Tannus flatproof tires early review - they work great!

Triathlon Forum
1

Just a brief early review of my Tannus tires after using them on a bunch of commutes and workouts now.

These are flatless, solid tires. I needed something like this since I can’t afford to flat on a commute to work on my road bike nor afford to flat during a 1hr lunch workout where I ride around work.

I purchased the Tannus Pro Elite wheelset where the tannus is preinstalled on the wheelset and you get the whole thing for around $320. You do still need to add a cassette, but that’s it. I can’t comment on self-installation of these, but I know they are NOT the kind of thing that comes on/off - they go on once and stay there permanently. (No swapping back to road tubes)

The big question everyone asks - how slow are they compared to normal wheels/tubes? Answer is, probably about 1-1.5 mph slower for the same power. It’s hard to say exactly as it seems to vary a bit on terrain, speed, and even temperature (foam warming), but on my overall end-of-ride stats, for similar power, it’s usually close to 1mph, or about 2-3 minutes slower per hour at 20mph average. Sometimes it’s as low as 1 minute, and sometimes up to 4 minutes. I suspect at faster paces, like downhills at 25+mph, there’s more of a speed penalty, and at slow paces on hills, less of a penalty, as that’s what I’m noticing.

Ride quality for me is very stiff, but fine. You’ll notice the stiffness and harshness of the ride, but in no way has it been limiting or even annoying. It’s very similar to a stiff carbon racing bike feel.

Handling has been spot-on no problem. I have only ridden in dry conditions, but I have required zero adaptation for handling, seems to grip the road well, no adjustments from my Contis GP5000s.

Too early to judge durability, but I did have a screw get deeply embedded on a ride, so deep I coudn’t even remove it with a key as a lever while on the road - had to ride it home with the clackety clack of the screw, then it came out using a screwdriver. No problems riding before or after.

Do I get annoyed with the speed hit? Nope! I train almost entirely solo on the bike, and it hasn’t bothered me one bit! In fact, I actually like training solo with the Tannus tires on my road bike since it keeps the speed lower for power (safer). I do ride my TT bike with full aero (including disc wheel) on weekends, so I know what a fast bike is supposed to feel like - that’s fun too but the simplicity of the Tannus is great. In particular, I can still ride zone2 power on downhills with my Tannus tires, whereas on my super aerobike, many of the same downhills are too fast for me to pedal in z2 safely.

In summary, these airless tires seem to work great, with a 1-1.5mph speed hit. It’s obviously not going to be a viable choice for racing or hanging with a fast group ride, but these are fabulous for no-fuss training, and even have their advantages like better downhill power training, and also allowing you to ride with riders that might be otherwise too slow for you. For the purposes of commuting or a 1hr lunch ride where you absolutely cannot flat, they’re perfect.

Would definitely recommend.

2

Thanks for posting this. I find this type of information very helpful. I have been thinking about buying a set, but solely for having to not worry about ever changing a flat tire. I ride solo quite often, and on longer rides when I am far from home, I admit to being nervous about flatting and having an issue changing the tire. I am not great on fixing anything on a bike, so for me the Tannnus tire offers a big advantage. I could not care less about a minor speed loss, because I don’t race.

3

You will love these tires - sounds like they were made for you.

I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

For sure, they’re not the awful slow messes that people who’ve never used them often throw out there. I usually finish top 15% or higher on the bike in triathlons, and they’re totally fine for training for me - I’m really looking forward to using them a lot, with no flats to worry about. (Again, I’m quite capable at flat changes - I spent nearly 3 hrs last week testing and practicing inflation and changes on my disc wheel with over 8 inflation products, 6 of which are being returned since they aren’t good enough.)

4

I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

I think is has to do with the perception of how big of a deal a flat tire is. I probably average less than 1 flat a year out on the road and it takes a couple of minutes to repair. I’m not really willing to trade off much of anything to solve what I perceive as a rare, minor inconvenience.

