Another tubeless question; should i go tubeless on road?

Equipment
21

I’ve been riding tubeless on the road for several years now. I use Orange Seal, or sometimes Stan’s. Most of my historical miles were riding a set of Hunt 4 Season Rim Brake Wheels, and now I’m riding Hunt 44/54 Aerodynamicists. I’ve not had any tire more than 28C on either of these. The Aerodynamicist has an internal width of 20mm with an external width of 29 mm. The 4 Season Aeros are 19mm internal and 24 mm external.

I mention the wheels first because I think they usually have more to do with your success in SIMPLE tubeless than the tires do, unless you’re doing something stupid like running an absurdly loose older tire on a modern rimset, etc. Of course, your choice of sealant makes a big difference too. I’ve been 100% (no issues at all) with Orange Seal. I have had some issues with Stan’s original not sealing as well as I’d like around the rims on the older set, and I think that is just something to do with the original Stan’s formula. When I use Stan’s “Race Day”, it seals just fine, and no issues. Overall, I prefer Orange Seal.

Tire-wise, I usually ride Conti GP5000s, which mount up, seal, and then sustain just like a bike with tubes, without the tube leakage, etc. I run between 65 and 85 psi, depending on the day, the conditions, and whether I feel like having my *ss beat up while I ride or not. No drama, no difficulties, no BS. I have a set of the P-Zero Race TLR RS, (tubeless casing) which I havent mounted yet, but once I do, I’ll update with those results.

YMMV but I’ve never had one come off the rim, pinch flat, roll, burp, or anything of the like. (FYSA I’m 200 lbs, and have been over 230 with these setups.)

For the sake of supporting my own arguments, I will also point out that I run WTB ByWays on my Cross and Commuter bikes and they’ve never given me one inkling of trouble either. I have two bikes setup tubeless with 43mm ByWays and they just work.

I would never go back to tubes, ever. There is just no reason. My .02.

Dude. Do you commute on a road made of broken glass?

Two weeks isnt long enough to cause a problem. If youre in doubt. just give them a spin and a shake once a week to keep the pools from forming and drying out.

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23

i ride clinchers with tubes and i can change a flat in 5 minutes. my tubeless team mates, if the puncture or cut is too large, have to deal with A) going through one or more plugs and pray they work, or B) end up inserting a tube anyway, and C) the mess the sealant leaves behind and all over their clothes. no thank you.

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24

I’ve been tubeless across all my bikes since ~2018. TT bike on 28’s @ 65 psi, Road bike on 32’s @ 55psi, and mountain bikes in the 2.2-2.4 range @ ~20psi.

Somehow I’ve never flatted on the TT bike, outside of 1 time I ran over a piece of metal that cut the tire virtually in half and wouldn’t have been able to take a tube. On the road/mtb side I’ve put in a couple handfuls of plugs, but I’ve only had to install a tube once in all these years, on the road bike.

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25

Lots of thorns in my area.

I once stopped counting when I had 30 thorns in my front tire (I didn’t bother counting the rear). Every once in a while one of the thorns would shoot out and spray some sealant, but then seal up. Sounded funny going down the road until they all fell or broke off.

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26

I run my GP5000 AS TR 28s at 65psi and Silca sealant works perfectly, no issues at all. My race wheels have GP5000 S TRs 28s at 70psi, again no issues with sealant working.

27

I’m a convert to be honest - a surprising number of times last season at the end of races I could see the tell tale splashes of sealant on my (black) frame. On a new bike, but only real change this year is a second wheelset for social spins without inserts - just to give the option to tube in the event of a plug not sealing, even though that never happened last year (and can ride flat with the inserts anyway).

28

Hm,
I wonder, is there any bigger reasons to change that the puncture “protection” aspect.
I have only punctered maybee once in two years, so if that is the biggest upside im not ready to change the setup just yet i think

29

Tyre pressure also, and then in races the inserts mean I’m never left at the side of the road changing a tube, with a pump/ tube I would’ve had to carry. No ride flat option with tubes. But it depends on your roads - they can be pretty shocking here in Ireland, with little care shown when farmers are hedgecutting.

I’m know it’s an outlier case, but this year was the first year I did RVV tubeless, and the lower pressure made a massive difference on the cobbles, but also in the training spins on the back roads of Wicklow in the run up.

30

Absolutely.

Ive had zero flats with Tubeless, but then had very little punctures anyway when running tubes.

The benefit for me was the reduction in tyre pressure which literally converted the bike from jarring on 700x25’s @ 80PSI to comfortable on 700x28’s @45PSI

1 Like
31

Road tubeless is finicky. Probably wouldn’t recommend anything smaller than 28c. Before I knew what I was really doing, I had Maxxis High Roads and was getting flats nearly every other ride, specifically the rear tire. I dropped the pressures quite a bit more and the flat frequency thankfully reduced. But the poor rear tire had so many issues, I junked it after a 1000 miles. I still run a Maxxis on the front because it’s got plenty of life, but now have a P-Zero TLR Race on the rear and no flats since.

Moral of the story, use pressures lower than what you’re used to, even with road tubeless. Just know it takes some getting used to.

32

I have never had a flat on tubeless. I can see on the tyres that some holes have been filled with sealant so I am reasonably sure if I had not moved to tubeless I would have had some flats.

I ride 28s with ca. 60 psi.

33

Not every rider is sold on tubeless so do what you are comfortable with. Personally I will never go back to using tubes. The number of times that sealant has kept me rolling is much too valuable to give up. It can be a bit troublesome but honestly once you have a comfort level with it it is not really bad. All that said, again if you feel better simply running tubes then by all means do so.

2 Likes
34

I’m still happy riding tubulars on a Campagnolo Bora. No punctures and no maintenance. So I don’t worry about switching to something else :man_shrugging:t2:

Should you go tubeless? I would say if you are not comfortable with what you currently ride, give it a try.