Well, I lost the GC of a reasonably competitive euro gran fondo (yes piss off gran fondos are races ) because I didn’t have a liner in and my tyre wouldn’t plug or hold air (4 plugs, 4 co2s), so I had to do the last 20k of one of the stages on a totally flat rear.
So I now have a liner in the rear, because I don’t have a team car.
I can see that if you had a team car, this would be less of an issue for you.
I’ve had a side wall tear/ blow out on a descent tubed - I kept it upright, but event over. It convinced me of inserts when I went tubeless - would’ve been safer for the blow out, and I could’ve limped to a bikeshop or the next support stop. The boots didn’t hold in the tyre with a tube so it was event over.
I’ve probably said already on this thread, but personally I think limited enough occasions where it won’t seal with dynaplugs (even a couple) and a boot would work with a tube for further distance than you could “ride flat”.
Maybe this isn’t the best place to ask, but hopefully it’s close enough.
I’m a bit resistant to change in general… I still run tubes in both bikes (MTB & Road/Gravel). I understand and agree with all the benefits of tubeless, so I’m not looking to be convinced that it’s better. Thankfully, I don’t really encounter many tube-specific issues, but I do wonder on what I could be missing out. On to the issue/question…
Unfortunately, these days, I only go for actual bike rides every few months. These rides are usually spur-of-the-moment and a bit hurried. (There’s definitely a discussion to be had there to fix that life issue.) So, when an opportunity presents itself, I pump up the tires and go. From what I understand, the sealant would dry up between these rides, meaning I would have to refill sealant (and remove old stuff?) before taking off for a ride. Am I missing something here? Or just missing an opportunity? Again, other than the implied opportunity to plan life better to ride more…
You shouldn’t need to remove sealant under normal circumstances, but it might be advisable to rotate the wheels so you don’t have a big booger in one spot. But yeah, you got it right, we have to add fluid every 3 or so months, depending on the sealant used and temps. My backup full sus bike doesn’t get ridden enough, so before I ride it I take the wheels off and shake them, listening for any sloshing. No sloshing = add fluid. But I don’t have any need to pull the booger out, except on the rare occassion it gets loose and starts clunking around (it’s annoying).
In this very specific case, I would stick with tubes. It’s not worth the cost or hassle to switch. Yes, sealant does dry out, and faster than I would like. Your choice is between spending a lot of money to switch, and then checking/refilling them before every monthly ride, or just pump and go. I’d choose pump and go.
I carry plugs. But I’ve needed International Rescue (the wife) on one occasion - the side of the tyre split - but that would have been the same result with a tubed tyre. I needed IR a few times before I went tubeless - e.g. four punctures on one ride, to take a friend to hospital, etc.
I had the same, due to a crash. Patched myself (and it*) up and carried on the ride.
*park tool tyre boot and TPU tube that I’d only recently started carrying after a friend had a ride-ending sidewall slash, having ridden tubeless for 5 years without carrying one.
The real challenge isn’t so much how to carry it but where you’re willing to let some still-wet sealant come in contact with your kit. IME if it goes onto a garment wet and then manages to dry before washing then it never comes out again.
Thankfully I’ve never had to do this but have seen a few inserts in back pockets and have thought about the over-the-shoulder considerations. Up the back of the jersey FTW for me in this instance - any permanent sealant stains would at least be on the inside of the jersey and the outside of the bibs/baselayer, even though they’d still likely be visible from the outside.
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+1 for this. Also depending on the bike and type of riding it might be way easier/cheaper to keep a dedicated spare tube and lever(s) attached to that particular bike, where my dynaplug stuff is shared across bikes due to it’s high cost and I have to remember to bring it with me if I want that kind of insurance.
My city lockup doesn’t even have spares on it - just GP 4 seasons which are reasonably puncture resistant. If I flat I’m walking, unless there happens to be a bike shop nearby that will sell me a tube - much higher likelihood of that than of finding a tubeless solution in the wild.
Emphasis on “normal circumstances” - usually even a seldom-used bike will have sealant circulating well enough that if it dries out there’s not much of a hardened-puddle ‘lump’ stuck in any one place, but on my most neglected MTB I did once manage to get so much dried sealant in one spot in each tire that the wheels were noticeably out of weight balance - enough that it affected how the bike rode and I had to invert the casing over my knee and get a knife and ‘shave’ lumps of the stuff off.
(I suspect I did that by adding sealant for 1 ride, then leaving the bike for months til it dried, adding sealant for another ride, then leaving the bike til it dried, and then doing it again a third time. That bike was hung on a wall hook and I suspect each time I put it away the wheels rotated until they were heavy-side down, meaning that multiple successive sealant topups dried on top of each other in exactly the same place in the tire.)
I think if forced to remove an insert I would be wiping it in dirt or mud or pretty much anything to get the sealant off. That or binning it. Will ruin anything it touches.
Descended almost 17km with this gash. The road was partly gone and closed off due to a landslide (if I had anyone to pick me up) but I got back on the airliner
Not meaning to offend but I do not fully get where the OP is coming from. A tubeless tire is a variation on clincher tech, little more. Tire construction varies somewhat and rim bed shaping is different but neither of these thing prevent one from removing a flatted tubeless tire and installing a tube. I have done this on a few occasions, most recently on the 4th of July. I was 25 miles from home when I flatted, put in a tube and finished a metric for that ride. I had to do that since my sealant had dried out. Normally it is a good bit messier but it is not really that much of a problem. For my use case tubeless is so superior to running tubes that any added inconveniences are well worth it. Sealant has gotten me home so many times I literally cannot count.