Does anyone run UST tyres without sealant or done so in the past?

If so what have been your experiences of puncture repairs, (if any) whilst out on the trail?

(Please no comments about adding STANS fluid etc…)

What would be the point of running them without sealant?

to repair it you would have to use a tube or patch the tyre and then ‘try’ to inflate them with a mini pump. Pretty pointless to run them without sealant, and it defeats the whole object of running tubeless tryres

I don’t use any sealant in mine, most of my riding does not involve thorns so I’ve not bothered yet. Not had any punctures yet but I always carry a spare tube just in case.

What would be the point of running them without sealant?

to repair it you would have to use a tube or patch the tyre and then ‘try’ to inflate them with a mini pump. Pretty pointless to run them without sealant, and it defeats the whole object of running tubeless tryres

Oh dear – please read the original query. UST was original designed to run without sealant!

You could fill the tyre with grass to get you home?!

WackoAK – Member
I don’t use any sealant in mine, most of my riding does not involve thorns so I’ve not bothered yet. Not had any punctures yet but I always carry a spare tube just in case

How many miles have you done or have you worn a tyre out yet?

fingerbike – Member
You could fill the tyre with grass to get you home?!

LOL – plus expanding foam, super glue….

Chalkyslide – no idea how many miles I do but I’ve had to replace one worn tyre (skids are for kids etc) other tyres I changed on a whim but I’m currently sticking with 2.35 LUST High Rollers although they’re probably due to be replaced soon.

In the time I’ve been using UST my mates have had countless puntures on their non ust tyres.

why the aversion to sealent – i would have thought UST with a small amount of sealent would have been the best of both worlds?

WackoAK – Member
Chalkyslide – no idea how many miles I do but I’ve had to replace one worn tyre (skids are for kids etc) other tyres I changed on a whim but I’m currently sticking with 2.35 LUST High Rollers although they’re probably due to be replaced soon.

Good to hear. Seems few people run UST without sealant (and nobody I ride with) so would be good to hear from as many as possible with experience of running UST dry.

thomthumb – Member
why the aversion to sealent

Non really. Just new to UST (previously tubes) and currently view adding sealant to UST as belt and braces in comparison to running tubes.

The only reason I’ve not used sealant was that I used to have a roof rack and the tyres had to be deflated to fit in the holders so I knew I’d end up forgetting and clog the valves. I’ve now got a towbar rack that fits the tyres ok but I’ve just not got round to it yet.

I’ve run UST with and without sealant. For trailside repairs, I use the Panaracer UST repair kit. It’s designed for making external small repairs and it does so remarkably well. I should think it could also be used to make larger internal repairs by glueing a piece repair patch onto the inside of the tyre.

TFS has the right idea. The Panaracer kit is good and works well when … even sealant can’t do the job.

Being a belt and braces man I have sealant, a panaracer kit and 2 spare tubes when I go riding. Don’t need the kit or the tubes often. But have used both in the past.

the_flying_scotsman – Member
I’ve run UST with and without sealant. For trailside repairs, I use the Panaracer UST repair kit. It’s designed for making external small repairs and it does so remarkably well.

Hi Flying_scotsman,

How did the UST tyre deflate when not running sealant? Was it slower deflation compared to a tube?

Did you had much difficulty locating the puncture location?

I’m currently running a panaracer fire ust w/o sealent. First time out I got a snakebite-esque hole right next to the tyre bead which wouldn’t have been fixable (sealent wouldn’t have worked either I’ve used gloop before and done the same) so I put a tube in and patched it from the inside once home. Got a flat a few weeks ago, went down fairly slowly and finally got to use the panaracer ust fixer. Worked ok on 2nd attempt (I used too thin a section of rubber first time and it broke) but a bit fiddly specially if you start to get cold and shivery and have no nails. You dont need to remove bead from rim so it re-inflates fine. On the whole its been pretty good, 99% of my flats are pinches and ust reduces them quite a lot (but not completely)

Oh yeah was a little fiddly finding the puncture but not too bad, just make sure your not stood next to a busy road or waterfall 🙂

The UST did deflate without a sealant, but a quick top-up with a track pump every week or so was all it needed. Probably lost air faster compared to a tube, which you’d expect really given the length of bead on both sides for air to leak from. Finding punctures wasn’t difficult, the few that I had were usually due to big thorns which were easy to locate, but for others it was just a matter of inflating again and listening for the air hissing out.

I’ve run UST exclusively for the last 5 years, and would never go back to using inner tubes. I’ve had very few punctures, the lower pressures (20 – 25 psi on 2.3″ Conti Vertical Pros) give fantastic traction, better control on technical stuff, and much less ‘bounce’. There are still a lot of naysayers around where UST is concerned, but if they’re fitted and inflated properly they work a treat.

There are still a lot of naysayers around where UST is concerned, but if they’re fitted and inflated properly they work a treat.

