using latex tubes over butyl if they’re using tubes) it’s just half of one watt better according to this test. I would not call that “major” or “suffering greatly”, terms you used above.
I always get a kick out of the some of the responses when relaying information to people or adding something to the ring that others may not know. A conversation I had with Continental in 2020 seems to hold true. Maybe on the version of GP 5000 at that time the results were worse. Again, I stated I have not tested this and it was mentioned in conversation. Tubeless is still the fastest option.
If you’d like to settle on the fact that I’m conveniently avoiding something that’s fine. However, most people I know, especially on this form do care about 0.5 watts. In fact my business and podcast looks for 0.5 watts. I’ve worked with 80 year olds trying to make a cut off to qualify for Kona and world record holders in different categories. I do know 0.5 watts has helped them achieve their goals.
Let me begin by saying that of all the brands in the tri/cycling space, yours is one that I hold in very high regard for what you do and how you engage with the community. we need more brands like flo. and i recognize the value and effort you put forth to be on these forums and share information like this. please do not take any of this personally, this is more a reply to the industry in general, which you are a part of.
This reply frustrates me, as a consumer, quite a bit. you didn’t mention that the conversation with conti was 4 years go (sorry if i missed). agree that is a very relevant detail given the different models that were available at the time. however, what i was trying to get at in the other thread i created to discuss RR differences, and now with our discussion, is that I have become unconvinced that tubeless is ALWAYS definitively/significantly faster than tubes. i am a typical ST’er, i go after latest gear and all that and honestly, i have tried tubeless twice (2020, and 2023) with different wheel/tire setups each time, and each time i have chosen to go back to tubes. combination of factors, and that’s not relevant to this conversation. what is relevant, is that there are those among us that still prefer tubes. some brands recognize this (like flo) and others dont (like zipp, who essentially only produce hookless rims which mandate tubeless tires).
to me, tubeless is great for puncture protection, especially as tire widths get beyond 28 or 30 mm, and with gravel etc. i 100% recognize that. but, for many of us who ride road, and are running 28 or 30 mm tires, it appears that right now, the best estimate is that tubeless saves you 0.5 w. while i don’t discount your tale, i maintain that for 99% of riders and riding situations, 0.5 w will not matter significantly. and it is not even close to enough for me to “endure” living with tubeless on a day to day basis.
Essentially, i fear that the industry has pulled a fast one on us and said “tubeless is ALWAYS faster”. when in fact, in reality, for many people and many riders, it is at most a negligible difference and tubes are not significantly slower. and in this situation, the benefit of tubeless boils down to flat protection. on clinchers i’ve gotten maybe 5 flats in 10 years of riding, so for me i don’t care about that. heck, specialized sponsored teams in the world tour run clinchers whenever we see turbo cottons out there. yes i know that’s a sponsorship thing too but the point holds. if clinchers were slow enough such that they were not competitive versus other teams, they probably would not use them (or would ask specialized to make a better tubeless tire by now, which doesn’t seem to be the case).
In the end, i just want to create conversation about RR differences between tubeless and tubes, because as noted in this and other thread, there is a surprising lack of info out there on it. thanks for providing your insight, i truly appreciate it!