Been having a bit of a discussion about tubeless on another forum, and as usual everyone whos got it raves about it. However, the conversation goes like this….

Q: What about changing tyres?
A: Ah yes well thats a bit of faff so I have my spare tyres on spare wheels so I change wheels not tyres..

Q: So whats the benefit of tubeless?
A: Well I can run lower pressures and get more grip, and theres less rolling resistance.

Q: But with less pressure don’t you run the risk of burping and surely less pressure means higher rolling resistance?
A: Well I get less punctures….

Q: But surely you can get less punctures with slime in a tube and then you can change tyres really easily.
A: Ah but thats heavier ……

Q: So what do you do if you rip a tyre….
A: Easy I slip a tube in as a get me home……

Q: So thats the same weight as a tube with slime then?
etc etc etc

In short I can see tubeless being beneficial on rocky gnarlyness and for downwhilling, but East Anglian XC? Is it really a benefit or is it an embuggerance?

[pushes chair back and awaits the fire storm]

skinny little fast rolling tyres that actually grip like fat tyres.

Don’t use it of you don’t want to….

rides nice but i found it a faff. might try it again soon…

Feels nicer.

teh main advantage IMO is puncture / thorn resistance. If you ride where there is hawthorn hedging then this would be a great advantage.

otherwise I think the advantage is minimal especially if you like to change tyres a lot

Yeah, but skinny fast rolling tyres with more pressure in will roll faster surely, and I don’t need fat tyre type grip here.

You can’t compare the lack of punctures you get with tubeless to slime in an inner tube. Come on now.
I’ve gone 3,4 years between punctures on tubeless at some points in time. What does a slime inner tube look like after 4 years use?

Yeah, but skinny fast rolling tyres with more pressure in will roll faster surely

Nope

as with most of these (see disc brake troll earlier) I can’t really see the point of XC or the point in mountain biking in East Angliar

what’s the point of east angular?

😆

skinny fast rolling tyres with more pressure in will roll faster surely

that’s what I thought, but the same tyres running tubeless roll as fast, but can handle roots, and overzealous entry speed to corners.

just do it, it’s dead easy.

surely less pressure means higher rolling resistance?

Rolling resistance is a function of the tread deforming (hence more RR for softer compounds) and the tyre carcass deforming (hence more RR for softer pressures) and the inner tube deforming inside it (again, hence more RR for softer pressures). I think also the friction between tube and tyre makes a difference but not sure how.

Either way, for the same bump at the same speed at the same tyre pressure, a tyre without a tube will require less work to deform, hence less rolling resistance.

The above was the only reason I liked tubeless. I didn’t really suffer any less punctures and never really perfected a faff free method of fitting/fixing tyres, so gave it up in the end.

Q: So what do you do if you rip a tyre….
A: Easy I slip a tube in as a get me home……

Q: So thats the same weight as a tube with slime then?unless you are a racer/idiot you always carry a spare inner tube so you can ignore that weight. So lighter that slime tube, can be lighter than tubes depending on hardware, occasionally you’ll get a rip but then you are just back to the weight of normal tubes. Running light(ish) mud-xs for over a year and only got 1 rip, no other flats.

If you are a tyre swapper or never puncture probably not worth the hassle

surely less pressure means higher rolling resistance?

On a track bike or on a smooth road, yes. Off-road, not worth worrying about. The less you bounce around over bumps (and the greater the grip / control) the less momentum is wasted and that more than cancels the small amount of energy lost in the flexing of the tyre as it rotates.

Nothing would make me go back to tubes on an MTB and I ride southern singletracks most of the time + swap tyres depending on general conditions and where I’m riding. I love teh lower pressures and lack of flats, plus the fact the tyres tend to be tougher overall. I’ve had 6 punctures in 5 years now – all were small cuts that would’ve been much worse on a thinner carcass non-tubeless tyre. All but one were repaired with a bit of sealant (neat latex in a small squirt-bottle), a mini-pump and 5 mins trailside.
I’d not recommend them to the non-mechanically-minded though. There’s a bit of faff in matching tyres to rims (or tape depth) for an easy-seated combo, but that’s less faff than I have with plenty of other parts that seem to be well accepted despite high cost and regular hopelessness of a lot of them.

Where I ride there are loads of thorns when the farmers cut the hedgerows. On one ride a mate had 3 punctures and I had none due to the tubeless set up. As more thorns worked through the casing he had another 4 punctures during the next couple of rides. He went tubeless and hasn’t had another.

When changing tyres I’ve counted dozens of thorns inside my tyres and haven’t noticed any of them.

On most local xc rides round here with mates, one of them will have a puncture if they’re running tubes. I’ve only had one puncture since swapping to tubeless and that was some barbed wire ripping the sidewall out of the tyre and would have punctured a tube anyway.

