In my case Northwind I never suffered from pinch flats anyway, to be honest Im a bit disillusioned with the whole light wheels tubeless thing.

Ive recently gone from 2.1kg wheelset with tubes to a 1.7kg wheelset without tubes, cost me close to 200 quid and cant say I’ve noticed much, if any difference.

Before anyone comments……… nothing wrong with the wheels, I built them, they are true and at the correctly tensioned.

Edit sorry double post

Lots of interesting answers! Esp Scienceofficer.

Im an ex DH rider, I only ride up to ride down so im always going to error on the side of heavy. My bike isnt compromised and I wouldnt do something to compromise it, including tubeless if I was mega hard on tyres or tubes. Im going tubeless to hopefully have less hassle, save any amount of weight and possibly run a lower pressure if I need it. Im not a man of accuracies, I have no idea how much pressure I run in my tyres but go by feel.

Thanks for the replies!

If anyone has had enough and wants rid of some tubeless wheels, let me know! I’d definitely be interested in a singlespeed specific rear/pair with Stans rims 🙂

I’m in the not camp being quite heavy. I’ve had front pinch flats at speed on fast descents. Plenty of time to haul up the bike safely, throw another tube in and carry on.
I wouldn’t fancy my chances with total tyre deflation in the same situation like tubeless would do.

It’s a funny one, there is certainly an element of tubeless gods smiling down. However the big thing is proper prep, making sure you’ve got a good tight fit on the tyres (HD haters, tight fitting is an advantage, you need less tape!) preferably never fit the tyres straight post unfolding as the kinks cause issues. Have soapy water close to hand.

I rarely have trouble with setups, generally when you do then you’ve missed a step (most often you need an extra layer of tape IME) I have a compressor however I’ve got it to save workshop time rather than for sealing poor setups.

Crossmax st & rubber queens.

1tubeless puncture in 3 years when a shard of Flint put a a 2″ long slit in the tread.

Won’t be using tubes again (until I can ditch them in the roadie)

Not one puncture in over 3 years now since going tubeless. I only ever carry a tube when in Wales…and even then I’ve never needed it. I think its 4 years old now!

I’m in the not camp being quite heavy. I’ve had front pinch flats at speed on fast descents. Plenty of time to haul up the bike safely, throw another tube in and carry on.
I wouldn’t fancy my chances with total tyre deflation in the same situation like tubeless would do.

That’s funny, personally I just carry on riding without getting a pinch flat in the first place since I don’t have a tube to pinch. I guess I’m just temporarily cheating total tyre deflation and imminent death.

I’ve never had a pinch flat that is anything other than near as dammit instantly flat, so you must be hitting the perfect compression every time so only very slightly pierce that tube. All mine used to just ram straight through to the rim and be flat in less than a wheel revolution.

there is certainly an element of tubeless gods smiling down.

This is horseshit and implies successful tubeless is something that just randomly happens against the odds.success or failure is achieved by implementing the components of the system effectively or not. For those that fail, it’s because they have not adequately observed and understood the failure mode, or lack the patience to try again with a different methodology and amendments learned from the previous attempts.

I’m in the not camp being quite heavy. I’ve had front pinch flats at speed on fast descents. Plenty of time to haul up the bike safely, throw another tube in and carry on.
I wouldn’t fancy my chances with total tyre deflation in the same situation like tubeless would do.

I’ve been running tubeless for over a year now and had my first ‘puncture’ this week pumping the back end through a drainage ditch in the alps and slicing the tyre on a very pointy rock. Deflated in about 5-10 seconds, and I had plenty of time to stop up before it was flat. To be clear if I was running a tube it would have sliced that too!

Chucked a tube and a thick piece of rubber in over the hole and blew it up quite a bit above my normal pressure – handling was negatively affected and later on I still managed to pinch the tube – would not have happened tubeless.

I also run my rigid single speed tubeless, have quite frequently felt the rim bottom out on the tyre – never flatted the bugger, this would not be true with tubes!

For the reduced on trail hassle I’m a convert – never had a massive issue setting them up, 26″ Hans Dampfs on Arch EX and 29″ Ardents on WTB somethings.

marky29er – Member

I’m in the not camp being quite heavy. I’ve had front pinch flats at speed on fast descents. Plenty of time to haul up the bike safely, throw another tube in and carry on.
I wouldn’t fancy my chances with total tyre deflation in the same situation like tubeless would do.

It wouldn’t, though. Chances are it wouldn’t flat at all, in fact. But in the event you manage to pinch the tyre, you get basically the same flat as you would have done with tubes. Though with a high chance that it seals or at least partially seals, making things safer still.

