Just gone tubeless. In dire emergencies can I fit an inner tube as normal?

madcarew wrote:

On a road bike there is a seriously limiting curve of ‘return for investment’ on lower pressures and grippiness. Below about 80psi there’s nothing I’ve seen that shows that grip is improved in the real world.

If you think an 80PSI tyre grips as well as a correctly-proportioned 50PSI tyre, I don’t think you’re riding in the real world 🙂

madcarew wrote:

Less exhausting: as others have pointed out the 1 or 2 watt saving is both undetectable and ephemerous. On the point of energy efficiency, everything I have seen shows that a higher pressure tyre has lower rolling resistance due to lower hysteresis. However, a larger tyre at the same pressure as a narrower tyre has lower rolling resistance, again due to less hysteresis. That doesn’t follow that a lower pressure, larger tyre is more energy efficient. And again, the improvements are low single digit watts only.

Several things here: 

1. ‘less exhausting’ means less hysterisis loss because the tyre is suspending the weight of the rider and bike, reducing the vertical movement, muscle vibration and related fatigue. The seminal Bicycle Quarterly article quoted US Army research showing tank drivers suffered significant fatigue due to vibration, that was alleviated by suspending their seats. Anyone who’s been beaten up for a day on a rigid bike over rough roads knows the feeling. This is why bike firms invest millions in vertical compliancy of frames via seat stays, posts etc.

2. Hysterisis loss is the vertical bit. Rolling resistance due to sidewalls flexing isn’t hysterisis loss. It’s rolling resistance, due to heat generated in the flexing tyre carcass.

3. the quantative improvements of a larger tyre at lower pressure, like for like, on a real-world road, are considerably larger than ‘low single-digit watts’. Go ride a bike with a power meter, over a crap road, first on 100psi 23mm and then 50psi 35mm.

Perhaps BTB could share with

Perhaps BTB could share with us the secret to his tyre invulnerability. I’ve been cycling for just as long, and probably just as many miles. I simply can’t count the number of punctures I’ve had, but at probably 6-8 average a year, it’s going to be in the hundrds. Those are from bits of glass, thorns, bits of metal, nails, screws, and pinch flats. That’s on all sorts from MTB to ‘gravel bike’ to tubs, to the dunlop tyres that were on my raleigh 20. Either BTB has been riding track boards for his entire time, or he rides solid tyres. I have probably spent $20 – $30 on tubes a year for 35+ years, which amounts to the cost of a set of tubeless wheels. Again, share the secret. We’re all brothers here…

HogliMogli wrote:

peted76 when you get a thorn in your tyre and it seals do you have to still replace the tyre when you get home? I recently got a thorn lodged in my clincher and while it didn’t puncture the tube I was advised by my riding buddies to replace the carcass.

I’ve pulled thorns out of my tyres.. no issues there for me.

I’ve had one occasion where a had a ‘tear’ in the trye on the main tread, it sealed okay and got me home, but was maybe three or four mm long, in that case I took patched the tyre directly from the inside, you need to use tougher than the usual innertube patches with tubeless, but it’s the same principal. It did leave a deformation (lump) in my tyre though which while I didn’t really notice when riding did reduce the already tight clearances between the wheel and frame on my TCR.

Absolutely not, that’s very
Absolutely not, that’s very poor advice. A thorn hole should just stay sealed until the tyre wears out and gets replaced naturally. In your case, I’m presuming tubed, just carry on. Only reason to prematurely replace any tyre is if it gets a large tear in it that can’t be repaired.

Ha ha I knew this thread

Ha ha I knew this thread would ignite the road tubeless debates!  FWIW I bloody love tubeless but have always had an inner tube rolled up inside my seat tube just in case…

KiwiMike wrote:

Note to all: Let’s kill the zombie fact that sealants dry out – a number of the newer ones don’t. I’ve had Slime Pro still liquid in tyres a year after installing. I’m more than happy to spend £10 a year topping it up if needed. As a peace-of-mind investment for thousands of miles of flat-free, low rolling-resistance, comfortable cycling, it’s a no-brainer.

Sealants DO dry out, most of them. There’s been a few come onto the market recently which proport not to, but killing a zombie won’t help anyone if you discover your sealant has dried out on the side of the road.

I can only think your experience is refering to mtb tyres as you mentioned slime, which is too thick for easily adding via the valve core of a presta valve. 

