Like many on here, (I suspect) I am the caretaker of the family's bikes.
I have personally been entirely tubeless on all my bikes since 2003, and various iterations of kids bikes have been made tubeless as soon as I was able to do so.
The one hold-out is mrs officers bike.
A lovely 1999 steel orange P7. It's had non-tubeless rims and rim brakes forever and is used once or twice a year and has thus suffered from 'it'll do-itis'.
I've recently come by a set of disc wheels and some cheap disc brakes, but I don't have any tubeless tyres.
It's taken me most of the evening farting about trying the get the beads to seat properly against the internal pressure of the tube. Then, once they were seated at 65 psi, after 5 minutes at rest the rear spontaneously developed at puncture. What a load of shit.
Tubeless tyres on order. That is all.
I feel your pain having tried to ghetto some Decathlon and Hutchinson tyres on my son's first school commuter before resorting to tubes.
Proper tyres and the vaguely right rim profile.
Sealant in the tubes! No faff, no punctures.
I don’t have any tubeless tyres
Most tubeless tyres will work tubeless if you put plenty of sealant in them. It'll take a day or two for the sealant to seal up the pores in the rubber, but I've always managed to get them to work. Normally you see sealant oozing out the sidewalls when you first inflate them but they'll stay inflated once that has set.
If the wife's bike is only used once or twice a year then why bother spending any money and wasting your timer converting them?
Just whack some sealant in the inner tubes, it takes less than 5 mins, works just as well and you prob have some spare sealant lying around so zero cost
I do this when testing different tyres from various brands, its much easier and cleaner to swap the tyres over, also no mess to clean up after deciding i dont like a tyre so will sell it on
6 bikes in the garage, only 2 on tubeless.
Wife's bike is still on tubes as it only gets lightly ridden a few times a year. I think I'd have to change the sealant once every three or 4 rides!
For riding on the road I tolerate them as they are easier and with TPU tubes actually lighter than using a tubeless tyre with sealant. Avoiding punctures is not really a concern when you get one a year is it.
Still run them happily on road/commuter bike, tubes are fine for me on the road. Can change a tubed tyre in a couple of minutes with zero mess and I very, very rarely punture on the road.
Not like DH days of yore when pinch flats were a thing every other run - tubeless was a huge improvement for MTB.
I still do tolerate them 😱
The few punctures I get it's not a problem, and I hate gooey sticky mess.
You tubeless lot are always appreciative of my spare tubes when you burp a tyre 😉
I'm still on tubed tyres. Can't remember the last time I got a puncture tbh. Just seems like a lot of faff for minimal benefit. I don't really like the feeling of low pressure tyres though so I guess I don't often suffer pinch flats like some might.
I went tubeless pretty much the first year I started MTBing, so nearly 20 years now and no one I ride with regularly uses tubes - unlike years ago when most did and every single ride was affected by punctures (and other assorted breakages).
Glad they're behind us and we've bikes and gear that can cope with the conditions.
OP is complaining that he failed to get something which was not ever specified for that use, and is many years old, to work?
User issue, not equipment issue....
I have had real mixed experience of tubeless. What's wearing me down is the faff and cost. I spend more time and money cleaning out sealant and valves, and topping sealant up, than I do changing punctures on tuned tyres.
I only road ride these days but no way I cba going tubeless. Punctures are really not all that common.
In my experience, since 2010 when I bought some tubeless-ready wheels and decided to give it a go, tubeless is better. I don't get thorn punctures every time I leave the house at this time of year.
BUT- tubeless can be a MASSIVE ball-ache, but largely due to tyre choice. Maxxis and Michelin tyres pop on easily with no fuss, WTB will take hours of swearing and bloody thumbs to inflate.
My front wheel remains tubed on my MTB I see no reason to have a tyre that needs maintenance (sealant drying out etc) when the number of times I've had a front puncture is vanishingly rare. Also find that tyres get worn out and fail to hold air long before the tread is gone
OP is complaining that he failed to get something which was not ever specified for that use, and is many years old, to work?
User issue, not equipment issue….
Not so!
Hook bead rims and non-tubeless tyres. I acknowledge its all a bit 'old' but its all fundamentally sound. The whole fitting experience has just reminded me how much faff it used to be. Tubeless is way easier IMO.
705 miles ridden this spring/summer so far and (mostly) hard/technical MTB'ing. No punctures - can't remember the last one
That's me getting three this afternoon now
I have never had issues with tubes and run them on all the bikes - 9 in total ! And I commute on a glass strewn shared path. My FS is tubeless compatible now it's on new wheels (tyres already were) but unless I get punctures, I don't see the need.
I remember the good old days of never needing tyre levers to put on or take off a tyre, impossible nowadays, they always seated properly too, no inflating to 50psi just to get the bead to pop into place, can't seem to fit a tyre without grabbing the fairy liquid these days, always have to use levers, always need to vent a few swear words, always fret about damaging the rim, literally had to use hands and feet on a couple of tyres to get them on, since the introduction of tubeless most tyres have become a nightmare to fit, I still use tubes, tubeless is a pita, messy, constant topping up, drying up into clumps if unridden for a while, rim tape faff, clogged up valves, too much hassle.
