I ran a pair of Advantage folding tyres tubeless with stans (ghetto with gorilla tape).

The difference in weight between these and the same-sized “Tubeless” tyres is staggering:

555g vs 710g

A gob of stans is going to go in either tyre. I haven’t burped or blown the advantages in a year of riding.

Why would I buy the UST tyre? So it can say TUBELESS on my tyre?

Another example:

Mountain King II 2.2 Folding: 685g
Mountain King II 2.2 UST: 850g

I know I can bead and run mk2’s fine with stans. Am I really putting 200g of stans in the wheel?

Thoughts?

I found the Conti tubeless ready absolutely useless for running tubeless. Even the ‘Protection’ variants just weep sealant through the tyres , costs a fortune constantly topping them up.

Recently discovered Geax , absolutely bullet proof , but alas , not sure about weights.

I prefer the extra toughness and more stable carcass of UST or reinforced tubeless ready tyres – I can lower pressures for more grip without squirming in corners and can ride hard through gnarly things with less chance of flatting. Don’t care about the extra mass, just want a tyre that I can trust!

But what if you could get the same experience from a non UST tyre? It’s been mine – I ran 17.5 and 20psi in my ADvantages doing cablecar singletrack in the alps and never burped.

I mean I don’t want to get into a dick measuring context, I’m sure x rides harder than y, but are you sure YOU can tell the difference between a UST and folding tyre of the same quality (e.g. both Black Chilli, same PSI)

I can tell the difference between UST and Protection versions of the same tyre – the former are more damped feeling whilst the latter are stiffer and can run slightly (~10%) lower pressures. I haven’t used normal carcass versions of that tyre but I’ve used similar volume tubeless ready unreinforced tyres and needed the pressure about 25% higher to stop squirm.

Personally I think MTBers care far too much about weight because it’s an easily measurable parameter – plenty of things can matter more (efficiency, durability, stability, grip, etc) but they’re far harder to measure so magazines and marketing departments don’t know how to present them to the public…

As mentioned, non-UST Contis are a pain. As the chief said too, there is a noticable difference in feel too. I’ve used normal and LUST Maxxis and prefer the feel of LUST despite the extra 150+g and never havinh any actual ‘problems’ with the normal ones.