MTB tubeless cannot be used in the same breath as road tubless, the sealants are different, this is my ‘exact’ bugbear with tubeless, when I set out on my tubeless journey, I defaulted to ‘stans’, however it just didn’t work at higher pressures, this is undisputable (apparently they have a new formula, but I’ve not tried it. I’ve tried slime but it was too gloopy, I’ve tried continental revo, but that didn’t seal at high pressure either, the schwalbe stuff is just rebadged stans I believe, Bontrager sealant did/does work very well, however you have to shake the bottle for a ridiculous amount of time.. I’m now on Orange Seal which hasn’t given me any headaches and the sediment doesn’t seem to congeal as densely at the bottom of the bottle. 

To add a caveat, I used stans for some time, it would seal a hole, however I’ve had minutes at the side of a road trying with a wheel off the ground watching it spurt and splutter before it pugs the hole only to have it come open again a few hundred meters down the road. I would suggest that if you were using stans or a similar you’d need to add ‘more’ sealant to the tyre to feel justified in using it, but you’ll no doubt end up with it all over your frame. The ‘convienience’ factor is when using a better sealant you don’t even know you’ve punctured until you get home, which is where I am today. 

I went out yesterday with three visible sealed holes in my schwable pro-ones and came home with a fourth, it wasn’t until I got home and checkled that I noticed.

To answer the original
To answer the original question: yes you should be able to. But it may depend on your rim/tyre combination. I have Stans Alpha rims and found that the bead can sit a bit funny, though deflating and pumping back up again fixed it. I have done it twice… in 6 years. Once ’cause I wanted to see how long it would take to get a puncture without sealant (I know, I know…don’t ask) and once due to a sidewall slash repair that failed while sitting in the heat of the sun inside a friend’s car. Boot and inner tube got me home, 60 miles. That sidewall slash happpened on a ride (unknown to me until I got home) but the sealant did enough to get me back.

I would agree with advice not to use pliers on the valves. Never had to with the Stans valves. It’s also nice to carry an inner tube in case mates need it, who like to stay trad.

BTW, that original first road tubeless tyre I bought is still going, though it has been on the front the whole time. Maybe on about 7-8000miles now. The aptly named Intensive.

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

BehindTheBikesheds wrote:

KiwiMike wrote:

Daveyraveygravey wrote:

beless, friends who have still have problems, and still need to carry tubes/tyres/patches/levers etc, so I don’t see the point.

The point of going tubeless is NOT to remove the need to carry an inner tube or pump, although plenty of people do realise they can now forego carrying these things with only an extremely remote chance of being caught out.

The points are:

1. You will never again have to stop for a flat due to a snakebite or penetrating puncture.

2. You will never again have to pay for or repair a replacement inner tube for 1.

3. You can run lower tyre pressures all the time, meaning every single metre you ride is grippier, more comfortable/less exhausting and more energy-efficient/faster for the same energy input.

1. I’ve never had a snake-bite puncture in 35 years of road riding and circa 185,000 miles

2. I’ve spent less on inner tubes over 35 years than the cost of a new basic pair of tubeless wheels, you will still continue to pay for ‘gloop’, valves and more expensive tyres however and tyres that when they are cut are utterly US unless you invest in a flexible polymer based repair.

3. I can run various pressures without losing grip or speed that makes any difference whatsoever because I’m not riding for my living, I can do that on any tyre. Your measure of being ‘less exhausted’ by the difference is not quantified at all and even if it was it’d be minute.

Schwalbe Almotion 40mm TUBED tyre ran at 17.7watts, the guy at Bicycle rolling resistance reckoned going by other Schwalbe tubeless tyres they (the tubeless) would be 5% higher “my experience with the Schwalbe MTB tires has been that rolling resistance of the TL-Easy version will be at most 5% higher at the same air pressure when compared to the regular versions“

If you and others claim better efficiency based on 1 or 2 watts better rolling resistance in SOME cases that’s utterly laughable. it’s so tiny as to be not important.

If you want a tubeless set up, that’s fine, in fact off road use is where tubeless tyres are probably going to be significantly better but please don’t start giving situations that are either not true or are so small in being more efficient like for like with the tube version as to be not worth all the aggro and cost that tubeless brings.

Actually that piece on the allmotion was poorly worded; that’s 5% higher with a tube due to stiffer sidewalls, and down to 15 watts or so when set up tubeless. It’s further down the page.

I think a lot of your reasons are valid, I’m happy with tubeless but let’s not spread bad information around.