Tubeless is pretty rubbish on the road ime. For a mountain bike it's nice but not a must have. It's 240 000% more phaff though.
because they work.
i'm very much tubeless curious, but i've never been able to get it to work.
(tubeless tyre, fitted to tubeless rim, tubeless tape, tubeless valve, off-the-shelf compressor tank, etc. all new kit, but when i open the compressor valve there's nothing more than a sad little guff of air around the un-seated tyre)
i'll keep trying, but no luck so far.
I've tried and failed to get tubeless going on two occasions so I run tubes still and I cannot remember the last time anyone in the family had a puncture. Maybe it is the pressures we run or maybe tyre choice but nothing is compelling me to faff with setting tubeless tyres up.
I live in an area with lots of of flint, with gorse, hawthorn and bramble strewn trails. Tubeless was a godsend 😁
Went from normally one puncture or more a ride to nearly zero. It's great.
Rim and tyre choice is key in my experience - Stans and WTB rims and Maxxis or WTB tyres. Those combos normally mean I can inflate with a track pump, or occasionally a little puff from my inflator.
There are two kinds of tubeless threads here at STW.
The first kind, like this one, asks “why would anyone still ride tubes?”
The other kind has stories about being unable to seat tyres, non sealing issues, sealant explosions, inflation issues, valves that don’t fit, tyre/rim compatibility problems, mess made when fitting, poor sealant, air escaping faster than it can be pumped in, rim tape not working … and then there’s that picture of badger.
There are loads of these threads, asking how to solve a tubeless problem. We don’t see many asking how to inflate a tubed tyre.
No doubt there are many advantages to tubeless, but I know how tubes work, and I know dozens of little tricks that will solve any problem. They are cheap, reliable, and simple. I’m sure I’ll make the change one day, once some of the above problems are smoothed out, but for now I’m sticking with what I know.
I think tubeless is essential and I think it is also not worth the bother depending on what type of riding.
Off road - I would always use tubeless off road as I used to get a lot of punctures, even when using horrible highly puncture protective tyres.
On road - I wouldn't bother as tubes (TPU) are lighter than sealant and I won't notice the 2 watt rolling resistance saving from tubeless for one puncture a year which I could also get with tubeless as at high pressures it is not as good.
Just chuck in some Slime or Joe’s No Flats tubes and don’t bother going tubeless on it if it barely gets ridden. Or whack some slime/Stans in the tubes (whichever works best in tubes).
I went tubeless for a couple of years. What a PITA. I thought the main attraction was the ability to run lower pressures for more grip and comfort. But when the tyres kept burping, the advice was to run more pressure. Which ruined the only advantage I could see.
At least twice now, I’ve been miles from anywhere, sweating and cursing, trying to get a flat tubeless tyre to take air, before finally giving up and putting a tube in. I’ve done the same beside my buddies a time or two, before they gave up and out my spare tube into their tyre. In those cases, the tube was the only thing which got us all home.
I’ve been back on tubes for a few years and don’t miss tubeless one bit!
And of course half of the tubeless lot think they are never going to have a mechanical and carry sod all.
So who comes to the rescue when they burp a tyre? Yep
And of course half of the tubeless lot think they are never going to have a mechanical and carry sod all.
But we're not all idiots 😁
I carry a tube on every ride - however, in about 10 years of tubeless I've had to resort to a tube once - and that was because I was running new wheels, hurried setting up, and not done the rim tape properly.
Probably had to use anchovies about 10 times in that period, added to that the multiple times I've pulled large thorns out of tyres (which have then sealed).
Oh, and it's been the end of pinch punctures too 👍
I had one puncture earlier this year that didn't seem to want to seal, had to nurse the bike home pumping up every couple of miles.
In the end it turned out to be a mahoosive (like 35mm long!) thorn that had gone through the tyre and punctured the rim tape too. That's the worst issue that I can recall.
Compare that to previously where I would ALWAYS carry 2 tubes + patches on a ride. With many rides resulting in both tubes being used + patching holes. Added so much faff and time to even short rides.
All that being said, it's horses for courses. My area is covered in pointy rocks and pointy vegetation, so it's very much worth my while. I also like riding a hardtail down steep lumpy stuff, so pinch punctures were always common.f
If you ride in an area with less pointy stuff, or ride a bit more gently, then tubes are probably fine.
Tubeless for all off road applications for me but on road I don’t see the point. I use to have tubeless on the road bike but I got just as many punctures as with tubes, which would always end up putting in a tube after a messy 20 min at side of road trying and failing to get it to seal. I’m just not convinced plug kits and sealant are designed to work above 50 psi
The exception is on my tt bike, where even if I do lose most of my tyre pressure I’ll be able to either finish without stopping, or at least limp home. And it enables me to avoid carrying a tube when racing.