So has anyone gone tubeless and regretted it?

I will be changing over pretty soon, no specific reason but i need new tyres and i have pretty new flow rims so i thought i might give it a try.

Had a few punctures recently including snakebites from hitting waterbars too hard. 🙂

Yes, it was a nightmare to set up (non tubeless wheels so kit), rode 5 or 6 rides felt really great i must admit. Then i had on a normal xc ride with no rocks etc a half inch slash in the tyre tread that sprayed the sealant all up my legs and bike, obviously it wouldn’t seal so it was a messy tube in affair and removal of the messy rim strip which also messed up my pack. Suffice to say there was much swearing , cue me removing the tubeless stuff at home and going back to tubes. However if i had proper tubeless rims etc may try it again.

i love it when it’s set up, but hate setting it up – can be a real PITA ime.

(stans rims, stans tape, stans valve, decent tyres)

will have to get round to setting mine up tonight as i’ve a puncture in the tube which is in there at the mo 😳

I love it. I won’t ever use tubes again. Rolls better, feels beTter and with the worm things to fix a split its quicker than putting a tube in

No, love my USTs – they can be a bit of a faff to get on the first time*, but once on they’re excellent. Not tried Stans or whatever, though.

* If swearing / track pump / CO2 / compressor don’t work, stick an inner tube in overnight, this stretches the bead nicely. Next day remove inner tube, stick UST valve back in, add sealant and pump up. They usually go up easily. Like I said, a faff – but the long term returns make them worthwhile.

my mate rolled his off them rim last week and smashed his face off. he regrets it.

Can be a faff to get set up r if you want to swap tyres (if you regularly do swap) both otherwise its awesome. I had to change a mates tyre the other day and had forgotten how annoying it is to have to spend 10-15mins faffing on the trail.

Converted at least 8 wheelsets now for myself and mates. Wouldn’t go back (although my hardtail runs tubes as it has 12 year old wheels and I don’t think the rims would work well).

A few of them have been buggers to set up initially but all have been possible with a track pump.

Cool, ill defo give it a bash now. Maybe a strange question but why do they feel better? Is it because you can run lower pressures?

Tubeless for seven years now, had two failures where the tyre went completely flat, fixed both on the trail
Had one new 29er tyre where the bead snapped and i had to get a lift home but tubes wouldn’t have made any difference on that one, and the tyre was replaced under warranty when I told em about it…
I have no regrets… 😀

Good when it works, bad when it doesn’t.

I have done it four or five times over the years in various forms. At its worst I’ve ended up slinging the whole f***ing lot into the field behind our house – pump, wheel, tyre, everything when a tyre identical to the one I’d just taken off refused to inflate.

Having said that I’mm just about to do it again.

I regret taking so long to have done it. The ride is far better, I don’t get as many punctures and it wasn’t really that difficult to setup and far easier now I know what I’m doing.

The only down side I can see if you change tyres a lot, but I’ve never got this tyre changing for every ride thing anyway.

No regrets, if you use proper tubeless rims and tyres it’s fine, the ‘ghetto’ option can cause issues though.

Gone tubeless and regretted it?

tried it, had loads of hassle*, went back to tubes, without any hassle.

don’t really see any need to to try it again – apart from playing with the highly deadly/cool ghetto inflator!

(*inflation nightmares, and more punctures/deflations than usual)

No I love it just need a few different techniques to make it simples, a proper setup is the easiest option and ignore the crap that used to pop up in magazines etc about running lower pressures, run tyre at the same pressure you would with a tube to avoid pinch flats to stop it burping at least 30 psi.

Read somwhere that it rolls better due reduction of friction between the tyre and tube when the tyre deforms, it does roll better but not sure that’s the reason though 🙂

Love tubeless and wont ever go back!
Love it so much I also now run tubeless on my road bike.

It has taken me a year to finally puncture a tyre, I sliced the sidewalls of both front a rear on a single ride round Penmachno a few weeks ago, the tube I put in the front lasted 45mins before I managed to snakebite it.

Love it. I’m not going back. I do use ust tyres on flow rims though.

819’s, 2Bliss tyres, a track pump and some sealant. Set up takes night longer than fitting a tube and tyres and i’ve now had the same emergency tube in my back pack for 5 years.

No.

tried it several times each with proper ust rims and tires and just found it to be a faff – what I gained in not having pinch punctures I more than made up for in tires burping air at inopportune moments.

I never noticed any advantages in rolling resistance etc either so I’m not bothering anymore.

Setting up can be a pain but once done it’s fine. I never use UST or tubeless ready tyres.

No regrets here. It is very painless if you stick to what you know works, full ust setup or stans with suitable tyres.

Gives better rolling resistance, grip and weight reduction (going he stans route).

People normally go tubeless for the low pressures, which is horrendously incorrect imo, particularly when used in conjunction with mega light weight tyres.

went tubeless, lasted about 10 months before I dented the rim and it doesn;t hold air anymore, gone back to tubes on that wheel and will go back to tubes on the other when that goes too

NOPE

Said everyone everywhere.

No regrets. Best ‘upgrade’ to my bike. Lower pressures, better grip and less punctures. Yes it can be faff to set up with non tubeless specific rims etc… but I’d never go back to tubes.