5

I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

I think is has to do with the perception of how big of a deal a flat tire is. I probably average less than 1 flat a year out on the road and it takes a couple of minutes to repair. I’m not really willing to trade off much of anything to solve what I perceive as a rare, minor inconvenience.

Yes, that can def be true.

Still, I literally had 4 flats in the past 5 months, and that’s not even counting the screw into the Tannus tire. I do go long stretches like a year with no flats, but all that doesnt matter - if you’re commuting to work, or doing that tight noontime workout, ONE flat is already way too many.

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I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

I think is has to do with the perception of how big of a deal a flat tire is. I probably average less than 1 flat a year out on the road and it takes a couple of minutes to repair. I’m not really willing to trade off much of anything to solve what I perceive as a rare, minor inconvenience.

Yes, that can def be true.

Still, I literally had 4 flats in the past 5 months, and that’s not even counting the screw into the Tannus tire. I do go long stretches like a year with no flats, but all that doesnt matter - if you’re commuting to work, or doing that tight noontime workout, ONE flat is already way too many.

I guess it also has to do with the perception of how big a deal is to miss five minutes of a workout or get to work a few minutes later.

7

Thanks for honest review. First time I got the tires, had some one do the install. But I am an engineer, so would be damned if I didn’t try myself. First attempt was PITA especially if you use their recommended tools. Found that a good flat head and butter knife do the job better. I have pushed the tires to 10k+ miles

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I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

I think is has to do with the perception of how big of a deal a flat tire is. I probably average less than 1 flat a year out on the road and it takes a couple of minutes to repair. I’m not really willing to trade off much of anything to solve what I perceive as a rare, minor inconvenience.

This. I am willing to take the slight risk of a flat in order to not deal with the harshness of a solid tire. It’s just not a big concern of mine. Now if I lived somewhere that had a lot of risk of flats from glass, or thorns or something, maybe my calculus will change. But for me, flats are such a rare occurrence that I don’t see any benefit from something like this. I only see downsides.

9

Fair enough.

The reality for most though, is that it is NOT going to be a 5 minute tire change. I’d say average I’ve seen and even done myself 10-20 minutes. Heck, I practiced all my flat changes and I never did one in faster than 10 minutes on the road, even with CO2, recently, and I’m pretty good at it from all the practice.

5 minutes is like super, super fast on the road, even with CO2. If everything went perfectly, sure, can happen, but I literally have never had a ‘perfect’ change. If you use a hand pump, fuggetabout it.

And it you get a sidewall rip, which happened to me in the middle of a freaking 70.3 race one year, it’s even worse. (Yes, I know you can boot it, but usually by the time you figure out it’s a sidewall rip, you’ve blown through all your tubes.)

NOTE - I’m def not recommending everyone run out and swap out all their air tubes for Tannus, no way! But it’s really, really nice to have that ‘can’t-fail’ (not Gatorskins LOL) wheelset when you’re short on time, especially with shorter workouts, and just can’t have anything go wrong.

10

No way I’d use these for racing/training. Heck, I train on latex tubes because I love the responsiveness.

However; for short work commutes, lunch rides, errands, etc. these seem like a great choice. I do my “last mile” commute to and from the light rail on a fixie, so it’s about convenience and durability, not speed.

11

Several years back I put them on my bike for some sprint races. I was travelling home to the UK from Europe for them, spending quite a bit of money, and I was paranoid about it all being for nothing due to a puncture. I thought they felt ok comfort wise to ride on, but I was slower than previously, it seemed like everyone was just cruising past me.

12

No way I’d use these for racing/training. Heck, I train on latex tubes because I love the responsiveness.

However; for short work commutes, lunch rides, errands, etc. these seem like a great choice. I do my “last mile” commute to and from the light rail on a fixie, so it’s about convenience and durability, not speed.

I too do my ‘key’ or ‘big’ bike workouts - on a TT bike, TT helmet, disc wheel, and latex tubes. It’s fun to go fast.

