So last night during a training ride I hit a pothole and instantly flatted both tires. Got me thinking about the sealant discussion and am wondering if I should put sealant in my tubes all the time, prior to a race, or wait until I flat and then use it to get back on the road etc ? If I put it in my tubes now, will it help prevent a flat in a race two weeks from now ?
The pressure is to high for it to really seal. If it does seal it will be around 40psi enough to get you home, maybe. During a race it would add extra weight for almost no benefit. Run liners if you want to feel a little safer.
you might want to refer to the articles on the front page on this. whether you do or don’t use sealant probably impacts the kind of valve extenders you use. and, whether or not you ride with your race wheels all the time. it will also determine, probably, what kind of tubes you buy, that is, whether their cores are removable. and it also means you’ll probably want to invest it extra cores. none of this costs much. cores are $2. valve extenders are $6 or $10. but adding sealant to your strategy does alter the decisions you make when you choose these items.
First, sealant isn’t a panacea, and generally isn’t good at sealing pinch flats like in your pothole situation. It’s better at smallish puncture flats.
On the main page, Dan recommends only using sealant on race day because the sealant can clog the valve stem.
I run sealant all the time, in all tires. I don’t have problems with it fouling the valves, generally. Even long valve stems. I store the bikes valve-side up. It lasts about 2 months (for me) before the sealant dries up.
I estimate it seals about 2/3 of flats.
I don’t use it to fix flats on the road. Because, per the above, there’s a decent chance it won’t work. And then you have to change the tube anyway, in a mess of sealant. And I don’t see the sense of carrying both a spare tube and a can of pressurized sealant.
The can of sealant on race day makes perfect sense for tubulars, though.
The pressure is to high for it to really seal. If it does seal it will be around 40psi enough to get you home, maybe.
I’ve had them seal at much higher than 40PSI. And my seal rate has been about 2/3. And when the pressure does go <80PSI, you can just reinflate with CO2. I’ve never had sealant fail upon reinflation (knocking on wood).
During a race it would add extra weight for almost no benefit. Run liners if you want to feel a little safer.
Liners weigh about the same as sealant, but - I suspect - are far worse for rolling resistance. I’d speculate that running Gatorskins is easier than running strips, with probably the same benefits/drawbacks.
Sealant has no effect on rolling resistance and the weight is inconsequential. Even if it doesn’t seal until 40psi, topping it off with some c02 is way faster than changing the tube.
Liners are a good way to add rolling resistance though.
I disagree with what some have said. I use sealant all the time. I use orange. I put an once in each road tube, I can’t imagine somebody being worried about 2 extra onces. Orange will seal pinch flats in a heartbeat. With very little loss of air. I race tubulares in cross (but use more sealant) and have finished races with over 30 goats heads in the tires. Very little loss of air. I have one that had a 1/4 inch sidwall cut that did loose all air. But let the sealant dri and about 5 minutes latter I put air in it and I raced the rest of the season on it. Stans also works but not as well in my opinion the inflat stuff I never got to work but some people like it. I do use clinchers for road and did not have one flat last year.
I disagree with what some have said. I use sealant all the time. I use orange. I put an once in each road tube, I can’t imagine somebody being worried about 2 extra onces. Orange will seal pinch flats in a heartbeat. With very little loss of air. I race tubulares in cross (but use more sealant) and have finished races with over 30 goats heads in the tires. Very little loss of air. I have one that had a 1/4 inch sidwall cut that did loose all air. But let the sealant dri and about 5 minutes latter I put air in it and I raced the rest of the season on it. Stans also works but not as well in my opinion the inflat stuff I never got to work but some people like it. I do use clinchers for road and did not have one flat last year.
I added Orange to Vitorria Latex tubes on my race wheels just for this reason. Plus the better rolling resistance and ride quality.
Everyone should read the sealant test on slowtwitch. The conclusion I drew was that Latex tubes with sealant were superior in flat prevention. Butyl tubes were far less effective with sealant.
The tire’s job is to stop punctures from occurring. The 4000S is a good compromise for that purpose. A latex tube with sealant should allow you to keep riding, or require just a quick 30 second stop to “top off” the tube.
I think i put about 2oz in the rear and 1.5oz in the front… and 0.5oz on my basement floor, learning the best way to fill it.