Q: What about changing tyres?
A: I find getting tyres on/off rims the faff part so no difference between tubeless and tubed. I have a stans syringe so just pop out the valve core, suck out the fluid, quick squizz with soapy water and ready for new tyre.

Q: So whats the benefit of tubeless?
A: Definitely more grip and run slightly lower pressure. Only ever had one puncture that I noticed (tyre full of thorns by end of last autumn mind) and that sealed a pretty big hole made by a nail

Q: But with less pressure don’t you run the risk of burping and surely less pressure means higher rolling resistance?
A: Never had a tyre burp (run about 30psi)and rolling resistance off road has been shown to increase with higher pressures (opposite of on-road)

Q: So what do you do if you rip a tyre….
A: same answer for ripping a tyre with a tube in it – insert new tube to get home or if it’s ripped too badly walk…!

I run tubeless on my lightweight racing wheels and tubes on my chunky trail wheels, btw.

Whats the point of XC?

I’m joking!!!!

I wasn’t!! Seems like an excuse to wind the knicker elastic up to 11

You can’t compare the lack of punctures you get with tubeless to slime in an inner tube. Come on now.
I’ve gone 3,4 years between punctures on tubeless at some points in time. What does a slime inner tube look like after 4 years use?

Looks like something cheap and easy to replace that doesn’t mean loads of wheels in the garage to facilitate tyre changes and which works about as well as tubeless in preventing puncture faffage and weighs approximately the same, but if you want to be picky lets call it a tube filled with Stans for the sake of argument.

Personally, it was always tubeless when racing xc, because its lighter/faster/grippyer/no snake bites. But always had a tube, gas can and tire boot,taped to the stem just in case of a torn side wall…
Now a try to race down hill and use tubes because they came with the wheels and are super thick….

but if you want to be picky lets call it a tube filled with Stans for the sake of argument.

I’ve tried that actually. Tubes with sealant in are less puncture resistant than tubeless – especially (obviously) for pinch flats.

Tubeless can be the holy grail for some, not for other – it really depends on what/how you ride. If you never get punctures with tubes, I wouldn’t bother. If you do (particularly pinch flats as were the bane of my life), then tubeless is well worth trying.

FWIW, I don’t really swap tyres. njee who races and does regularly change them says that he’s never had an issue changing. IME, using tubeless specific wheels (eg not ghetto, ideally not rim strips) makes this way easier.

Clearly given the first post, responding to this is a waste of time, berm bandit has already made up his mind and isn’t interested in changing it.

Therefore all I will add is that I ride XC, I use tubless, it works for me, I like it.

I’ll bite.

When I’ve had slime tubes, the bike felt like it was dead, didn’t get that with tubeless, if anything there was a bit more of spring in its step.

You don’t need as much latex as people put in.

Around here, with thorns, little flints etc I can go a year without touching anything on tubeless, whilst my other mtb and road bike I’d expect 20 odd punctures between them. 7 in one memorable road ride once.

When you hit something nasty enough to rip the tyre, it’s pretty academic.

Surely the point is it’s an advantage in any way you want it to be?

Lower pressure for the same rolling resistance

More grip for the same pressure (or more pressure for the same grip)

etc etc

less punctures too

So so yes you can cancel out the advantages, but that just creates another advantage elswhere.

That and it’s definately lighter. My tape and valve came to 40g, 60g of stans fluid, normal (maxxis SPC and specialized normal and 2bliss) tyres. So that’s 100g saved form the wheels over normal 150g tubes.

And changing tyres is easy, either pour away the sealent (wastes about a pound per wheel) or pour it into the new tyre. Either that or stop being a fanny and just ride on the same tyres.

Tubeless is one of those things. It seems like an interminable faff with little point or benefit. Then you try it and its like “ahh now I get it”

From the first turn of the wheels you can feel the difference

Clearly given the first post, responding to this is a waste of time, berm bandit has already made up his mind and isn’t interested in changing it.

I think you might need to get those GCSE English books out again Nick, a sentence that ends in one of these “?” is a question, not a statement.

I really am interested, because as you can see from above the responses are far from consistent as to what the advantages are. In fact I find that almost as many people reckon its not worth it as reckon it is. Generally with new concepts the benefits are pretty obvious, like external BB’s and disc brakes and so forth. Tubeless seems less so, and so far no one has been able with any degree of certainty to turn to any aspect and say “if you do this you will without fear of contradiction gain X”. Generally its very anecdotal and almost always contradicted by another tubeless user as soon as its said.

I well remember discs coming in, and it was a no brainer. Better more efficent braking, still pretty effective in crappy conditions and no rims splitting after being worn to nothing by grit.