And yes, they’re great for convenience and durability. Doesn’t mean you can’t do hard workouts on them though, I’ve found. They go PLENTY fast - just not maximum fast. I’m quite sure I wouldn’t drop a ton of places in a race if I was forced to race on these - a speed hit from 22mph to 21mph for Oly-HIM still leaves you well ahead of the MOP. Heck, even 20mph is still well ahead of MOP.

Obviously I’m not going to leave that free speed on the table though - I would literally NEVER race in these, because I want that last 0.1mph!

13

No way I’d use these for racing/training. Heck, I train on latex tubes because I love the responsiveness.

However; for short work commutes, lunch rides, errands, etc. these seem like a great choice. I do my “last mile” commute to and from the light rail on a fixie, so it’s about convenience and durability, not speed.

There’s no way I’d consistently ride a bike that had no ability to adjust the stiffness and improve the ride quality, let alone a bike that was slow. If I was primarily concerned about road quality and flats, I’d probably ride a mountain bike with good sealant.

14

No way I’d use these for racing/training. Heck, I train on latex tubes because I love the responsiveness.

However; for short work commutes, lunch rides, errands, etc. these seem like a great choice. I do my “last mile” commute to and from the light rail on a fixie, so it’s about convenience and durability, not speed.

There’s no way I’d consistently ride a bike that had no ability to adjust the stiffness and improve the ride quality, let alone a bike that was slow. If I was primarily concerned about road quality and flats, I’d probably ride a mountain bike with good sealant.

I’ve ridden mtn bikes plenty before.

You will SMOKE a typical mtn bike with a road bike+tannus on roads (assuming they’re not weirdo super steep ones). It won’t even be close.

Everyone loves to harp upon how ‘slow’ these things are, but they are not slow. They are 1-1.5mph slower than your typical road bike speed with GP5000 tires.

I’m posting this review largely in part to dispel the constant misinformation I saw here about ‘they’re so SLOWWW’. They are not. A 1mph speed is on par of what you’d see on a road bike going from the hoods to the drops, so if you’re going to say Tannus tires are that slow, you should be criticizing anyone and yourself if you’re doing any significant riding out of the drops on a road bike.

And stiffness and ride quality for a triathlon bike?! Pfffft - my Cervelo and my Premier tactical carbon bikes are just as harsh as these things. That’s considered normal harshness for triathletes on roads. I’m not interested in a comfort cruiser here!

15

No way I’d use these for racing/training. Heck, I train on latex tubes because I love the responsiveness.

However; for short work commutes, lunch rides, errands, etc. these seem like a great choice. I do my “last mile” commute to and from the light rail on a fixie, so it’s about convenience and durability, not speed.

There’s no way I’d consistently ride a bike that had no ability to adjust the stiffness and improve the ride quality, let alone a bike that was slow. If I was primarily concerned about road quality and flats, I’d probably ride a mountain bike with good sealant.

I’ve ridden mtn bikes plenty before.

You will SMOKE a typical mtn bike with a road bike+tannus on roads (assuming they’re not weirdo super steep ones). It won’t even be close.

**Everyone loves to harp upon how ‘slow’ these things are, but they are not slow. They are 1-1.5mph slower than your typical road bike speed with GP5000 tires. **

I’m posting this review largely in part to dispel the constant misinformation I saw here about ‘they’re so SLOWWW’. They are not. A 1mph speed is on par of what you’d see on a road bike going from the hoods to the drops, so if you’re going to say Tannus tires are that slow, you should be criticizing anyone and yourself if you’re doing any significant riding out of the drops on a road bike.

And stiffness and ride quality for a triathlon bike?! Pfffft - my Cervelo and my Premier tactical carbon bikes are just as harsh as these things. That’s considered normal harshness for triathletes on roads. I’m not interested in a comfort cruiser here!

