Road tubeless with inserts - EF Pro cycling

Equipment
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Hey all. I listened to the recent Mitch Docker Life in the Peloton podcast over the weekend (episode 91 of the Cycling Podcast) where he interviewed his fellow cyclists and other members of the team around Strade Bianche and San Remo. Good listen. One of them was a mechanic discussing tyre set ups. He explained in some detail that they are running tubeless with tyre inserts and next to no sealant. Found this interesting as I’m aware of inserts in MTB but couldn’t find anything for road yet. He does mention he can’t go into much detail yet as it sounds like a development product. Maybe looking at this as the future to help with run flats? I think run flats are one of the reasons tubular still is preferred for pro riders.

For anyone interested in listening, it’s about 40mins in.

I’d be intrigued to see where this goes on the future as inserts seem quite popular in MTB. But I have no experience with them and only started running road tubeless this year. Thoughts?

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Could be interesting. Like you said, the ability of a tubular to stay on a rim when flat is one reason why most pros probably still prefer them in some capacity. You don’t want to be flying down a mountain and roll a tire off in a corner because of a flat. An insert could help a tubelesss set up avoid this. The issue there is the added weight. While it may not be as much of an issue in mtb or cx, I can’t imagine world tour pros wanting to carry extra weight in their wheels in the form of an insert. It’ll be interesting to hear what material they used that is both light and robust enough to hold up the tire when it flats.

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