Exactly! The main problem is that people confuse UST and tubeless conversion – they are not the same thing!

mrsmw has used UST without sealant for about 6 years and had few problems, she carries a tube and a tubeless repair kit (they work very well) only major problem is that one of the valves has welded itself in now!

crossmax UST and conti vert pros and she’s done a fair few miles on them

I’ve used both tubeless conversions and ust and theres no way I can get away with running 20-25psi (not by my track pumps gauge anyway) I pump ’em up to the low 30s and as previously mentioned I’ve trashed the tyres against the rims in a snakebite stylee. But thats on a full sus and normally on rocky stuff. The Fire ust is going OK on my etsx @35-40psi but for my heckler I have to go with a donwhill tube and big but light-ish tyre (and that still occasionally pinches)

BTW I’m not heavy and on a HT its not too bad but on FS i give my rear wheel a right pasting.

I’ve mended conti ust tyres with a std patch on teh trailside. Seems possible with the panaracer kit or the “non stretch” patches that are available too.

But I run sealant and bung in a tube on the rare occaision I flat these days.

Another non-sealant user here too. Mavic XM819’s with Conti Verticals….as TFS says a quick top up every week or so & off you go.

WackoAK – Member
Exactly! The main problem is that people confuse UST and tubeless conversion – they are not the same thing!

I tend to agree. There’s a lot of confusion with all the various tubeless systems and much talk about the difficulty of seating the bead, tyre inflation requiring a floor pump/compressor and need for sealant.

As tyre bead diameters and rim diameters each have manufacturing tolerances you could be unlucky and get the opposite extremes which could make getting a UST tyre on or off abit more difficult than if the tolerance worked for you.

But my early experience of UST (and I can’t believe I’ve just been lucky)has been that the tyre could be put on by hand with a minimum amount of soapy water and inflated from new with a handpump from my backpack to seat the bead!

In terms of the ability to run dry and carry out trailside repairs UST seems to be a good system.

It’s good to hear there are others out there running dry and no-one so far has contributed with any negative feedback regarding trailside repair.

The ‘sticky string’ (Weldtite) UST repair kit has worked well for me on the odd occasion I’ve needed to repair a UST tyre.

Agree that UST and tubeless are not the same thing!

chalkyside, you have edited your original post to make it look like i didn’t read your first post….

I still think anyone running UST tyres without sealant is not taking advantage of the real worth of the tubeless system. Add some sealant and you’ll have no need to repair any punctures.

chalkyside, you have edited your original post to make it look like i didn’t read your first post….

Are you sure about that? I don’t know how to edit a post.

Add some sealant and you’ll have no need to repair any punctures

Are you sure about that to?

I agree sealant probably does help prevent thorn punctures but until I’ve ridden dry for a while I’ll hold judgement and take heart from those that have posted so far on UST use without sealant.

you usually end up without sealant at some point when it dries out and you don’t notice,coz the only way to be sure there’s any in there is to have a look.Last week Ang(wife) descended dunkery beacon with an empty tyre got quite a big stone puncture,flat tyre and rim dented in 4 places,up til then we’d been pretty lucky.p.s. grass doesn’t work,better to smoke it and forget about the flat tyre

I’m totally with the_flying_scotsman here. I started using UST in ’03, when I had my old Hummer built up with Mavic X3.1 rims.
I’v used all sorts of tyres, and only started using sealant around three years ago or so, because it just didn’t exist before that. I used, and still carry a Panaracer kit, which works very well indeed, provided you use it carefully.
Prior to sealant I never had a tyre go flat on a ride, the tyre always went down over a couple of days. On one occasion I found four thorns in the tyre that had taken three days to go flat. Since using sealant, I have only had a tyre, a 2.5″ Diesel, go flat on a very, very muddy ride. After hosing the bike off at a stable yard, I found the inch-long thorn in the edge of a tread block, and the sealant had dried out. The Panaracer kit fixed it in five minutes with the tyre part pumped up, then fully inflated with a Blackburn Mammoth Mountain mini-pump. That was a 2.5″ tyre. UST has never been an issue, either with or without sealant, in six years, so why do other people have such difficulty? And yes, I have run non-UST tyres on the Mavic rims; a pair of DMR Moto R/T’s for three years with sealant, a home-made brew from a recipe I got from this ‘site years ago.

Been running UST rims for 6yrs, mostly with UST tyres. Occasionally with tubes when I’ve pinched the bead, but that was my problem not really the tyres/UST (see below).

Dry UST works very well, if you do get thorns / small nicks, it generally deflates very slowly. I normally realise the next day when the tyre is flat, but in that state it’s easy to pump it back up & go for another ride without fixing it.

Fixing a flat: I’ve only ever used Sticky String (for those who don’t know, this is used without taking the tyre off the rim), and I’ve never had a deflated tyre leave the bead & require re-seating. They only leave the bead when I’m changing the tyre. I didn’t use to use the sticky string on bead pinches, but realised it works fine – Doh!

Times I’ve had a tyre deflate rapidly on the trail is from a good pinch flat leaving cuts 5-7mm long. Sticky String again will fix it in 2-3mins. Even used it in a mates ghetto tubeless with sealant which split & wouldn’t seal. Marvellous invention.

I have just started using sealant in one old HR LUST as it kept deflating due to too many holes & me being lazy & not wanting to pump it up before each ride. Seems to be working 🙄