Looking at going road tubeless…

Air pressure isn’t some magical emotive force that will lift sealant you know

Yeah I suppose I was thinking of it more like a foam. Riding it might help and also means I will be riding my bike, win win!!!

Well I listened to all the advice and bought Hunt Light Aero Disc wheels and a pair of Conti GP5000TLs.
Popped them on the bike yesterday and had so much fun that I find it hard to stop riding it.
Going up to 28C tyres at 65psi and dropping about a kilo in weight ( I had Shimano RX05 on there before – solid but very heavy.) the bike feels transformed. Comfortable and effortless to power up.
I’m a very happy commuter.
Now if I can get that bloody chainring re-anodised back to black I’ll be sorted.

EDIT: Also imagine the look on my face when I tried to take the Gates drive sprocket off the freehub and realised that a Chainwhip wasn’t going to do anything useful…

And the good news is my tyres are holding pressure much better now!!

First roadside puncture today, didnt seal 😣😥😥😥

Lol, a fitting meme!

Hard lines with puncture fail, I keep boasting about the performance of my non-tubeless tyres with latex tubes, but I guess that anything which could hole a tubeless tyre would also hole a tube.

It was a pretty big hole tbh, patched it from the inside when I got home.

IV been Tubeless on the road Bike the last 2 Summers , Carbon Roval Rims With 1 wrap of Tubeless tape with Schwalbe Ones, our roads are pretty poor used to run tubes at 100psi dropped to 80 Tubeless bike much comfier well impressed

How often do ya’ll have to reinflate (say get pressure up to at least 80 psi) your approx 25mm wide road tires? Considering going TL as i’m getting a hole-less carbon rim.

All depends how well the tyres match the rims. If you need to inflate them any more than you do with tubes then something is not right. They shouldn’t be leaking air so shouldn’t need to be re-inflated.

Rear tyre gets a top up every week or so when it gets a bit soft. The front every couple of weeks.

Mine get topped up to about 60psi every two or three weeks, they drop to about 40 over that time

I’ve been running tubeless on the MTB’s for years but only just converted the road bike. DTSwiss rims and GP5000TL 32mm and absolutely love them. Super comfortable at low pressures and tons of grip. Also carry round Stans Dart tool in case of larger hole that sealant can’t seal.

Eddie, Frankers, how easy were the 5000TLs to fit? I’m currently using Pro One Tubeless which were a doddle to install and inflate, but they cut easier than the GP4000s which were my go-to clincher. GP5Ks supposed to be better than the 4K so I expect will be better than the Pro Ones, but I keep hearing (third hand) horror stories of how hard they are to install, and that they are especially bad on DT Swiss rims (which I have).

I fitted them to the Hunts with no real problem. I did need to use levers but they went up with just a track pump. The only problem I had was getting them to work with the round base Hunt valves. I had to loosen the valves, push them in slightly and then after the tyre seated properly tightened the valve again, re seated the tyre and finally popped the sealant in. A bit of confusion for a minute but once I realised the problem the next tyre took minutes.
If I used the Mavic valves with the parallel sides base it would have been effortless.

I run the new Specialized Turbo RapidAir in 26c on Roval rims, go on with fingers only, inflate with track pump 1st time, lose maybe a couple of psi weekly, about the same as butyl tube. I’ll not use tubes again.

They fitted to my DT Swiss rims without any problems using Pedros tyre leavers. I read some of the horror stories too, but after fitting tubeless Xc tyres for years maybe I already have the knack . I have used Schwalbe Pro One’s previously but found them very fragile and didn’t last long.

I used the DT SWiss valves that came with the wheels, again no issues

GP5000TL fitted to my DTSwiss PR1600 easily. No levers required, pumped straight up with normal track pump.

just bought some Bonty hardcase lite TLRs in 32mm so looking forward to giving them a roll.

I bought a PlanetX Carbon Evo and there is no way I can get 28s in there so I’m going to try Schwalbe 1 25s in there. Looking forward to trying that.
Tubeless does seem to work for me. But if course with the weather we’ve been having I haven’t exactly been tearing the miles up.

Have pulled the Gbike out a few times to see little glossy bits on the tires, obviously punctures I’ve avoided.

Have had a few rides where the punctures failed to seal due to high pressure (40psi max)

I’m still undecided

I take spare tubes when I do a ‘big un’ but I don’t take spare stans fluid/ noodles.

Maybe I should,

which is easier? Changing or patching a tube OR faffing with a tubeless+noodle and adding more seaLent when it doesn’t seal.

Not convinced tubeless is the future with road/gravel

which is easier? Changing or patching a tube OR faffing with a tubeless+noodle and adding more seaLent when it doesn’t seal.

This is my internal debate, am planning some big/remote gravel rides in the summer and currently thinking I’d rather stick with tubes and just live with the slightly higher tyre pressures (I have suspension seatpost anyway due to low back issues) and occasional thorn puncture. ‘Better the devil you know’ as I said on another thread.

Would be interested to know of people’s experiences bike-packing and touring with tubeless, I guess the only drawbacks are the rare occasions when it goes very wrong, in which case you just have a slightly messier job sticking a tube in.

I bought a PlanetX Carbon Evo and there is no way I can get 28s in there so I’m going to try Schwalbe 1 25s in there. Looking forward to trying that.

If you’ve not already I’ll measure mine tonight, my 25’s are huge, they barely fit under the brake caliper on my road bike whereas the hutchinson 25’s fit under with room for a mudguard bracket!

Would be interested to know of people’s experiences bike-packing and touring with tubeless, I guess the only drawbacks are the rare occasions when it goes very wrong, in which case you just have a slightly messier job sticking a tube in.

I took tubes on my last big trip trip as the tyres weren’t compatible.

Got a puncture halfway through day 1 in the pissing rain.

Spare tube had rotted/split due to how long it had been in my pack.

Spare-spare tube the valve core snapped off whilst pumping (why are presta valves still a thing?) and TBH didn’t look much healthier than the other spare.

Couldn’t patch the original tube as it was pissing it down so neither glue nor glueless patches would stick. Ended up sacrificing all my dry socks for the trip trying to dry and patch it under my jacket.

Swore I was never going for a long ride with tubes ever again.

A friend raced the GBDuro last year and made it to halfway through the last stage with tubeless and dynaplugs before getting one that was too big to seal. Then got double digits of punctures in the last ~400km.

I’m tempted to take something like a slime tube as the get-out-of-jail solution in future.

Just spent the evening setting up my first road tubeless combo.

25c Schwalbe pro one’s on Alex Draw rims. Wasn’t too difficult, but needed CO2 inflator to get them up. Only ever needed my track pump when doing mtb tyres.

I’ve gone from 32c gravel kings to 25c, they look tiny!! Hopefully will get to take them for a test ride soon. Got a bad feeling they’ll be flat by the morning though!!

Well bugger me, they’re still hard!! 👌