Apologies if this is commonly addressed and I’ve missed it, but I just made the jump to tubeless on my hardtail (Vittoria Mezcal 2.25 TLR) and the sidewall lists a minimum pressure of 29psi. That seems quite high for tubeless. I’m guess folks usually disregard and run lower than this?
Correct.
Had the weirdest thing.
Have just installed fresh tyres with a new sealant and after three days it’s clumped to the point it’s making the back wheel feel like it has a huge hop in it.
Effetto Mariposa Caffélatex Tyre Sealant.
Anyone had a similar experience?
I’ve pulled a bunch of the clumps out and threw in the last of my Peaties. Still slight hop there. Not sure if I should get a new insert and get the tyre off to Huck out the gunk, or if it’ll even out with a better sealant mix.
Insert is a Tubolight, which I’ve had for a couple of years at least with no issues with Muc Off sealant.
Two years ago I also had a similar issue with Caffelatex. Installed new tires, put sealant in and they just didn’t seem to hold air no matter what. I took the tires off and the sealant had completely clumped. Not like normally, evenly dried sealant but it was almost powdery-like one huge clump. Super weird. The temperature was below freezing so I tought it must be becouse of that but maybe it was a bad batch or something. No issues since.
Tubeless tires. So I was excited to go tubeless to get rid of pinch flats and be able to run lower pressures, but now I just cannot seem to get my tubeless tires to hold.
I’ve got air bubbling out of two spoke holes. Is there a way to determine if this is from a rim strip or from the valve to rim interface?
How do you get tubeless to hold air for a 10+ hr race like Leadville? Lots of sealant? Soap and water and use a compressor to really mount them well? Just go for heavier tires?
Haven’t raced Leadville (hoping to in 2024), but my tubeless tires don’t lose air that quickly. I’m currently running Kenda Rush SCTs, and I can usually go a week+ before I need to add any air, so a long race like Leadville wouldn’t concern me for losing air without some sort of puncture issue. Similar results when I ran Ikons on the bike. It sounds like you’ve got an issue with your setup (since you mention air bubbling out of spoke holes), so I think if you figure that out you’ll be fine with them holding air. Air coming out of spoke holes definitely strikes me as a rim tape issue, but I could be wrong on that.
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You shouldn’t be losing air much at all unless you’re using silly tyres.
If you’re losing air from the spoke holes, then as you say, your tape or valve aren’t sealed well. If they’re decently installed then sealant should be able to just about deal with that though.
How much sealant did you put in?
I put one little Stan’s bottle in each.
When I first did tubeless (same wheels, same valves, same rim tape, just new tires now), I put one bottle in one and 2 in the other.
I wonder if it’s valve to rim leak. I have some new muc-off valves which I might switch to.
Tires are some specialized ones, not light ones. Ground control T7 soil searching maybe.
Yeah, that’s a decent chance. Especially if you’ve taken the valve out recently. Unfortunately you can’t tighten without taking everything off but that would be my first go to try and make sure you put in more sealant. It still goes down you will need to redo your tape
Racing a ~100 mile mix of fire road, some single track, and road gravel / MTB race (divisions, but they will race all together) in December. I’ll be riding my XC bike but I’m a roadie and pretty new to dirt racing of all kinds. 2 fire road climbs (35-45 min), 2 dirt descents, 2 road climbs (7-10 min each). I’m relatively strong locally so feel like I have a shot at getting up the fire road climbs close enough to latch back onto the gravel bikes on the descents, but that’s to be seen.
Currently have 2.4 Aspens on. I’m not the most technical rider by any means so the big tires are nice, but I should inherently have an advantage to close gaps on the downhills with suspension. I spin out at about 33 mph so I think I can hang on the flat road sections - I’m trying to determine what tire choice gives me the best chance of hanging on the 7-10 minute road climbs. Recs on how narrow to go and actual tire model? I do not have a depth of knowledge at all.
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Pumped both up to 20psi about 3 hrs or maybe 4 hrs ago, and now both are 100% flat. Weird that I’m having the same problem and same leak rate on both (okay, one could have gone flat first, I’d didn’t check until now).
Guess I’m pulling tires and redoing valves tomorrow.
Thanks all.
You could try something like Conti Race Kings or Schwalbe Racing Ray F/Thunder Burt R. People seem to run both those options at Leadville, and seems like they could work well for what you’re describing. Depends a little on how much singletrack and how technical the singletrack is as to how much you want to sacrifice traction for rolling speed. If people are racing gravel bikes though, it’s probably not an issue.
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What rims are you using?
I find slow leaks are almost always a tape issue. On new tires with tight beads it’s easy to mess up the tape when wrestling them on.
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Stan’s ARCH Mk3
Agree. This sounds like a tape issue. Could possibly be solved by more sealant, but that would be my thought too.
How big is a small bottle of Stan’s?
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I’ve not done the trick to put a tube in first to seat the rim tape. I might try that. Front wheel was factory taped at Stan’s, rear was done by me. Front used to (with the old tire) hold pressure fine for a few days. The rear used to hold okay for maybe 4hrs ride was okay, just a little flatter.
I’ll tackle one tomorrow and see if I can work out the right technique
Thanks.
I’m pretty sure they’re 3oz, maybe 2oz.
It could easily be that you’ve moved the tape during tyre install.
Make sure the tape is wide enough in the rear. I haven’t needed to seat tyre or tape with a tube since the very earliest days of tubeless.
Sounds like you are going to / need to open it up anyway. I’ll be interested to know how much sealant is still in there when you open them up.
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Any tire recommendations for Sea Otter Fuego Xl? Doing this race for the first time next year. I’m from BC (Vancouver Island) and never ridden in that area, so any suggestions welcome. Thanks in advance for your help!