Thinking of making the move to tubeless but not sure of the pros and cons is it worth it

Pro’s
Less Punctures
be fashionable and run 12psi
Less Punctures

Con’s
When it goes wrong you look like you just left a porn shoot
Changing tyres is a PITA
You still need to carry tubes if you want to be prepared

I’m tubeless curious and have been looking for a reason to go tubeless, but a combination of a lack of issues with tubes and the potential complete and utter faff that appears to come with tubeless I’ve not taken the plunge.

I run 35psi front and rear so pinch punctures are not an issue, my trails are not a carpet of thorns or razor sharp rocks, there is no weight benefit with tubeless so I can’t see the benefit of tubeless so have stuck with tubes.

With the right technique, changing tyres with tubeless is no more hassle than with tubed.

Get a tubeless repair kit
http://www.chainreactioncycles.com/weldtite-tubeless-cycle-inside-repair-kit/rp-prod32383?_$ja=tsid:46412%7Ccgn:Weldtite+-+Tools%7Ccn:Chain+Reaction-UK-PLA-PLA-All-DT-SE%7Ckw:105691UK_Weldtite+Tubeless+Cycle+Inside+Repair+Kit&gclid=CLL5maDYuLkCFeGWtAodQhIAlQ

Buy some co2

Choose your tyre wisely and follow the instructions on stans website.

Ride and get ready to not be bothered about a puncture for a long time. Jut don’t forget to check sealant every few months.

Carry a tube – you’d be carrying one anyway.

Pro’s
Less Punctures
be fashionable and run 12psi
Less Punctures

Con’s
When it goes wrong you look like you just left a porn shoot
Changing tyres is a PITA
You still need to carry tubes if you want to be prepared

Pros
Can run lower pressures, as you wont pinch flat – so smoother, and faster ride
Lighter wheel weight overall, without tubes
Feel. Feel. Feel. Tubes just feel worse than tubeless.

Response to Cons (personally, there aren’t any compared to tubed, tubeless is just a step on from running tubes)
It wont go wrong after you know what you’re doing
Tyres are easy to change
You’d need to carry tubes regardless

+2 for feel. After converting to proper tubeless set up i wasn’t expecting such a difference to how he bike felt under me. It’s hard to explain but i definitely noticed it rolled better and felt lighter, but the feedback was the biggest improvement. Tubed set ups feel a bit dead to me now.

Plus, a puncture hasn’t forced me to stop mid ride for over 2 years now.

It may take several (frustrating) efforts to get the knack of seating the tyre in the rim at first but like everything else, practice pays off.
To be fair i did cheat a little and bought a small compressor which makes changing tyres as easy as eating a pie. Search on here for ghetto compressor to see it done with fizzy pop bottles if you really want to go low budget.

I understand your hesitance but urge you to persevere. Ill never go back to tubes

I’d never go back to tubes. The faff some people are on about are either way over exaggerated or they’re either very incompetent or very unlucky. I haven’t experienced any set up issues, it was far easier than I thought. I

I could change a tubeless tyre faster than most people I know can change a tube. Which is odd as they have enough practice putting new tubes in!

I wonder how many will be on the side of the Gap DH (Brecon beast) trail tomorrow repairing their punctures while I bounce my way past on tubeless

To be fair i did cheat a little and bought a small compressor which makes changing tyres as easy as eating a pie

Since when was buying the right tool for the job, cheating?

And you don’t even need to unseat the tyre to repair any holes that won’t self-seal.

Interesting that burping hasn’t been mentioned here – probably one of the main gripes that I’ve heard from the tubeless squad

I won’t go back to tube on my mtb – tubeless is very easy to live with and great to ride. Even if you manage to put a larger hole or laceration in the tyre the worm things (as above) are so easy to use – far quicker and easier than changing a tube.

I hope I didn’t just curse myself!

Pros:
Ride feel
Potentially weight-saving
Less punctures, if you use sealant. I’ve had one flat tyre in 5+ years.

