Road/commute punctures. Tubeless Vs armoured tyres

Seemingly every time I have cycle commuted into work in Leeds city centre on my road wheels recently, I’ve got a puncture.

It’s doing my head in.

I’m on panaracer gravelking slicks, 32c, which I use for the occasional road ride in the winter, in addition to commuting

I often ride the same commute route on my 40c tubeless gravel wheels and never seem to have any issues…so erring towards trying the road wheels tubeless also.

Any opinions about whether armoured tyres would be a better solution here? Im a bit concerned the higher road pressures will just fire the sealant out in the event of a puncture, rather than sealing.

Thanks

By armoured tyres do you mean like the Schwalbe Marathon Plus? If you do they are draggy and heavy but mostly commute proof. I ran them or the continental equivalent for years for commuting and almost never had a puncture but if you commute a long way the weight and rolling resistance might be an issue.

Another Marathon Plus user. Haven’t had a puncture for years, commuting about 40km a day, mixed off road and road.

Cheers, the weight of armoured tyres wouldn’t bother me when commuting, but I do use the same wheels on the road, where it would be annoying.

I had some continental gatorskin tyres in the past that seemed pretty indestructible, however the grip was shocking, especially in the cold and wet

I rate the marathon supreme if you can find them. Seem to roll a bit better.

Been through this on my commuter

Tubeless works great on the commute until it dosent work, worst ones are a tyre slash or a large hole that a plug wont fix, sealant everywhere including over my clothes, then i had to fit a tube with a piece of cardboard covering the slash which meant getting even more covered in sealant by the side of the road in the dark faffing around with tyre levers slippery hands and tight tyres, once back home i then had to strip it all down and get messy again, fix the tyre with a mushroom plug, add more sealant, then clean up the bike and my clothes

I now just run Schwalbe Durano Plus 28mm tyres (just below Marathons in the puncture protection scale) with tubes, ive had less punctures than i had with tubeless and worst case if i do get a puncture its easy and clean to fit a new tube

Durano plus tyres weigh 480 grams, tube 100 gram so thats 580 grams per wheel, where as tubeless was 350 gram tyres, tubeless valve 15 grams, sealant 60 grams, so thats 425 grams in total, so the tyre and tube set up is 150 grams heavier but a lot less messier

I use Continental GP 4 Seasons on my winter road bike / commuter. They’ve been pretty good over the years and several pairs (the only time I’ve punctured them I also wrote off the rear rim in the pothole that pinch-flatted both tyres, and that history includes accidentally wearing one rear down to the canvas). I think their successor model is called something else now, but might be the same tyre. They’re a whole lot livelier than the Schwalbe Marathon Pluses on my cargo bike.

Thanks all, you’ve changed my mind back. I’ll stick with tubes.

I’ve pulled the trigger on some 32c gatorskins…will see how I get on I guess!