Orange Seal
I don’t know if Orange Seal has been incredibly awesome or that I’ve just been super lucky but I’ve gone maybe 1.5 years / 8K miles without a single flat. I’ve replaced the rear GP5000 once now so I’m on my second one.
Typically I’d usually get 2-3 pinhole prick flats per year so it’s entirely possible I didn’t even notice them if I got them.
I’ve not seen nor heard of any convincing reasons to use sealants other than those sold by Stans or Orange Seal…
Once a month 
You’d think they were selling the stuff 
seriously the dipstick doesn’t lie… in our riding and garage temps (where bike lives), I actually need to add some Orange Seal regular about every 30-40 days. In my experience that is roughly 20ml once a month.
Max 1w difference per tire? Yeah I’ll keep adding more than recommended.
Someone on my ground ride got a tubeless flat today. It was a piece of glass that left a 3/8 inch slit in the tire. We tried to plug it. The first one popped out quickly. We installed second plug deeper and it popped out after a mile of riding.
Is there a trick to getting a plug to stay put?
After thinking about it, one problem is that we didn’t have anything to trim the plug with. It was brushing the bottom of the brake caliper which probably helped pull it out.
I didn’t check what pressure was put in the tire but I was thinking after that we should have left it at 50-60 psi to give the plug time to glue to the tire without having too much pressure pushing on it.
Any other tricks?
Which type of plug? strips work a little better if you twist before removing the tool, low pressure to continue is best of course (same for a puncture that wont quite seal, ride around on it a while at low pressure helps)
But, if its too big to plug then its too big to plug, it happens
Some kits come with small and large plugs or strips. Sounds like you needed the larger size. I’ve never tried it but if the gash is larger enough you could try to put two smaller plugs in the gash. And the lower pressure the better.
They were MaXalami bacon stripes. We did use the large size. And I twisted it.
The first time I didn’t push it in far enough and it quickly blew out. The second try, I pushed it in deep but there was still a little bit hitting the brake bridge which I suspect may have helped push it out. I think I’ll add a trimmer to my repair kit.
I wasn’t the person doing the pumping and the person did it with CO2 so they may have put it too much pressure.
I guess I was under the impression that a bacon strip plug would eventually become a permanent repair but I saw no evidence of any vulcanization to the tire. It feels like the sealant actually lubricates the whole and makes it easier for it to pop out.
Maybe I should cough up the money for a Stan’s Dart repair kit. I’ve yet to have to plug a GP5000 (over 2 years now) but I’d really like something more fullproof in case I’m 20 miles from home.
That’s a very small bike! 
I would not rely on the bacon strip type product to do any sort of “vulcanization”…
I have used the larger car tire ones on a car before as a temporary fix before getting them properly fixed with a plug-patch. The car ones include some cement/fluid chemical to use with the bacon strip (probably the same sort of chemical used when patching an innertube). This is not included with the bike-specific bacon strips that I’ve seen, and probably would not work since bike tubeless would have tire sealant liquid spewing out.
I do currently use darts, and have riding buddies who use dynaplugs too - for the correct size puncture, the retention is more positive due to the design of the dart/plug tip. No issues IMO relying on them as a permanent, effective fix for my tubeless bikes, provided the puncture is within limits.
I’ve been reading this thread with great interest. I am still old school with tubes. I am almost sold on tubeless, however, I do have a few reservations I can’t seem to overcome. I ride outside once a week sometimes twice a week during the summer. I don’t race bicycles, for me the bike is enjoyment. Once October rolls around I stay indoors until March / April. Is this bad for tubeless tires to just sit there with sealant?
Tubeless seem to be more work and expense. Adding sealant every couple of weeks, checking sealant levels, etc. Sounds like changing a tire is a huge mess with sealant in the tire. The hardest part to get correct is putting the tire on. If the tire is not on correct you lose air quickly and possibly sealant.
I guess what I am asking is being able to run lower pressure worth the hassle? I can get lazy with bicycle maintenance with everything else in life.
I feel like we might just be the same person as I’m going through the exact same questions myself with a very similar riding profile!
I can’t justify the extra hassle of tubeless at this stage so I’m sticking with tubes and making sure I carry a spare tube and repair kit on outside rides.
Sure, I’d like to run a little lower pressure and I’d like some extra protection for smaller punctures but overall, I don’t think its worth it yet for me.