Cons
Tyres can be more expensive
Sealant costs too

When it goes wrong you look like you just left a porn shoot

Funny but untrue

Changing tyres is a PITA

With practice, it’s a doddle

You still need to carry tubes if you want to be prepared

That’s not really a con of tubeless-ness!

Just gone tubeless. Can’t notice a blind bit of difference tbh. I get the whole running at lower pressures thing but low enough to make a difference then tyre squirm becomes a problem.

I converted on Tuesday. 20″ inner tube, tubeless ready tyres and stans.
Took about 10 mins a tyre and that was my first time. Inflated with co2 as it wouldn’t work with a track pump.
First ride and it feels different, hard to explain but if I popped a wheelie it felt like the wheel accelerated quicker than the tyre. Can’t say I noticed lighter etc but small bumps (stones etc) felt nice. No handlebar rattle like with tubes.
Grip felt better. So far pleased.

Its subjective. I went on a skills course last year and the instructor, who competes on the DH circuit, said he preferred the feel of tubed tyres, he didn’t like the lack of stiffness in a tubeless tyre and he had issues with burping, so went back to tubes. I’m also not sure that lower pressure tyres are faster. How’s that? They certainly wont be faster on the flat and climbs. Also pinch punctures are an issue of tyre pressure and technique. I ride with 35psi and only get pinch punctures if I mistime something and hit a square edge hard. If you want to just steam roller over rock gardens, whacking every edge on the way, then maybe pinch punctures are more common, but techniques like riding light and hopping over certain features will prevent pinch punctures.

I don’t think tubeless is the default answer to everyone whatever style of riding you do. I’ll give it a whirl at some stage i’m sure, but at the moment i’m not sure what problem it is i’d be fixing by going tubeless. Maybe I just need to try it and see.

I’ve punctured 3 tyres running tubeless, 2 have been fixed & 10x less than tubes I’ve punctured.
Low pressures just squirm & burp, so I don’t run much less than tubes.
Would buy again.

I run Coninental X-Kings ( 29er Tubeless ready / protection) & think we need to mention different tyres & rims produce different results.

I’m on DT Swiss rims & Continental tyres are a piece of cake to fit & inflate. Down side , they can burp easier .

Just fitted a Geax Saguro on another bike & what a mission , took hours , using screw drivers to lever them on! But what a difference riding , less squirm at lower pressure & can’t burp them how ever hard I try !

Trail & error , hopefully standards will standardise as tubless becomes more main stream.

Should you go Tubeless ?

Well in my experience it can , be a faff & expensive ( you’ll spend more on sealant than tubes)

But as a fairly high milage 16 stone XC rider , for me the ride quality & extra traction are well worth it.

And yes , I’ve had to use a tube to get home more than once ,that’s when you really notice the difference. With tube , it feels heavy & dead , like those solid rubber tyres on kids’ first bikes !

As a long term skeptic of tubeless I have just got everything up and running without tubes. Honestly I wouldn’t go back.

With Stans rims, Schwalbe tyres and 10 minutes checking the correct set up method on Youtube it was a very painless affair.

Main benefit for me is lack of punctures. I don’t like the feel of super lower pressures for most of my riding but it is rather amazing the size of small cuts in the tyre the sealant will seal. So the main benefit is seeing the sealant doing its job sealing small cuts and thorns as you ride along instead of stopping at the side of the trail for 10-20 minutes faffing replacing the tube.

there is no weight benefit with tubeless

Second benefit is weight loss for a Weightweenie like me. A super light but fragile tube is 100g. Most standard tubes are 150-170g. The weight of sealant is 60-70g. That is a rotational weight saving of 80-220g depending on original set up. Might not be significant but nice all the same

All my tubeless problems stem from being lazy and not topping up the stans after 6 months. As long as I keep them topped up, easy peasy.

If you are a regular tyre changer, a compressor of some description is a must. I have a

Garden Sprayer

which converts pretty simply to a mini compressor for a tenner.

