If you think that would be helpful, I have no problem!
As others have said, it depends…
I ran road tubeless from 2017. 28mm Schwalbe Pro Ones on Cannondale Hollowtech rims. 85psi on the rear (I’m big). It took a fair bit of time and effort to get the setup right but once it was sorted, it was great.
How often will you use this bike? You’ll probably need to inflate most times you ride depending on the tyre you choose, at least until the sealant seeps into the pores. I can’t comment on the Conti’s as ive never run those.
You’ll need to top up sealant every 3 to 6 months, depending on use and climate.
Back when i began experimenting with tubeless rd, a compressor was the only way to get a tyre to seat. Now a track pump is usually enough. My Fumpa seats my tyres these days. Tyre and rim sizes appear to be more closely aligned.
The ride feel and being able to get around without too may dramas on the rd (the drama mostly happens in the workshop) make it worthwhile for me.
For second wheelset, I run clinchers and TPU tubes. The upkeep isn’t worth the cost/time/effort on little used kit.
I’m looking to move away from tubeless on the road because I have too many bikes and I spend more time dealing with dried out sealant than flats. I actually don’t flat anymore after going to lower pressures.
I’m Conti GP5000 S TRs on Reserve wheels. I can go two days without needing to pump a bit of air in the tires. In fact, when setup and before I put sealant in, the tires didn’t go flat for 4 days. FWIW, my wheels require rim tape. Before I ran tubeless tires, I ran latex tubes in clinchers. Those required some air every day.
It seems like in these discussions it’s always about experiences with flats or sealant or tire plugs. I’ve dealt with all of these, though rarely - maybe I don’t ride enough for it to be such a big deal.
What I don’t hear a discussion of is how insanely good the new crop of tubeless tires have gotten, how fast they are over every surface, especially with the newer wide carbon rims - so much so that even tiny UCI pros are riding 30mm tires for racing on their aero race bikes.
I also don’t hear too many people talk about how much more control you have descending, how these tires massively improve braking and your margin of error, especially on less than perfect roads, and the superior comfort provided by these setups.
As an 85kg guy who loves to descend and doesn’t race, I’d never go back to tubes or a road tire narrower than 32, a rim width narrower than 24 or pressures higher than 55psi. I’d put up with a lot MORE hassle if required to make this setup work to have the ride feel and performance they have now. They’re faster, safer, and way more comfortable
I’m largely “team tubeless”. Much like @Greg_Keeling I’m certainly sold on modern tyres, wider widths and lower pressures. Faster, more comfortable, safer.
My only caveat is that I’ve never tried modern tyres with TPU inner tubes, which would seem to achieve many of the same benefits, without the tubeless faff.
The obvious trade off is that punctures do happen sometimes, and you will have to deal with the roadside faff of changing the tube. So far (touch wood) I’ve never had a tubeless puncture that didn’t seal with either just sealant or a dynaplug. I’ve had a bit of faff dealing with tubeless, but only during the set up process or routine maintenance, i.e. in the comfort of my garage. Personally, I’d take dealing with tubeless faff at home than dealing with changing tubes at the roadside.
I’m also still not 100% sold on TPU tubes - slightly too many stories floating around of leaky tubes. And if you go with butyl tubes they are heavy and slow, whilst the high rate of air loss from latex tubes also puts me off them for everyday use.
My passionate support for Road Tubeless has brought out my first post!
Road Tubeless convert of over 2 years on 2 bikes, a drop bar commuter and carbon road bike.
No additional points, just reinforcing what’s already been shared.
You will absolutely get less punctures and most will self seal. Some you won’t even notice. Got my first puncture that I had to plug about 4 weeks ago. That’s after about 10,000 of riding and that was a 10G timber screw. I’ve had at least one other puncture that sealed without me noticing. Running Pirelli PZero Race TLR and Race 4S TLR in 30 and 32 width on the road and commute bikes respectively. I carry a patch and TPU tube in the saddle bag which I haven’t had to use. Prior to this is was GP5k tube tyres and had 2 rides where I flatted twice within a 6 week period. Only carried 1 spare tube and had to get picked up both times.
Bigger tyres and less pressure is more comfortable and provides great grip (and the data says it’s faster in most road conditions). I run 55-60 PSI between the two bikes. I’m 85kg. The ride is great and the sealant works better at these pressures. I use Stans and Orange Seal Endurance. Both have worked well for me.
Fitment varies with the tyre and Rim combo. 2 Pirelli sets of Pirelli tyres on 2 different sets of rims, one set are easy to mount, the other almost break my thumbs. A poorly matched wheel/tyre combo is a nightmare. A good match is a breeze.
