After spending 3 hours wrestling with a new pair of Gravel King SK+ that simply WILL NOT seat on my Zipp 303s, I’ve stuffed some inner tubes in and called it a day. Having not ridden on tubes for about four years, reckon I’ll notice a difference on mixed road and trail riding?

After spending 3 hours wrestling with a new pair of Gravel King SK+ that simply WILL NOT seat on my Zipp 303s, I’ve stuffed some inner tubes in and called it a day. Having not ridden on tubes for about four years, reckon I’ll notice a difference on mixed road and trail riding?

I posted about this the other day. Got a puncture on my second ride on new gravel bike, my first ever tubeless set up. It wouldn’t seal, then spent an hour at home cursing and getting filthy. Gave up and put tubes in. Ridden a couple of hundred miles since then and not died to death.

Weirdly, the last pair of Gravel Kings I was able to setup without problems. The only difference is that they were 38mm and these new bastards were 43mm.

Switched between them and back a few months back, can’t say I noticed any real difference.

Latex tubes, you will barely notice a difference while not punctured.

You won’t die, or even notice the difference, in my experience.
Also, you’ll spend MUCH less time swearing and cleaning up when a spoke breaks and needs replacing…

Can’t say I notice a difference when riding but faff with rim strips means I only bother with tubeless on proper UST rims.

You will notice a difference the first time you misjudge a small, almost trivial, drainage gully at the end of the bridleway, the one with the nice sharp brick edge.

I don’t.

Latex tubes in Vittoria tyres at 40psi vs. tubeless in same tyres at 37.5ish.

Have punctured both setups an equal amount of times, any lower pressure on the tubeless setup and I’ll rim it considerably more often.

Using inserts now so I can enjoy lower pressures with tubeless but that just adds even more weight and the ride quality feels weird think I prefer it without inserts but at higher pressures.

In short, I doubt you’ll notice going back to tubes if you’ve got your pressures dialed in.

I have up in up less ages ago. Very small weight penalty. Otherwise, I haven’t noticed any difference since.

Very small weight penalty.

I think I saved weight! Latex tubes at approx 100g each is pretty much the weight of a tubeless valve + sealant, and since I always carried a tubeless repair kit AND spare tube, by ditching the tubeless repair kit I’ve saved weight overall 8)

Small margins…

Where I used to live in Hampshire/Surrey the notion of going back to tubes is laughable – tiny flints that shred tyres. Multiple punctures on rides banished. Even though where I live now the tracks are decidedly chunkier, I haven’t punctured once in 2 years. For tubeless, often finding a good tyre and rim combo is key.

It depends on the area that you ride and the tyres that you use.
My gravel bike is inner-tubed because it’s majority road (winter bike/commuter) with off-road use mainly confined to bridlepaths and fields. The ground is slop in winter and rock-hard slop in summer where thorns, glass and flints are happily rare both on and off-road (I’ve possibly invoked the P-curse). For my road bike tubeless makes no sense either.
Yes, you will die. We all will

Whats the mechanism of them not sealing? Would a couple of extra wraps of tesa tape help them up onto the shoulder of the rim?