So the only downside of Latex is slightly trickier to install, and you have to pump them in T1 the morning. I bought a little mini pump and a small pressure gauge (since the mini pump gauge is probably worthless).
only thing I’d add to the recommendations FOR using sealant is that for general “road” use, sealants like Slime contain small fibers which “seem” to help seal punctures at the higher pressures. General latex based sealants like Stans, Caffe… are great at the lower pressures for mtb/cx
ymmv
I use orange. I put an once in each road tube, I can’t imagine somebody being worried about 2 extra onces.
Read the ST article, purchased some Orange Seal and some removable core tubes. I am installing today for a race on Sunday. The article didn’t give an exact how but I assume:
Remove core.Insert sealantReplace coreInsert tube into tire.Ensure valve is at the top, pump tire.Spin wheel.Store bike with valve at top of wheel.
Anything else to take into account? Or any tips you can give me?
It doesn’t matter when you put it in tube. I perfer after it is in tire. I also have the valve at 9 or 3 oclock to put in sealant if doing it when the tube is all ready in tire. I dont store it in any position just make sure there is always air in it. I put about an once in each tube. I have one of the small bottles I keep refilling. That bottle is 2 onces. Also After I put in sealant and before putting core back in I blow into the valve stem to clear out any sealant in there.
It doesn’t matter when you put it in tube. I perfer after it is in tire.
Of course, that would make it a lot easier I imagine. Thanks for the info.
I just read the sealant test. What I got from it was that I think I’m going to try Orange sealant in my mountain bike tires and see how it goes. I’ve been using a mixture of Stan’s and Slime, two scoops Stan’s one scoop slime in my mountain bike tires for years. There are a lot of thorns on the trails by my house and if I ride with tubes I can end up with a flat every week. With Stan’s/Slime it’s no flats at all. With Stan’s alone I get the big latex booger in about 3 or 4 months. With the mixture, I full up in winter, add a scoop of Stan’s half way through summer, and clean it all out the next winter to start over again.
The mountain bikers say that Stan’s doesn’t work well in tubes. Greg’s test agrees with that. Stan’s needs oxygen to seal and the tube/tire combination must get in the way. Another thing is Stan’s and I imagine similar sealants don’t mix well with CO2 inflation. It dries it right up and all you have left is the big booger.
One thing I want to try is Ghetto road tubeless with split tubes and regular tires. I’m afraid though because blowing off a tire on the road is going to hurt a lot more than on the trail. If I get up my nerve, I’ll post up about it with the details.
I just started a thread about the following below and was curious if I could get some feedback from people who use sealant…
“Dumb question maybe. I read the article here on ST regarding tire sealants and I decided to give it a go for my next race. I purchased the Stans stuff and poured two ounces into my removeable core tubes and installed on my bike last night. When I install new tubes/tires I generally inflate to about 60-80 psi and then check to see if everything is sealing ok, which is what I did last night. As you can imagine when I went to re-inflate the sealant went everywhere including in my bike pump. Other than being messy, will this mess with my pump? Also, will it be messy pumping up my tires for the life of the sealant?”
When you say that the sealant dries up, how do you know. I put sealant in my latex tubes 3 months ago. The front wheel now feels like a car tire that is out of balance on the road. Is the sealant dried up in the tube? Is that just time to throw out that tube and start over? Does adding more sealant solve the out of balance issue?
When you say that the sealant dries up, how do you know. I put sealant in my latex tubes 3 months ago. The front wheel now feels like a car tire that is out of balance on the road. Is the sealant dried up in the tube? Is that just time to throw out that tube and >start over? Does adding more sealant solve the out of balance issue?
Yeah, 3 months is generally the expected life. No, adding more sealant doesn’t balance issues - dried sealant stays dried. I just throw out the tubes every 3-4 months.
I believe there are 2 kinds of sealant in the test that do not dry up.
Slime doesn’t dry up either… and it is available everywhere for cheap.
I’ve heard it doesn’t do that well in road tires because it takes longer to seal and you lose lots of pressure. But for small punctures I hope it would work well enough.
I run 25mm Conti GP4000s with what I believe is Stans (shop did it for me, so I only take his word). Haven’t (knock on wood) had a flat in 940 miles since Oceanside 70.3. The front core is starting to foul a bit, but still usable. I will be rotating my tires very soon and replacing the tubes while I’m at it and refilling with the orange stuff as ST article has written about.
Prior to these this wheelset, I was testing a set of wheels with 25mm Conti setup and Stans (same shop) and ran over some glass, heard the loud hiss and stopped the bike immediately. Upon stopping, the hissing stopped and I only loss some pressure (felt like it was maybe 65 psi). Quick shot of Co2 got me rolling again and never looking back. I turned the wheels in the next week, so I cannot say how long it held up etc.