Silca recently released their new ultimate sealant that is injectable! I’m definitely giving it a shot in the upcoming season.
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will go through my supply of replenisher before making the switch.
Silca has updated their Ultimate Sealant….now injectable through the valve core, supposedly last 6 months and uses finer carbon strands (but still seals holes up to 6mm).
Really tempted to grab some before my first big gravel race this year, but after the mini-fiasco of their last sealant intro (eating away some rim tapes, etc), I’m gonna wait a bit before I pull the trigger.
Fool me once, shame on you.
Fool me twice, shame on me.
Like you, I’m going to take a wait and see approach on this.
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I’m half tempted to try the latest Silca for road.
Muc Off is ok for MTB, but won’t reliably seal small holes on the road, much less anything more than small. Recently tossed a 3 week old GP5000 with like 800 miles because it had two 2-3mm holes that it couldn’t keep sealed. Running 60 psi, so nothing crazy.
Offer up a “race day reimbursement” for us everyday joes and I’ll be impressed.
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I had good success with the original Silca sealant provided I replaced it fairly frequently and always before events. I never ran into the rim tape issue, but only have used it with ENVE or Muc-Off tape. The main issue I had with it is the little balls that formed from the carbon fiber particles. I didn’t think adding replenisher would fix this so I would just change out the sealant.
The new formula sounds like they have addressed this so I’m definitely interested in trying it. If they have truly been able to match the sealing ability of the original formula (when fresh) but added a ton of longevity to it, it sure sounds like a winner.
Off topic but FYI you can repair these with inner tube patches from the inside. Needs to be vulcanising cement and a separate patch rather than peel-and-stick, but then it’s permanent. There are also alternate versions of those patches that have structural thread in them and can effectively act as a boot for medium sized cuts that would otherwise spread open when inflated (the Rema Tip Top ones have blue/green edges rather than the standard red/orange for normal patches).
Works with most tubeless tires as long as they have the right kind of rubber lining for the vulcanising stuff to work - definitely includes all Contis. Can be a bit of a chore to clean up the sealant and then sand and patch and wait for it to cure, but tires are expensive enough these days that it’s really worthwhile doing the repairs eventually, even if you have to just buy replacements in the short term.
Bonus tip: best way to get perfectly even pressure on the patch whilst it cures it to mount the tire to a spare wheel with a tube in it and leave it inflated overnight. I keep a spare tube dedicated for this purpose so I don’t have to worry about getting it covered in sealant 
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(also that’s what dynaplugs are for! Should last the life of the tire too. I started removing the plugs and replacing with patches once I have plenty of time for a big maintenance day, but that’s really for a separate reason - I have un-drilled rims that don’t require tubeless tape and so I got concerned that on sidewall punctures the hard edge of the dynaplug’s brass barb might eventually start abrading into the carbon of the rim bed. Never seen or heard of that actually happening, but better safe than sorry etc.)
Agreed, dynaplugs are brilliant, a real solution.
Awesome, I did keep the tire and I’ll give it a try.
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I put in a bottle of Silca Sealant last year, promptly killed my Rim Tape - leaking all over in multiple places all over the rim within a couple days. Mine was DTSwiss Branded Tape.
With that said, I now have a set of Nextie’s without spoke holes, and thus no rim tape that I could give it a whirl on.
Changing to Orange Regular Sealant for my gravel bike seems to have been a success. I had been using Peaty’s but whilst it was a dream to set up and worked with my road tyres (circa 50-60psi) it refused to seal permanently round a dynaplug on my lower pressure gravel tyres (circa 25-28psi). Orange sealant sealed the gravel tyres rock hard overnight, it sat solid for a week or two then stayed solid on my commutes.
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Me too. Been using if for several years. Had to to walk back to the car recently on a flat that my shop had filled with Stans. Refilled with Stans and it wouldn’t seal. Cleaned out the tire thoroughly and filled it with TruckerCo and it sealed instantly!
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I’ve never seen these before, thanks!
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I’ve tried this a few times. Sometimes it worked, but sometimes the patch came off and the leak came back.
Does anyone have tips? Do I need to spend more time cleaning? Extra time curing? (I was using Park Tool’s patches so, unless I somehow got a bad batch, I don’t think that’s the issue).
Tempted to get the Lezyne kit anyway, but it’d be nice to know if there’s some easy fix with regular patches.
Probably both, but hard to say since you don’t say what you’re currently doing. I do along the lines of:
- Take off tyre
- Collect sealant
- Wipe area dry
- Fully dry area with heat gun
- Very lightly sand area where patch will go
- Wipe area with alcohol
- Apply vulcanising solution
- Wait for solution to dry*
- Apply patch
- Run over patch, especially edges, with a tyre lever
- Put in vice with rubber jaws fitted, tighten and leave overnight
This has never failed aside from an optimistic experiment trying to patch a 1" tear in a sidewall!
*or use my favourite trick of setting the carrier in the solution alight, blowing it out and repeating until it’s all gone. Bonus of this is it warms the area which may help the patch adhesion, plus you get to play with fire!
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That’s a pretty good process summary. Here are my variations/notes:
- I’ve never used a heat gun and I don’t think I usually use alcohol, but both seem like decent ideas.
- I use the sandpaper or abrasive metal thing that comes in the patch kit to really rough up the area around the puncture site. This is basically what the alcohol clean does but has the added bonus of giving some extra texture for adherence. In contrast, the argument in favor of alcohol is that tubeless tires tend to have a much thinner butyl layer than an old fashioned inner tube, so sandpaper runs the risk of actually taking parts of that layer off completely. However you do it, you need 100% clean, raw butyl/rubber lining with no coating of anything at all on it.
- FYI setting the cement on fire was a normal requirement of the glue and patch process at one point. I think modern vulcanising cement has been reformulated so this is no longer necessary. I’ve never really looked into the facts because the fire version was gone before I ever started cycling seriously.
- Number one issue in my personal learning curve was an assumption that you wanted tacky cement rather than completely dry (because how else will it bond?). But that’s not true - it’s more like spray contact adhesive and works way better if it is dry before applying the patch.
- My ‘applying pressure’ technique is to mount the tire with a tube in it at the max pressure I’m willing to take it to and leave it overnight. However you do this, the ‘overnight’ bit is important because the term ‘vulcanising’ means that there’s actually a chemical reaction happening where the two bits of rubber are bonded/welded together permanently. It’s not glue, it is a permanent bond. It takes 12-24 hours for this to happen and you need really firm even pressure over the entire surface of the patch for that full duration, especially at all of the edges.
- Always prep/sand/clean a bigger area than you think you’ll need, and it’s better to put too much vulcanising solution rather than too little - only drawback is it will take longer to dry.
- Don’t bother taking the clear plastic backer off the top of the patch when you’re done - It’s not a problem to leave it there and then you avoid the risk of pulling up the edges of the patch when you remove it. It disintegrates with the friction of riding in the next ~50 miles with tubes. With tubeless the only real risk is it becomes an anchor point for stanimals so you might have to remove it during your next sealant top up.
These are good tips if you’re having issues, but in most cases you don’t need to be that clinical - I’ve literally just finished patching the inner tube on a friend’s step-through city bike and all I used was sandpaper, cement, waited til it dried, pressed it firm between my thumbs for a minute or so, and then reinstalled it and reinflated. Assuming that ~40psi is the right balance between applying pressure to the patch from inside the tire and the air inside the tube trying to escape through the un-cured patch, then by this afternoon it will be far enough along in the process that we’ll know we’re going to get a permanent fix.