Sometimes, but rarely- I’ve used it as a cheatin’ tyre in a couple of enduros (with stupidly low pressure- sticks like spunk to a duvet) but when it was on the dh bike I usually tubed it. Worked really well, but it’s such a stiff tyre that it’s a total bollocks to bead up.

I’ve been running a “proper” UST tubeless set-up for a few years with Maxxis LUST tyres, and it’s totally faff-free. Inflate first time with a track pump, top up the fluid every six months or so. No punctures or burping.

I wouldn’t go back to tubes, but I’m not sure if I ever would have gone for tubeless if I’d had to worry about compressors, tape, whether tyres would work etc.

What about tubes with gunk in for those still not believing?

I’ve recently gone tubeless this summer. Had no issues. running Stan Flow Ex and a mix of a UST maxxis something on the back and High roller up front. Today I did a bit off piste down a bank through some brambles without a care. Was only a lunch ride and didn’t take any tools or spares.

However, tell me about road tubeless, I had two flats on a ride last week. is it a similar conversion or do you need tubs?

I’ve put Stans in car tyres to cure a slow puncture. Worked a treat.

Tubes are great for fixing the rare puncture out on the trail. Otherwise, tubes are for cheap bikes, hybrids and beginners.

IMO.

Was all about tubeless for a couple if years, kept on having the odd burp to eject over the bars incidents when doing gaps to off camber landings, kept on blaming it on the tyre not being stiff enough, tried out quite a few combos, ended up on heavier, stiff tyres and more pressure than i would with tubes.

Gone back to tubes, now i can run the pressures i want, run light tyres and not worry about sketchy landings.

I will be trying schwalbe pro core though, can run light tyres and they will stay on.

And have you ever gone 6 months without puncturing a tube? That’s stretching credibility more than me saying tubeless isn’t more faff.

Then you’ll love this…I’ve always used tubes and i don’t see any need to change. Just last week some sort of bone went though my rear tyre – 30mm long and 6-7mm in diameter (would a tubeless setup have prevented that?). It was my first puncture since April 2010 😀

My worst since going tubeless 7/8 years ago was a 3″ nail through the tread & out the sidewall. The 7 mile ride home was noisy but the tyre stayed up.

Still got the nail in somewhere.

Been cycling for 20 years and not gone tubeless yet. Probably will when i start getting more punctures but currently i hardly puncture or get pinch flats. Maybe i’m just lucky to not puncture often.

Otherwise, tubes are for cheap bikes, hybrids and beginners.

A bit insulting isn’t it? Tubeless is a great idea but not essential for everyone. Just because some people don’t jump on every new design, idea, or fashion does not make them an amateur. IMO

Wasnt meant to be insulting. I wouldn’t call it a new innovation though – it’s at least 10 years old and well established for the past 3-4. There are a handful of riders who swear by Deore XT thumb shifters too… Tubeless is not just a fashion thing, it’s a practical solution.

People who ride a lot will be willing to put the time in to discover the best technologies.

I used to use slime tubes and very rarely got punctures.
I didn’t ever go ghetto as I’d seen others burp tyres on ruts and come off on fast descents.
Went Stans TLR as my wheel/tube combo was fairly weighty (and I think I pringled one) and the only times I end up in a 15 minute track pump sealing session is with new tyres that have been folded…I now put a tube in the carcass and inflate to straighten out the tyre (don’t even mount it on the rim) Swapping my wifes summer tyres to muds last week the tyres inflated straight away.
Muddy night ride in the forest and you get the very unusual hiss of a big punture…ride for 30 seconds…no its not sealing. Get mate to put finger on hole, prepare a rubber anchovy thing by smothering it with glue, stick in hole, rotate wheel to let the sealant lend a hand, then ride off. Top up tyre pressure if needed at the next convenient point. No longer do I get covered in mud and god knows what else, ruin a pair of gloves and end up trying to get a tube back in the tyre without dragging half the trail in with it, and then sit there with a mini pump for 10 minutes re-inflating.

Normal rims with normal tyres and some tape and sealant. runs perfectly. Will finally get round to a Stans rim this time around but don’t really feel I need it.

Can’t even think of why I would use tubes these days.