This is a bigger hit than going from aerobars to hoods. The thing is that for commuting, some training rides, etc. that hit really doesn’t matter; and the convenience of not having to carry a spare or even worry about a flat makes it a good trade. Basically, everyone is right :), just different relative perspectives.

Doing some back-of-the-envelope math, seems they increase the overall frictional losses (rolling resistance, drivetrain friction, etc.) by ~75%; it’s just that at 20mph these are only 20% of total losses (80% is aero).

16

It’s less about avoiding flats, and more about never having to take ANY time to inflate a tire, and the peace of mind knowing they won’t be flat when you return to your bike.

I don’t train on them, but they’re perfect for commutes or running errands.

17

I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

I think is has to do with the perception of how big of a deal a flat tire is. I probably average less than 1 flat a year out on the road and it takes a couple of minutes to repair. I’m not really willing to trade off much of anything to solve what I perceive as a rare, minor inconvenience.

Yup same. I think I went 2 years without a flat on average roads with Conti 4000s, now 5000s. If I was flatting once a month I’d consider something different but i would have thought Gatorskins would be preferable to flatproof tyres?

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I’ve ridden mtn bikes plenty before.

You will SMOKE a typical mtn bike with a road bike+tannus on roads (assuming they’re not weirdo super steep ones). It won’t even be close.

Everyone loves to harp upon how ‘slow’ these things are, but they are not slow. They are 1-1.5mph slower than your typical road bike speed with GP5000 tires.

I’m posting this review largely in part to dispel the constant misinformation I saw here about ‘they’re so SLOWWW’. They are not. A 1mph speed is on par of what you’d see on a road bike going from the hoods to the drops, so if you’re going to say Tannus tires are that slow, you should be criticizing anyone and yourself if you’re doing any significant riding out of the drops on a road bike.

And stiffness and ride quality for a triathlon bike?! Pfffft - my Cervelo and my Premier tactical carbon bikes are just as harsh as these things. That’s considered normal harshness for triathletes on roads. I’m not interested in a comfort cruiser here!

You’re not dispelling the misinformation very effectively by posting a fixed “mph” decrease, by previously using average commute speed changes to compare, and posting other threads that put into question your data-gathering on the bike (e.g., that crank thread).

You also fixate on the bike (“carbon racing bike”, Cervelo, and Premier) when the reality is that you can easily improve the ride quality on those by lowering the tire pressure (and potentially lower rolling resistance), which you can’t with the Tannus tires.

19

I’ve ridden mtn bikes plenty before.

You will SMOKE a typical mtn bike with a road bike+tannus on roads (assuming they’re not weirdo super steep ones). It won’t even be close.

Everyone loves to harp upon how ‘slow’ these things are, but they are not slow. They are 1-1.5mph slower than your typical road bike speed with GP5000 tires.

I’m posting this review largely in part to dispel the constant misinformation I saw here about ‘they’re so SLOWWW’. They are not. A 1mph speed is on par of what you’d see on a road bike going from the hoods to the drops, so if you’re going to say Tannus tires are that slow, you should be criticizing anyone and yourself if you’re doing any significant riding out of the drops on a road bike.

And stiffness and ride quality for a triathlon bike?! Pfffft - my Cervelo and my Premier tactical carbon bikes are just as harsh as these things. That’s considered normal harshness for triathletes on roads. I’m not interested in a comfort cruiser here!

You’re not dispelling the misinformation very effectively by posting a fixed “mph” decrease, by previously using average commute speed changes to compare, and posting other threads that put into question your data-gathering on the bike (e.g., that crank thread).

You also fixate on the bike (“carbon racing bike”, Cervelo, and Premier) when the reality is that you can easily improve the ride quality on those by lowering the tire pressure (and potentially lower rolling resistance), which you can’t with the Tannus tires.