Scienceofficer – Member

This is horseshit and implies successful tubeless is something that just randomly happens against the odds

And yet… I’ve fitted a tyre and had it go up effortlessly, realised it was back to front, reversed it, and had it put up an epic fight. No changes in technique or components, so what else accounts for that but luck/randomness?

I wouldn’t fancy my chances with total tyre deflation in the same situation like tubeless would do.

Err, you’ve got that the wrong way around. One of the benefits of tubeless is that they don’t on the whole suddenly deflate, tubes do though.

Which is why cars and motorcycles moved to tubeless years ago – it’s more reliable in more situations.

And yet… I’ve fitted a tyre and had it go up effortlessly, realised it was back to front, reversed it, and had it put up an epic fight. No changes in technique or components, so what else accounts for that but luck/randomness

Irrespective of how certain you are, all this means is that you changed something and missed it. There is always a reason.

Maybe it was some grit in the bead, maybe you displaced the edge of some rim tape or damaged it with your tyre lever, perhaps you damaged part of the bead taking the tyre off, or knocked the valve when you were handling the wheel. Perhaps the tyre beads weren’t quite in the same position on the rim bed as previously, maybe taking the tyre off stretched the bead just a little bit more and put enough slack into the rim/bead interface that you couldn’t build up pressure fast enough. Maybe it was none of these things, or a combination of several, or something else I can’t fathom, but there is always, always a reason.

Done four sets of wheels tubeless now. 2 sets of stans rims and they’re an absolute doddle. Rim tape plus a good track pump and the tyres started to inflate instantly.

Used the stans kit with rimstrips on the other 2 sets. That’s far more variable. Sometimes they go up easily with a track pump, some required compressors. Neat washing up liquid is a massive help. Don’t water it down, just apply it straight to the rim strips and spread it all round the rim.

On the trail I’ve had gashes that would have destroyed a tub but they have sealed up instantly with the stans gunk. Being able to run lower pressures is also awesome. Every bike is tubeless now and they always will be

Scienceofficer – Member

Perhaps the tyre beads weren’t quite in the same position on the rim bed as previously,

This is it- and since it’s mostly influenced by chance, this is where the tubeless gods live.

Defoe go for it.

Unless the tyres start to ooze red stuff, in which case call for a priest with a bell and a candle.

OMG not one single pic

who is that?

It’s been a while

That/he is The Badger, a throwback to halcyon past times and a legendary thread that spawned a multitude of photoshopped explosion themed pics, from the hindenburg to the Atom bomb to the Concorde tyre blow out – Badger caused them all

Not only was it a very funny thread in itself but it was made funnier by the irate responses of Badger to all the folk who wound him up, of which there were many.

edit : was it really 11 years ago?, i may as well open another bottle of whisky to aid the memory loss. Chin…chin….

I wonder what ever happened to him…….still here?

No matter how many times i’ve read that thread i still get the giggles from the response by justsomeyank

#1. Just because your fat ass is in a picture does not mean that you own the copyright to said picture. Have your attorney check into US law.

#2. It seems that the root of your distress is that you are an extremely insecure person, as evidenced by your posts here and your hilarious email. Perhaps your attorney could recommend a good psychologist, or even a few decent hookers?

#3. In response to your reaction to the Oliver’s parody site:

Stuff it up your big fat ass, have a few pints, and get over yourself already.

Then find someone to buy you a proper sense of humor (hell, one would expect that someone raised in the culture that brought the world Monty Python would have a head start on this part, but you never know….).

Best of luck!

Note to mods/stw towers? .

Can we have one day a year when we are allowed to rip the piss out of each other and swear like we used to?

been tubeless exactly a year. not had a single puncture. probably becasue it aint been out the shed since!!

only joking. ive been out a couple of times a week all year really. local mainly but also lakes, peaks, wales, scotland, plus loads of trail centres and uplift days.

can see no point in tubes any more, other than to get you home if you gash your tyre. but touch wood……..

I’ve been tubeless for 3 years or so. However, I’m using UST rims and tyres, and whilst it’s not the lightest set-up (though it’s lighter than the cheap OEM wheels that came with the bike), it’s very easy to manage.

Top up the Stans sealant once a year (which was this weekend), and reinflate with a track pump (first time, every time).
One puncture (which sealed itself after a bit of air loss) in three years, running 25psi or so.

Wouldn’t go back to tubes on the MTB. Now need to convert the CX bike.

Poor old Badger, he really did take himself rather too seriously. It was a thread that nearly matched the hilarity of blu-tones picolax thread, but it’s a shame it ended in a massive flounce.