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Tubeless, nirvana or waste of time?

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  1. DaveC
    Member

    I have to start off by saying most of my cycles are 5-6 years older or more. I do maintain them but I've chosen to stick with tubes.

    What are your thoughts? Brill or brubbish?

    My experience of tubeless is :-
    Riding with a friend who got a thorn in his tyre, which once he had removed, needed pumping up and rolling around until it had sealed up

    Helping an Indian rider at the end of PBP in 2023 who didn't have a clue how to fix his flat tyre. After an age of attempting to get the tyre off the rim it turned out there was some sort of clamp on one side of the rim holding his tyre bead on tight, whilst the other side was more like the traditional rim which did allow the tyre to be freed enough to get a tube in though the latex (?) was very messy and he was fortunate so had a pair of players on my multi tool to remove the valve stem from the rim. I popped an inner tube in as he didn't have one and had been told he would never get a puncture!! No idea how he qualified for PBP?

    Then today riding in to PoP, I saw a lady walking her bike in Barnton saying her tube had ripped. I attempted to remove her tyre but the beads were well and truly glued to the rims, and I didn't want to scratch or damage her bike with my metal tyre levers. She told me she was walking to Stockbridge cycle shop! I suggested it was 3-5 miles and to call for a taxi!

    But in all my time having traditional tyres and tubes, I have never been stranded, unable to get even the most stubborn Schwab marathon off a rim. I tell a lie, I did have a very small pump once which wasn't enough to inflate a CX tyre in winter. I jogged from Crewe Told to Stockbridge to let them pump it up with their large track pump.

    Today's lady cyclist told me that her electric inflator had run out of power meaning she couldn't inflate the tyre. I did inflate her tyre but at 40psi it blew out a rubber stopper she had put in, in an attempt to repair a hole but her side walls were goosed anyway.

    So what are folks thoughts of tubeless. Have you ever got stuck as the gloop just bleeds out and can you get your tyre beads off the rim?

    Cheers, Dave (nearly good Samaritan) C

    Posted 2 days ago #

  2. Murun Buchstansangur
    Member

    Pretty similar thoughts to yourself DaveC. Like you, I ride audaxes etc and I know I would never trust tubeless enough to not carry tubes and all the gubbins as backup.

    I guess one thing tubeless takes out of the equation is pinch flats, though I always console myself that the tube has maybe sacrificed itself to prevent rim damage!

    Posted 1 day ago #

  3. gembo
    Member

    I had to help a chap at PoP today with a tyre that did have a tube. . He needed pliers to fix the valve. Which I was able to whip out. The pliers I mean, well was a wee monkey wrench. I think Tubeless are great until they fail and then they tend to be bad.

    Posted 1 day ago #

  4. Yodhrin
    Member

    Ironically enough I had a video pop up in my youtube feed the other day extolling the virtues of tubeless but also talking about this wonderous new product he'd been using with them with some comical name like "rim armour" or the like, which to me looked an awful lot like...an inner tube that just didn't occupy the whole volume of the tire lol. It was being positioned as an alternative to stuff like the Tannus foam inserts which can compress over time unlike an inflated insert, but it did make me wonder at what point you should really just give up the pretense and run tires with a puncture belt with normal tubes.

    For what it's worth and touching every bit of wood in range, I've not had a puncture in a couple of years since I started using the knobbly Marathon Plus tires and Tubolito inners.

    Posted 1 day ago #

  5. DaveC
    Member

    @Yodhrin,

    I remember when I first saw latex as a puncture filler. You still placed an inner tube in but cut completely the outside, so that the inner tube lined the rim and came up the tyre walls. Then latex was poured in and the tyre beed placed back on the rim and inflated. I guess this was for early adopters who didn't have newer rims and tape which hold air in?

    I think this may be a reasonable way forward as you get the benefit of liquid rubber to fill a small hole but don't have the complications of the rim being glued to the tyre beed?

    I'm sticking with tubes. At least it gives me something to do fixing them over the winter in the warmth.

    Posted 1 day ago #

  6. ejstubbs
    Member

    Once I saw the faff that was involved in the transition to tubeless, and noted that the sealant needs to be replaced on a regular* basis, I decided to stick with tubes.

    I've never had a pinch flat. I must not ride hard enough on the trails. Or maybe I'm just careful...

    * Not frequent, but regular - and, in fact, on a sufficiently non-frequent basis that I would almost inevitably forget to do it. Bear in mind that I'm the sort of person who has to set a reminder in Google Calendar to replace my toothbrush every three months.

    Posted 1 day ago #

  7. mcairney
    Member

    I've been running tubeless on my bikes for a few years now and my experience is that it will save you from numerous 'small' punctures (glass, thorns etc) but if you get something bigger that won't seal or a sidewall tyre then you'll still need to resort to a tube. And with the combination of tight tyre and wheel tolerances this is often easier said than done! I've just got a new pair of wheels for my gravel bike which I've still to convert to tubeless.

    Posted 22 hours ago #

  8. Dave
    Member

    I have tubeless MTB tyres and only just got around to replacing one, fitted in 2015 so not a bad innings and don't remember really having any issues.

    I briefly tried tubeless Rene Herse tyres on my commuter kind of 2016-2017 sort of era. Referenced in this old post on CCE actually.

    What's been surprisingly successful for me is the Slime inner tubes. Both our cargo bike and the other ebike have these fitted now and they have radically reduced the number of punctures, from very rare to practically unheard of. (In fact, I've now been commuting A70 / Lanark Rd / canal for 18 months and have no punctures, touch wood).

    The great thing about these tubes is that there's no mess or difficulty with the tubeless valve stem if you need to swap tubes, and you're not on crazy tight rim/tyre interfaces either. I can fit the tyres without levers and the tubes still seem to be effective more than a year in.

    Posted 8 hours ago #

  9. Baldcyclist
    Member

    Been running tubeless on bike I bought last year. Don't cycle as many miles as I used to so in 1000km or so not had any issues, or P's that I'm aware of. TBF I haven't been good at replacing sealant either.

    I do carry an electric pump, plugs, and also a spare TPU inner tube just incase, but not had to use (yet).

    First maintenance coming up, Gemini advised me after a year I probably wanted to take tyres off and reseal as the sealant is probably dry. It also told me my track pump may not be enough to reseat the tyres, so I may need an 'airshot' device to quickly inflate/reseat. Will advise on how nigtmarish/easy that is to do.

    More on large volume tyres than tubeless, but I used to run my 28mm M+s at 90-100PSI, and these 45mm tyres according to silca website should be inflated to 26psi - they run smooth and fast, and are very comfortable at that pressure, and that still baffles me!!

    Posted 8 hours ago #

  10. neddie
    Member

    Haven't tried tubeless, but it strikes me that it isn't for the convenience of cyclists, but more about selling more consumables and expensive stuff to them!

    New (expensive) tyres, valve, and rim tape
    New wheels (?)
    Sealant (consumable)
    CO2 inflator
    CO2 canisters (consumable)
    Additional servicing to change the sealant

    Capitalism showing its ugly hand...

    What happened to cycling being simple and independent?

    Posted 7 hours ago #

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