Maintenance isn’t too bad. I check sealent every 90 days. If looking watery I syringe some out and top up. I had my compressor stolen and had to use CO2 cartriges to seat a set of tyres once. Wasteful, but it works in a pinch. (I have a compressor again now).
There’s no going back to tubes for me
Based on my gravel bike experience, and everything I’ve read, I’m looking forward to using wide tubeless tires on my next road bike.
Until then, limited to a 25mm tire on my current bike, I’m sticking with latex tubes.
My experience :
DTSwiss G1800 with 30mm GP5000 (all weather) at 4bar
Works great. Modern wheel and tire combination , I can seat the tires with a my old floor pump (only if both wheel and tire are clean).
It’s my believe that on road tires the sealant is not there to seal the hole, it’s there to keep pressure inside the tire long enough for you to plug it. I plug rapidly and frequently, I do not wait for it to seal all by itself, it doesn’t work. Plugs are not so bad for the tire, I got a plug in my front tire that has done 1500km by now. I use the cheap ones though.
I’ve been running road tubeless since 2017, not without my share of headaches, but I have noticed things getting drastically better over the past few years. I just opened up my tire with Silca V2, initially filled in March, to find all of the sealant still there, still liquid, and with none of the latex “nuggets” that I was used to pulling out of my tire, sometimes in as little as 2 weeks. I never had any luck with darts/bacon strips, but dynaplugs have worked for me every time with no special technique required. Electric inflators have negated the fear of blowing through the 1-2 CO2s in my saddle bag and installation isn’t nearly as bad as people make it out to be. I think now is as good a time as any to jump in.
Tubeless is awesome, until it’s not. I’ve been riding road tubeless for 5 years. In that time I’ve had five flats that wouldn’t seal and had to throw in a tube. WHAT A MESS!! Then there’s the challenge of getting the wheel to seat with the tube, which has failed 2x and had to call for a pick-up. Since I started using Silca’s latest sealant about 6 months’ ago, no punctures that I’ve even noticed other than slight leakage on the tire. No sprayed sealant ever found on the bike. I run 32mm Schwalbe Ones at 63psi. YMMV, but if this record keeps up, I’m probably sticking with tubless. The only thing that threatens to change this behavior is that I started riding audaxes. Potentially getting an unrepairable flat 150 miles from home is a whole different ballgame!!
I’ve started a road tubeless wiki post, which you all can edit, and added a section where you can report on experiences with specific products, good or bad.
#teamtubeinside
I’m not going to spend yet another half hour typing out a rant on why I hate road tubeless (I should keep a copy of it somewhere for every time this topic comes up
)
A lot of these things are benefits of modern tyres though, rather than specific to tubeless.
I run tubeless on my A bike and a mix of clincher/tpu or latex and tubular on my other bikes.
Agree that it is better the lower the pressure and the more frequently used the bike is.
I think most of the development spend has been going in to tubeless tyres recently; I wonder if some of the newer casing and bead materials (my Pirelli PZero TLR RS just don’t seem to lose pressure) are a waste of money and weight for a tubed rig.
I’ve been happy with wide tyres and latex tubes for my road cycling needs. But now I’m planning to put 35 mm tyres to add a bit of versatility and to tackle some of the forest roads around me. Some people might see this as an opportunity to switch to tubeless, but I’m hoping it’s safe enough to keep the tubes considering the gravel riding will be a small percentage of total riding. I’m thinking that I’ll still be running pretty low pressures with the wide tyres so comfort and puncture protection should still be good.
Holy moly! That’s one heck of a puncture. Glad the bike was unscathed and you made it home okay
Holy cow. What are you using for sealant???
Orange Seal. (Luckily my mechanic @McCookie topped it up recently )
As a former bike mechanic, I was more or less dragged kicking and screaming into the tubeless world. There are few things I dislike more than having to clean up someone else’s mess and with the advent of liquid tire sealant, my job had become considerably goopier™️. Try washing dried sealant out of your jeans, work shirts, shoes, etc. on a pretty regular basis. My learning curve was long and not without casualties. Eventually, I was pressured (har!) into giving tubeless a try on my own gravel bike and after six months or so of assorted bullshit, my tires finally stopped losing pressure overnight. And as luck would have it, I got a pretty good sidewalk slash on my very first ride that allowed sealant to spray all over my bike and riding gear.
So anyway, my initial kicking and screaming was not without warrant.
In my opinion, fluids do not lend themselves to making a simple machine simpler, so with the advent of TPU tubes, I removed (and discarded) my goopy tires, cleaned out my rims, got some nice new Rene Herse Extralights and haven’t looked back.
Just my two cents, but you might consider trying TPU tubes.