From my brief research, it seems like the jury is still out on using tubeless for widths less than (say) 28mm as the sealant isn’t as efficient at sealing punctures with the higher pressures required for narrower road tyres.
Asking these questions in this thread, just about everyone is going to tell you it’s worth it. Whether or not you believe them is up to you.
FWIW, I’m same boat, except I do race. Outside 2x week and indoors 3x per week for the last few years. Four flats running latex tubes in GP5000 in two years. One I had to call an Uber. One in a race (wheel swap and right back in).
BUT: the people I know who run tubeless have had flats that don’t seal, have to install tubes or plugs anyway, etc etc. I don’t see the real benefit on a road bike, personally. But I acknowledge I’ll be in the minority in this thread.
Now, when I get back into Tris, and chasing Ironman, I will almost certainly run tubeless on my TT bike. But road and crit/circuit racing and riding, not doing it.
You should pass for now. It’s not like you can run road tubeless at that much lower pressure especially if you are using 25mm tires. I can run maybe 5 psi lower.
Yes, they do require maintenace, new skills, and an attention to detail.
That said, I haven’t gotten a flat in over 2 years (GP5000TL). I think I haven’t even noticed those 2-3 tiny pin prick flats I’d get every year. They probably just self sealed. I’ve been lucky to not have had a slit tire to deal with.
I started riding 5+ years ago and immediately found out that this area is like the Bermuda Triangle for flats because of “goat head” thorns from April thru November:
So rather than deal with double flat days, and up to 20 flats a season, I run tubeless. Because I like to ride my bike, outside, at least 100 miles/week. Just about a month ago on Wed night group ride I helped someone fix a flat, and then 2 miles later he had to fix a flat on the other tire. That doesn’t happen often, in one ride, but it is not uncommon.
Somewhere I posted a pic of a 26c tire that would have had 20 flats over 2000+ miles, but I didn’t have to stop once. So from my 4 years of research in the field, tubeless at 26c works just fine (Orange Seal).
Totally understand not running tubeless if you live somewhere where that isn’t a problem. It is a hassle running tubeless, but less of a hassle than picking up small thorns and hearing phhhiiiiissshhhh and having to pull over for the umpteenth time.
Think you have the wrong impression. I’ve been running tubeless on all my bikes, including road for a few years. It’s not more hassle than tubes. I add (not check, just add) sealant 2-3 times a year. Just take the valve core out and put more in. Changing tyres isn’t as hard as you think - if you use a pump with an airtank (or a compressor), its easy and mess-free (pump until you hear it ping, check the bead to see it’s really seated, deflate, add sealant through the valve stem, put valve in, inflate). Granted if you awap between different tyres all the time, it might be more hassle, but nobody does that really on the road.
Most small punctures seal without a plug. You don’t even notice them. If not, put a plug in, if thay doesn’t work, you can still put a tube in. But I had to do that once in about 5 years, and that was because the valve broke.
Tubeless for me is less hassle - just ride, don’t think about it. Be assured you can ride over hedge cuttings or through brambles without fear of puncturing.
This makes much sense - if I was in an area like yours, flatting all the time, I’d be sick of puncture hassle and so any extra faff for setup/maintenance of tubeless would be more than offset by the benefits. 
I seem to be the polar opposite i terms of frequency of flats: since returning to the bike ~3 1/2+ years ago I think I’ve had one flat, and that happened overnight. Given that, and my “low hassle” preference for everything in life, it seemed a no brainer for me to stay with tubes - for now!
For road comfort, I’ve now settled on 30-32mm (largely, 32mm GP5000s) tyres if the bike can accommodate them (28mm otherwise, but that lesser volume is noticeable), with pressures like 50/55PSI, and this year switched to thermoplastic tubes (Aerothans). These are super pricey, but since I very rarely flat, seemed justifiable. They seem to weigh less than the volumes of sealant that some people are using on tubeless, and their small size makes them easily packable as a spare.
For my circumstances, of having very few flats and wishing to minimize ownership hassle, not racing just cruising around with my pals etc, this seemed like a reasonable solution to getting improved comfort, possibly reduced rolling resistance vs butyl (although I would never be able to detect that! 
), while keeping a lid on weight and size of spares etc.
It’s good that there’s choice - up to us to figure out the options that work best for our situations.
I lived in New Mexico for the last couple of years and I guess it was the Area 51 of goat heads. On my gravel bike I could literally get 20 flats per ride per tire. With sealant, they’d all just be little pin pricks and drops of sealant coming through and they would seal fast.
