Good evening people of STW,

I’ve been running tubeless on Flow EX rims for a few years with Tubeless Ready Nobby Nics and Racing Ralph’s (using stans sealant). For the first 18 months or so I never had a puncture at all. Everything worked brilliantly. Recently however I’ve been plagued with punctures that just won’t seal 🙁

I mean maybe 4 or 5 punctures over the last 6 or 7 rides. They all appear to be small holes caused by sharp rocks or something (rarely get any thorns or likewise). The holes that won’t seal are really small, maybe 2-3mm at most.

Am I just unlucky? Should I stick with it? It’s a pain in the ass when putting a tube in and getting covered in sealant on the trail.

On the other hand, I’m tempted by trying schwalbes full tubeless tyres. Perhaps without any sealant at all? (As sealant doesn’t seem to help in my case anyway). At least then any trail side repairs wouldn’t be a gooey mess.

Has anyone got any experience of these tubeless tyre plugs? http://www.evanscycles.com/products/genuine-innovations/tubeless-tyre-repair-kit-ec028981

Are there any other advantages of tubeless vs tubeless ready?

Cheers

When did you last top up the sealant? Stans tends to coagulate the fibery bits into a blob that rolls around in the tyre after a while. I wouldn’t blame the tyres necessarily.. I’ve tried loads of different sealants with mixed success. Some blob up, like Stans. Others dry to a film in 2-3 months. Some of the others just don’t seal big holes.

Just started using Joes Eco Sealant. It worked fine the other day when I pulled a thorn out. Will see if it stays liquid.. Am hoping that it’ll have a longer life in the tyre.

Tubeless ready will be more prone to bigger tear holes due to the thinner skin, but either should seal as well with most sealants.

I keep a close eye on the sealant and regularly pop the bead of the rim to scoop out any goobers and top it up. I even put 3 full scoops of the stuff in last time and it still didn’t seal 🙁

I’ve just put some of the continental sealant stuff in the rear so will see how that goes but I’m not going to hold my breath. It took a few days to seal a pin prick sized hole (could so tiny bubbles seeping out) and again I didn’t skimp on sealant.

Sometimes there’s clear glycol seeping out of old punctures, which isn’t a problem, but you shouldn’t see white sealant after a short time. It can help the sealant if you clean the wax off the tyre before first fitting, with hot water, a stiff brush and some soap. Dunno otherwise. check the valve isn’t leaking in a sink of water?

I went for the Joe’s stuff as I presumed latex and ammonia free would last longer and degrade the rubber less, but will have to look back in a while. It did say it’d seal bigger holes than the standard stuff, but I’d like to see before shouting about that.

I found mine puncturey as ****- the sidewalls were alright but I got holes in the tread face. And I mean, it’s not like I ride on beds of nails, one of them was on zoom or bust at glentress and there’s nothing sharp on that at all

Got on well with older, non-TLR snakeskin models funnilly enough.

I suppose, if I was you I’d be questioning the whole Flow Ex/Nobby Nic/RR combo- you’ve got rims strong enough to race downhill on and cross country tyres. One of ’em seems wrong, if it’s the rims then no worries, it’s just a waste of weight but those tyres can’t walk the same line that the wheels can.