A good example of what I’m saying being these two statements

it’s definately lighter. My tape and valve came to 40g, 60g of stans fluid, normal (maxxis SPC and specialized normal and 2bliss) tyres. So that’s 100g saved form the wheels over normal 150g tubes.

unless you are a racer/idiot you always carry a spare inner tube so you can ignore that weight

&

But always had a tube, gas can and tire boot,taped to the stem just in case

So actually far from being a weight benefit as claimed by thisisnota spoon, its would appear by his own numbers to be a 50g penalty when the idiots tube is taken into account, and I hasten to add that peretty much everyone I speak to admits to an idiots tube, not just the two examples given here.

See what I mean?

Looks like something cheap and easy to replace that doesn’t mean loads of wheels in the garage to facilitate tyre changes and which works about as well as tubeless in preventing puncture

Nope, slime tubes are pants compared to tubeless when it come to punctures

See what I mean?

no, presumably you use tubes at the moment, do you have a spare tube in your bag? I’m presuming yes, most tubeless riders also carry a spare tube. both ‘systems’ have a spare tube so you can ignore that weight as it is the same for either.

Dunno maybe you use tubes but only carry a puncture repair kit – brave, what if you get a monster snakebite/split too big to patch (has happened to me) or rip the valve (yep had that too)?

I’m not saying tubeless is 100% what everyone needs I use tubeless on the bikes/wheels I was getting loads of pinch punctures on and on my SS where I realised I could lose some weight. Tubes on the rest.

So actually far from being a weight benefit as claimed by thisisnota spoon, its would appear by his own numbers to be a 50g penalty when the idiots tube is taken into account, and I hasten to add that peretty much everyone I speak to admits to an idiots tube, not just the two examples given here.

Nope, you’re not reading it right, they are saying everyone carries a tube, whether you run tubes or not. So a spare tube is the same for everyone

Generally with new concepts the benefits are pretty obvious, like external BB’s and disc brakes and so forth. Tubeless seems less so, and so far no one has been able with any degree of certainty to turn to any aspect and say “if you do this you will without fear of contradiction gain X”. Generally its very anecdotal and almost always contradicted by another tubeless user as soon as its said.

Not really, everyone on the thread has mentioned greater puncture resistance. And I’ll add my name to that list.

Rolling resistance, feel – these are all a bit more subjective or hard to measure. You can definitely run lower pressures with less risk of pinch flatting (puncturing again!) which does improve traction, although as with rolling resistance and feel the improvement is hard to quantify exactly.

And changing tyres is easy, either pour away the sealent (wastes about a pound per wheel) or pour it into the new tyre. Either that or stop being a fanny and just ride on the same tyres.

This. Since going tubeless I have been less inclined to faff around changing tyres, which has made little or no difference to the majority of my riding (bar a few particularly muddy weeks over winter), thus saving me considerable time in not having to read “what tyres” threads.

i was a little dubious about tubeless to until the other day when i changed my rear tubless tyre, it must have had at least 8 or 9 punctures (you can tell where the punctures were due to the sealant hardening) but i didnt even notice, in fact i didnt even have to put any air in the tyre all winter as the punctures sealed so quickly. tubeless all the way for me. other than that you dont have to carry tubes when riding therefore saving weight on a ride- i just have a co2 canister nothing more….

Your opening post is obviously rhetorical, including the ?

You misread/misunderstood the point about idiots, that is everyone, regardless of whether they run tubeless or not carries a tube, unless they are an idiot.

I struggle with long sentences
I get a bout two punctures a year so it has no appeal to me

Each to their own though I dont have any real opinion on the issue

if you do this you will without fear of contradiction gain X

Tubeless rolls better, grips better and feels better than tyres with tubes.

If these things appeal to you then go tubeless.

Don’t go tubeless to save weight.

UST rims and tyres are the easiest way to go tubeless but other systems have lower weight / expense.

I’ve not had issues with punctures either but then this was never a big problem with tubes either.

Carrying a tube is just sensible, anything that makes a repair easier when you are on the trail is worth the effort. A puncture outfit is lighter than a tube but most people running tubes carry a spare tub because its easier than patching a tyre at the side of the trail. You carry one for the same reason when you have tubeless.

As this is STW i’m full prepared to be contradicted but in STW tradition I also know I am right 😉

I swapped over from tubes because I fancied the idea of no more snakebites.

Not had one since I did, a result!

Snakebites are not a major issue in rural East Anglia, which takes me back to the original post, like I said I get tubeless for rock where you realy do need a tyre to deform and grip a surface, and under inflation with a tube is a proper hazard, but round here its either Sand or Clay. In the dry its like riding on a dusty road, and in the wet its mud so if the lower pressure thing is right in those conditions, why don’t road riders do it??