My info is good. It’s not a science experiment but it’s wayyy better than the true misinformation folks about these tires like “they’re so slowwwwww!!!” that people like you seem to continue to want to imply with literally zero data and zero use, unlike myself, who actually USES these things and posts about it, including with power data on my other thread. Again, you literally can’t pin it down exactly due to the nonlinear speed penalty drops, but on average it’s really 1-1.5mph for me for same power, which is way more precise and accurate than all the ‘it’s so slow’ people who only use anecdotes have been putting out. If anything’s not just suspect but outright WRONG, it’s your speculation that mtn bike with sealant is comparably fast. This is the kind of misinformation that this review is clarifying against.

My updated data isn’t just on commutes as well, it’s with multiple workouts, quality ones at that. And commutes. As I’ve said clearly, I’ve been using these for commutes AND training.

Not sure what’ you’re referring to about that crank-thread, but if it’s single vs double sided, that’s literally been done to death, I don’t need to defend that further. For triathlon which isn’t relying at all on short <1 minute power readings, SS is super accurate. My data across Kickr, (once warmed up) TWO unos, and prior PT hub all line up perfectly, literally down to what seems like the watt. If you want to continue to think that data is suspect, you can do so, but that absolutely isn’t the case for me. Others with SS and DS Faveros have confirmed I’m right about this.

I don’t deny you can improve ride quality with regular tubes. They’re also undeniably faster. And race worthy, whereas Tannus tires are not. And the Tannus tires are undeniable harsh, just not unusably so. These are real weaknesses in the Tannus I’ve identified accurately, and am not hiding. But for sure, they are NOT what most quasi-reviews have been saying, including on this thread, like they are so slow they slow you down like 2x, they’re so harsh they’ll break your spokes, they are unridably slow, etc.

I’ll go out there and say that my review so far is a LOT more helpful than any of the priors if you do a search on ST, be it good or bad for them.

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I’m surprised that it seems that virtually nobody uses these on these forums. Triathlon has a lot of solo bike training, and these fit the bill perfectly.

I think is has to do with the perception of how big of a deal a flat tire is. I probably average less than 1 flat a year out on the road and it takes a couple of minutes to repair. I’m not really willing to trade off much of anything to solve what I perceive as a rare, minor inconvenience.

Yup same. I think I went 2 years without a flat on average roads with Conti 4000s, now 5000s. If I was flatting once a month I’d consider something different but i would have thought Gatorskins would be preferable to flatproof tyres?

I LOLd at Gatorskins in one of my comments earlier because I used them for 2 years in the past and got the exact same number of flats I got for my n=1 compared to GP5000s. Yes, they’re thicker are harder to puncture, but a lot of things that flat you out go right through Gatorskins, and pinch flats from impact aren’t reduced at all by Gatorskins either. I ditched those because they didn’t make any difference aside from making me slower.

It may just be my bad luck, but I dont’ average 1 flat per year, not even close. If i did, I’d never have gotten these - I got these precisely because I flatted on one of my lunch workouts, and had flatted multiple times with my other regular tires in the past year (4 additional flats in my case - they seem to come in groups.) I’ve got like the most serious flat-kit out there as a result for my TT bike and I’ll almost guarantee I’ve spent hours more time practicing flat changes in preparation compared to nearly everyone here.

Again, these Tannus aren’t for everyone. For the typical person who doesn’t mind the inconvenience of a rare flat, there’s no reason to get them, and they ride inferiorly to normal tubes. I don’t use these at all my weekend or non time pressured weekday workouts because I would rather ride fast on my race bike (disc, latex, aerohelmet, usually) and deal with the flats if they happen. I do think I’ll bust them out occasionally for the 1hr-ish time-pressured weekday ride, as getting the race bike set up to go is def more annoying to setup due to latex tubes (requires repumping before each ride), disc wheel (one-handed annoying inflation every time with the latex tubes due to pump head fit) and helmet visor cleaning, etc. That’s what I did when I did a workout right when I got home, didn’t want to waste a minute because of family activities planned shortly afterwards was great to have to Tannus on my non TT road bike ready to go.