Anchovies?

http://weldtite.co.uk/products/detail/cycle-tubeless-tyre-outside-repair-kit%5D

Tube in the back and tubeless Front. I must be crazy!

Well.

The front – rocket ron performance was up straight away with the valve core out and no Stan’s on Giants pxc2 and thier own tape. Add Stans, redo and bobs my uncle – 10 mins.

The rear – racing Ralph performance – turns out to be leaking through a spoke hole. So, I remove the tyre and add a strip of stans tape – which won’t stick well (stored on a workshop with plastic roof, so hot). So. I bang in a tube to apply pressure to the tape to get it fixed down, remove and repeat the tubeles process. The spoke hole still leaked, now cured by adding sealant down the outside of the offending spoke.

Not sure how safe thar rear will be banging around Afan – any comments?

Hmmmm. Half of me is worrying about the fact I didn’t do it properly I should order more tape and redo both wheels. The other half is saying if they stay up, they must be fine.

Dry the rim thoroughly and put a bit of electrical tape in to cover the spoke holes, you can either add stans tape or just carry on adding electrical tape till it’s thick enough to mimic the tape, 2 layers is more than tough enough to seal it and not leak.

Will be getting the scwalbe pro core dual chamber system when it comes out. At moment I’m using tubes.

I was just googeling an article about my wheels which said Bonty rims strips are a brilliant solution for them.

But electrical tape eg – 19mm tape from screwfix 79p a roll, wow!

Procore is set to be about £100 isn’t it?

The Bonty rim strips are about £15 for both.

mikewsmith – Member

Normal rims with normal tyres and some tape and sealant. runs perfectly.

Some rims won’t work with this- I dare you to try it with DT5.1s! The tyre’ll go on and stay up but you can push it off the bead with one finger.

Still chopping and changing here. Currently tubed. Tubeless for me is a complete faff and no where near the ideal fix yet.

Do the 100%ers ever change tyres or do you just ride the 1 set up for 6 months or more?

In one week of regular riding I could easily change tyres 3 or 4 times, sometimes I will take spare tyres with me and change them in the van. Yesterday was bone dry like summer and tomorrow is looking a bit muddy. I don’t spend the best part of £300 on a top end bike to then use 1 tyre for all conditions god dammit 😯

I have had 4 or 5 punctures recently which is a bit annoying and makes me pine for tubeless again but the reverse happens when tubeless and conditions change so rapidly and I want to swap tyres. Swapping tyres tubed takes 5 mins where as tubeless for me is an overnight job.

Do the 100%ers ever change tyres or do you just ride the 1 set up for 6 months or more?

I used to on my race bike. It was something of a faff but not THAT bad. I could re-use the sealant, most of it. I used to be a major tyre swapper but where I live you can more or less get away with it. Worth noting that the lower tyre pressures seem to really help all-round tyres hook up in the mud, thereby negating most of the need for mud tyres.

Of course it’s not pure clay round here.

theocb – Member

Do the 100%ers ever change tyres or do you just ride the 1 set up for 6 months or more?

Yeah, I change often (though, I’ve ended up with an extra set of wheels due to breaking a bike so I also swap those sometimes just for ease) I don’t find it much of a faff with most tyres.

At home I do use an air compressor though! TBH when I’m away from home I’m always a wee bit edgy about changing tyres, in case it decides to cause trouble

2 out of 3 bikes tubeless. 1 pair Stans rims, the other using Stans conversion kit. All went up with track pump, though one wheel was a it of a faff. Really were a revelation for me, and couldn’t envisage going back to tubes. Having said that I’m not a tyre swapper: 6 months on summer tyres and changing to Mud X’s around now ’til Easter.

Do the 100%ers ever change tyres or do you just ride the 1 set up for 6 months or more?

In one week of regular riding I could easily change tyres 3 or 4 times, sometimes I will take spare tyres with me and change them in the van. Yesterday was bone dry like summer and tomorrow is looking a bit muddy. I don’t spend the best part of £300 on a top end bike to then use 1 tyre for all conditions god dammit

Where do you ride that changes that quickly day to day? I stick something all round/muddy on in September like Purgatorys, then some all round/dry tyres around Easter like Bronson’s. They can be changed without much faff as others said, if you ditch the sealent and don’t re-use it, it can be even easier than tubes as you just pull the tyre off, put the new one in and pump it up, there’s one less step!