Love it – had no punctures at all (Stans rims, Bontrager TLR tyres) in 18 months but managed to slice the tire on Sunday. Went to fit a tube and found about half a dozen thorns in the tire which would’ve all resulted in punctures usually. Fitted a tube and then got another puncture within an hour!

Will be repairing the tire and going back to tubeless asap.

They roll so much better – with identical pressure I could feel a marked difference with the tube fitted. Was quite surprising as I hadn’t noticed it as much when I first went tubeless.

No

IME you may well initially swap time wasted on the trail (punctures) for time wasted at home getting it set up.

Once set up properly though I find it’s no hassle and a real benefit – YMMV depending on how many punctures you get when running tubes.

To save me using google, is it possible to go tubeless with any tyre and rim combination? I found a purely off road route to work last week, but got a puncture on the first trial run, so I was thinking of going tubeless on the inbred commuter…. But I would rather not buy a new set of wheels and tyres.

I’ll let you know when I’ve actually got the damn things to inflate! 😀

Seems to be the hardest part, although I’m making it harder by not using UST tyres, but the Maxxis stuff I’ve got I know many run tubeless and have seen then run fine tubeless on the tubless rims I’ve got. I want to stick with that than going full UST as there’s a little weight penalty there I believe, and higher price. That said they should be miles easier to seat.

I’m determined to try though as I’ve got the rims and having had a quick spin on a couple of tubeless rigs, it does feel nice.

So assuming you get it to work – what exactly is the difference in the ride ?

(Ignoring lower pressure, which I can already experience with tubes.)

No, I love it. Been tubeless for 11 years now, it’s great.

found no difference in the ride, no better or worse other than tyres more expensive. mavic ust and maxxis tyres are a doddle to set up though, maybe i need more time on it. not worth the money in my opinion.
each to their own.

I regretted it when I was trying to bodge it on 717s- epic faff for poor results. But doing it right- tubeless rim, standard or TLR tyre- and I love it.

Disclaimer- I usually fit mine with a track pump, but I do own a decent sized air compressor and that takes away a lot of the faff/hassle, having that as a backup.

nickhart, thats interesting. I was led to believe there was a difference in the feel of the ride. But Ive always seen the faf and mess and hassle and felt that tubeless was a solution looking for a problem so Ive not bothered.

Anyone claim a noticable improvement in ride feel ? Im not talking about low pressures, I can feel that with tubes and dont like to run too low.

One of the most common mistakes with tubeless is not checking your tyre pressures often enough. Tyres deflate constantly, whether tubed or tubeless. With tubes the starting pressure tends to be higher which means that the ‘thumb gauge’ works better – feeling more pressure vs carcass stiffness. When the pressure gets too low with tubes you pinch flat and accept that’s what happens with tubes. With tubeless the starting pressure is lower and the thumb test inaccurate. Also tubeless often deflates faster between rides. Let the pressure get too low and they burp.

Some tyre/rim combinations are a pain in the neck. Ghetto tubeless with split BMX tubes works well but Stans rims are better. Those anchovies (sticky rubbery stringy things) are brilliant for sealing bigger slices that are too much for sealant alone. You can’t experience lower pressures with tubes unless you want to mince over anything rocky/pointy for fear of pinch flats. Larger volume tyres at lower pressures run tubeless roll as fast as skinnier tubed higher pressure ones and grip way better. The bigger the tyre, the lower the pressure that works, as long as the rim is wide enough. The stiffer the carcass, the less critical pressure is to prevent burps/rolling. Big but light tyres have about a 5psi window between too wobbly and too bouncy.

If you don’t care about riding faster/harder downhill or critical seconds uphill on XC races and/or never get punctures then you may as well stick with tubes.

Just when you think you have got mounting sussed it then goes one further away from you. I’ve never had a puncture seal on the trail. Mending one means using anchovies and putting an even bigger hole in your tyre. My anchovy came out so performed an internal repair which started leaking on my last ride.
For puncture repair I ended up carrying anchovies,a tube and puncture outfit for tube. Trying to check a tyre that’s filled with slime for thorns before putting in a tube is not to be repeated.
I have gone back to tubes. I can mend a puncture in about 3 minutes.
If the goo worked it wouldn’t be a problem.

I don’t feel any difference, except when they don’t puncture, quite a big difference then!

I can understand why there might be a difference, to be fair, but I can’t feel one.

chiefgrooveguru – that explains it well.

OK, Im happy with tubes then. I like the occasional puncture I get, it give me five mins rest during the ride 🙂

FWIW I use Caffelatex sealant, tyres that measure a real 2.2″ (2.35-2.4″ nominal), Flow rims (~23mm internal width), on a 140mm hardtail riding everything from XC races to DH tracks and run 25psi front, 28psi rear (UST front tyre, tubeless ready Protection rear tyre) and weigh 12.5 stone.

I swapped for pretty much the same reasons as OP. New wheels and new tyres. They were a faff to setup, partly I suspect because I didn’t clean the inside of the tyres first (Conti X-Kings).

For me the combination of more comfort and grip with no loss of rolling resistance makes me sure I won’t be going back to tubes.

But everyone has different opinions/requirements. So I’d say give a go, if you don’t like it you can always go back.