The only punctures that I’ve had seal took 3 days.
I’ve used 4 different sealants and none of them have acted like they do in the adverts.
I’ve punctured proper tubeless, normal tyres and inner tubes filled with goo. Not talking big nails, just thorns.
Have mended holes on the dirt with those anchovies. I begrudge putting an even bigger hole in a £40 tyre.
After many hours of pumping and god knows how much on sealants I have given up.
Edit..bounty MUDs and arches seal up really easy.

For me it is simple, I’ve had I think 3 flats in the last 2 years and 2 of those were on those rare occasions I use tubes (and both were massively annoying!). I had more flats than that in the 6 months before I went tubeless. (and from the scars on my rims, I absolutely guarantee I’d have had a stack more pinchflats if I was tubed)

Yes there is faff but it’s faff in the garage with the radio on, not faff up a mountain in the rain or with a race timer running. Yes they can very occasionally burp but burping is far less common than pinchflatting. Personally I can’t feel any performance difference between a sensible tube and tubeless, at the same pressure, perhaps there is one but I don’t know.

but,

wobbliscott – Member

Its subjective. I went on a skills course last year and the instructor, who competes on the DH circuit, said he preferred the feel of tubed tyres,

This is the sort of thing that makes me want to daz doorstep challenge people. Sabrina Jonnier said she preferred the feel of tubes to tubeless- so her team just swapped her over without telling her, and it turned out if she didn’t know she was on tubeless, it felt the same as tubes and she won a couple of world cups 😉

zippykona – Member

The only punctures that I’ve had seal took 3 days.

For the sake of argument- how do you know? What about the punctures that you may have had, which sealed instantly? (oh and pinch flats which you would have had, where there was just no puncture)

Do tell how? Quite interested in this!

Northwind, I went to the shed ,flat tyre. Pumped it up,went down and so on.. On the third day it stayed up.
As for other punctures that have sealed, on checking there were no thorns on the inside of the tyre.

That doesn’t really tell you anything, though… Not all thorns will stay in the tyre, and not all flats are caused by thorns.

For those saying it’s a doddle to change tyres I don’t dispute that, my point was you have to remove all the sealant, add it to a new tyre, probably need some air source to get the new one to bead properly etc. it’s not the same as tubed changed which need levers and a pump at most.

Burped tyres at lower psi can be a result of wider tyres on rims that are too narrow. Meaning you have to run higher pressures than you should be able to.

I’ve run 2.4 MK2 on a 20mm inner rim width.. some burping issues under cornering or power pedalling below a certain pressure, but with a 25mm+ inner rim width, I’m sure I’d have been fine at that same pressure.

I’m more than happy with how reliable my current 2.4RQ/XK set up has been. no flats, until I wore my rear tyre tread out and there wasn’t enough latex left to keep sealing. Could’ve added more and kept it going.. but tyre was done.

con
The tyres cost upwards of 45 quid.

When it goes wrong you look like you just left a porn shoot

Funny but untrue

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/30psibang

The thing is, the tyres don’t cost upwards of £45. Im using a maxxis ust rear that was £20 and a wire bead maxxis on the front that was £10, no burping or punctures in 1 year…

Tubeless has worked well for me up to now but just yesterday I reverted to tubes, after half an hour faffing in vain to remedy a rim/valve leak.
Hopefully some silicone sealant should fix it.

Been tubless for years , would never think of going back
I get maybe one flat a year and love the grip of 20psi tyre

When it goes wrong you look like you just left a porn shoot

Funny but untrue

http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/30psibang

Can’t really argue with that 😀

Tubeless is more garage faff but it cuts down on trail faff (punctures).

Worth it for me since I used to pinch relatively frequently, tubeless is waaaay better. But if you don’t puncture especially often then it’s probably not worth the added faff. I don’t really buy the whole ‘feel’ argument (I can’t notice a difference) but tubeless is a bit lighter for me.