I was just googeling an article about my wheels which said Bonty rims strips are a brilliant solution for them.

They are indeed brilliant , you just need to make sure you get the right strips for your wheels . Obvious really but more difficult than you might think as some Bonty wheels , Rhythms I think , have asymmetric spoke holes but take the symmetrical strips . Always worth using the Bonty valves with the strips as well as they are designed to work together .

Where do you ride that changes that quickly day to day?

It’s not that the same trails change daily, it’s more that I’d ride different trails on different days. Some places are clayey and want proper muds, some are rocky and all rounders will be fine 🙂

They are indeed brilliant , you just need to make sure you get the right strips for your wheels . Obvious really but more difficult than you might think as some Bonty wheels , Rhythms I think , have asymmetric spoke holes but take the symmetrical strips . Always worth using the Bonty valves with the strips as well as they are designed to work together .

I decided to redo them properly, and so order some fluid and an injector and will undo and redo for my own sanity.

Tubes all the way for me, until I can afford two sets of spare wheels. I have one bike so have to change the tyres depending on what type of ride I’m doing.
On Friday I rode a 36 mile XC ride around Aviemore and then rode Laggan and High Burnside today. One or other of the rides would have been spoiled if I’d have ridden the same tyres.

I was on 26er tubeless for 7 or 8 years, up until getting the Bizango a month or so since. I’ve had 4 punctures in that month or so, more than I’d had in the last 5 years, at least, tubeless. (This was possibly due to the joke Ardents the bike came with.)
Ordered some Conti MK 2s from NextDayTyres yesterday, arrived this morning.
So, I’d got the wheels that came with the bike. ie non-TR. A couple of laps with the Stan’s tape I had, put the 26er rimstrips over the top. Whooped ’em with the ghetto inflator, jizzed ’em, re-whooped, valve cores in, sorted.
Rode to the pub and back on them.
There was a bit of air leaking from the rim valve hole to start with. I’m hoping it’s sealed now, though.

Depends how far the pub is. I had to do a proper bike ride on some of my tyres before they’d seall.

12 mile round trip. Had a ride round a bit, while I was at it. 🙂

Well, my half arsed attempt failed. Flat tyres overnight and when I looked the liquid has lifted the Giant rim tape, leaking air out of the spoke holes in the rim. Its a fair cop as the rim tape wasn’t designed as tubeless.

So, I’ve removed everything and cleaned and dried the wheels overnight, and am looking a roll of Stans to do the proper job later today.

Wish me luck.

You shouldn’t go wrong with the proper tape, applied to clean dry rims. No need for luck – its a done deal…..

One or other of the rides would have been spoiled if I’d have ridden the same tyres.

Why? Melodramatic much? I’ve done group road rides on 2.25″ Rocket Rons at 20psi, not ideal, but hardly “spoiling” the ride!

Thinking about it, I probably do ‘swap tyres’, sometimes, but it’s mainly down to swapping bikes. I had one FS bike for big rocky trails , and an SS hardtail for everything else. So picking the apropriate bike meant it came with appropriate tyres.

I do tend to prefer all-round tyres though. Bronson’s work OK in loamy soil and dry trails, purgatorys work well in all but the deapest most continuous mud, Eskars work well on anything short of mud. I could fit SB8’s or Nano’s in the summer for Swinley, but 50% of the time it has probably rained at some point in the last week, and somewhere there will be some mud, and I’d then have to change them for more natural trails which are even less predictable.

When most trails change from one corner to the next (or certainly most rides from one trail to the next), being more specific with tyres seems a false benefit, you’ll always struggle somewhere else.

At worst I’m losing seconds in a ride, probably less than is lost by folowing someone slower in the group.

I do reckon I could swap a tubeless tyre without sealent faster than a tubed one though (then add sealent if nececary at the same time as the tubed rider would need to fix a puncture). Once the rims set up there is no faffing, just pop the tyre on, pump up and go.

You shouldn’t go wrong with the proper tape, applied to clean dry rims. No need for luck – its a done deal…..

Indeed, I’ve a pair of 3yo Sun Ringles, and 1yo Crests both tape once & properly, and never have any issues.

Mind, you I’ll be testing them down a mountain on a new bike on Friday, a bit extreme but cest la vie….