Bought a Conti Der Baron Projekt 2.4 10 days ago. Went up fine but the side walls have been a massive pain to seal despite loads of Stans. Have been using exclusively tubeless for years but never had a sidewall as porous to air. Used once at Inners and otherwise seem excellent. Grip really good and black chilli tends to last for ages. Total pain stopping to keep pumping it up. When immersed in the bath once home small bubbles were coming from all over the sidewalls. Bead had sealed fine. A week down the like they are just about holding air after a lot of sealant and messing about. Not really good enough for a tyre with an RRP of £60. Would have been a total pain if I had thrown it on due to rain the night before a race. I emailed Continental to ask if it could be a batch defect but have had no response a week down the line.

Doesn’t appear to be listed as a tubeless ready tyre on Conti’s website?

Conti recommend you do this, but regardless, I think their tyres are crap for tubeless, and always have been, because of the sidewalls.

[video]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HfULR0PnZE[/video]

I think their tyres are crap for tubeless, and always have been, because of the sidewalls.

Never had any bother with their tubeless ready ones.

I have the same tyre with no problems inflated filled with gunk done.

I’ve tubelessed tyres with very porous sidewalls (contis I think 😉 ) not a big problem as thats a job for the sealant and it works fine as long as you slosh it around well (spinning the wheel doesn’t do that)

Yep, my baron projekt eats sealant. Fill it up, go to the shed and you can see it seeping through the sidewalls. Eventually it holds enough air for a ride but then is flat the next day. Bizarrely this only seems to be in cold weather so not sure what is going on.

Did you remember to scrub the inside to get rid of the mould release agent? Prevents the sealant from sticking and sealing the sidewalls.

Even contis with thick sidewalls seem really porous, always wondered if it’s some side effect of their compound… Half a tube of glitter will usually do it though.

Same with me, Contis are ALWAYS porous. and more to the point, crap in general.

absolutely no issues with any of my conti tyres. It took a bit longer than other tyres to stay fully sealed but not any big deal.

No they’re not tubeless-ready, although I’ve got Barons on two bikes, both set up tubeless with no bother at all. Slightly more painful on Stans Flow rims but went up and sealed first time on CrossMax UST rims. Although the latter ones may well have been used tubeless before (second-hand) so effectively pre-sealed.

Mind you, Barons and Der Barons are different tyres aren’t they ?
So feel free to ignore.
I’ve used Trail Kings / Rubber Queens before too and they work fine but they are supposed to be tubeless-ready.

Having mounted loads of Conti’s tubeless, the only tire I’ve had any porosity problems with was a 2.3 baron.. back in the days before tubeless was the thing to do. I gave up trying to make it work and threw a tube in.
I clean the insides, rim and bead with isopropyl or methyl hydrate and use well shaken Conti’s sealant.
I’ve found thinner rtr protection tyres need a compressor to bead but apex tyres are good with a floor pump

The Wrong Trousers – Member

Mind you, Barons and Der Barons are different tyres aren’t they ?

both the original 2.3 and the newer 2.4 version never gave me any bother.

Took me several attempts to get the new Projekt Barons to stay up which is odd as the sidewalls seem very tough and they popped into the rim first go. Used a decent bit of stans and re inflated about 3 times over a few days, after that they just stayed up.

Interesting tyre, at first I thought it was poor for grip compared to the old Baron but as the sidewalls are lots tougher I find I can run 3-4 psi less which makes a huge difference. Also the new version sidewalls do not tear like paper unlike other Continental tyres.