Tubeless road tires don't work for everyone - discuss

[jfranci3]

Regular maintenance....
So the goo only stays goo for 3-4mo. What should I do over the winter? 1) use my Schwalbe One's on the trainer? 2) Dismount and clean the tires/wheels? 3) Toss some thinning agent in there, then remove the tires, ,etc? 3) Just keep adding more goo.

Tire valves
Obviously these take more of a beating with 2x the air refills 0x the tube changes. Replace the whole stem & tape or just the valve?

[TobinHatesYou]

3 months is about 2200-2500mi and about the life expectancy of a fast tire for me, but the answer is simple, add more sealant. 10mL of sealant ends up being maybe 1 gram when dried up. So if you’re using 40mL in each tire that’s about 8 whole grams worth of dried up sealant weighing you down.

Why would your valves wear much at all? Most Presta chucks are press-on. If you are inflating your valves intelligently, you won’t get them gummed up with sealant. Even if you do, valve cores are cheap. Also tubeless loses air much much more slowly than a latex tube. I lose maybe 3psi a day with tubeless. I only replace the tape if I see it peeling up anywhere or if I damage it with tire levers.

[jlok]

The good thing about MTB UST was that it just worked when most other options were decidedly unreliable or required lots of experimentation and tweaking to get a result. For that I was willing to cop the slight weight and cost penalty of Maxxis UST tyres at the time, then the rest of the market matured over a few years and UST wasn't needed as much. It almost sounds like the same story might play out on road tubeless.

Re system lock-in; I still use my UST rims on non-UST tyres and it works well. I wonder if you can use non Mavic tyres on the road UST rims.

Exactly. I'd like to see how other brands like Schwalbe, Maxxis and Panaracer tubeless / tubeless ready tires work on Mavic Road UST rims.

Campag / Fulcrum has been producint 2-way-fit rims I can't see them joining Mavic... and then Shimano maybe even earlier.... (WH-6700 TL? 7800 TL?)...

[gotgame]

If you want the best result with tubeless, you must use tires from mavic because they make them within known tolerances.
Each manufacturer respects different dimensions and that's why for example some tires are loose and easy to put on the rim and other tires are too tight and you need steel levers to put on

You can run non tubeless on ust rims without any problems. Also tires from other manufacturers, but the fit would not be as perfect.

[jlok]

Glad the no valve trick worked for you, sometimes you just need more flow.

ya... thank you for your tips.

I have one more pt to add and I think it's quite specific to Roval CLX rims. The shallow central canal caused the beads around the valve having a discontinuous seal with the rim bed shoulders. The first attempt to seat the beads was failed and I noticed the air was going out quickly around the valve area. That was when the valve was at 12 o'clock position (I placed the wheel vertically).

I positioned the valve at 6 o'clock at the 2nd attempt so that the weight of the wheel helped to let the beads to make contact to the rim bed, and it was successful.

[TobinHatesYou]

Got two pairs of 25mm Hutchinson Fusion 5 Galactik 11Storms, one "TLR" and one "Tubeless." The branding on the Tubeless version also says "Reinforced" but I don't know if that means it has a thicker butyl layer, a thin kevlar belt or what. The difference in weight between the two types is staggering. The TLR version is 219g, by far the lightest tubeless tire I've purchased so far. The Tubeless version is 293g, among the heaviest 25mm tires I've weighed personally. Only the Panaracer Race A Evo3s are heavier.

[petromyzon]

That's interesting^^. What does the inner surface look like? Would be very keen to see bicyclerollingresistance test the TLR and the Tubeless side by side.
From this forum and others it seems like people have very different values and expectations when it comes to tyres. Some people see a bit of sidewall seepage in a tubeless set up and send the tyre back, others look at that, and think: fast and light, bring it on.

[naylor343]

Got two pairs of 25mm Hutchinson Fusion 5 Galactik 11Storms, one "TLR" and one "Tubeless." .

Keen to know what their measurement is when mounted and and on what rims.

[TobinHatesYou]

That's interesting^^. What does the inner surface look like? Would be very keen to see bicyclerollingresistance test the TLR and the Tubeless side by side.
From this forum and others it seems like people have very different values and expectations when it comes to tyres. Some people see a bit of sidewall seepage in a tubeless set up and send the tyre back, others look at that, and think: fast and light, bring it on.

The inner surfaces of the tires are slightly different. The rubber on the TLR version has a slight criss-cross pattern in it. The bead is significantly more flexible. The Tubeless version has a smooth inner surface other than the horizontal ribbing that is on all Hutchinson tires. It is immediately apparent that the entire casing is thinner including the around the beads.

Keen to know what their measurement is when mounted and and on what rims.

I most likely won't be mounting either until spring. They look small to me, so I'd guess around 26.5-27mm on ENVE SES 5.6 Discs (19mm internal, 28/28.75mm external.)

It looks like Bicycle Rolling Resistance tested the non-11Storm version with the reinforced casing since his were 288g. According to those tests, they were second only to the Corsa Speeds for tubeless tires...the TLR version with its significant weight savings and probably more supple casing are probably ~1w faster.

e: Weighed the other two tires. 219g and 221g for the TLR, 292g and 293g for the Tubeless.

[bm0p700f]

thes best results for tubeless tyres seems to have become the easiest to fit and install and sod tyre durability, puncture resistance and other traits. Mavic may have easy to install tyres but the compound is way too soft to resist flint. So mavics tyres and rims are trade off. Also has anyone does a run flat test yet. One test I do and I will with the mavic tyres is to ride it flat for 10 miles. if the tyre remains locked to the rim and the tyre is undamaged and re inflates then it is a good bead lock. If not then what happens if I forget my worms or forget to top up sealant. Been there and ridden 10 miles on a flat tyre, injected new sealant and all was well. you may think that is a pointless test but I dont want to have to call breakdown ever.

I consider a tubeless tyre fitted for the life of the tyre. I never want to remove it until it has worn out. Therefore i care little for how easy it is to fit I am only doing it once. Better if the tyre last so long that it might outlast the rim.

People seem to want tubeless tyres that are as easy to fit as clinchers but these are not clinchers, they need to be way more robust and durable. The mavic tyres simply dont provide that. not everyone needs a racing tyre like the pro one or the mavic yskions. These suit some but do not suit other riders. many people in this thread need to get there head around that instead of telling people that mavic have it sorted. They dont yet or I would have yskion tyres on my commutor bike. They are on a race bike at present but I train/race on the same type of roads that I commute on hence the tyre requirements are actually the same.

Those hutchinson TLR tyres at that weight are light ad may have very low Crr but my bet is give them to me and I will murder them in under 500 miles. I might try to see if I am wrong. flint is sharp and few tyres I have found can resist it.

[Ltyarbro42]

Regular maintenance....
So the goo only stays goo for 3-4mo. What should I do over the winter?

You just add more sealant?

1) use my Schwalbe One's on the trainer? 2) Dismount and clean the tires/wheels? 3) Toss some thinning agent in there, then remove the tires, ,etc? 3) Just keep adding more goo.Tire valves Obviously these take more of a beating with 2x the air refills 0x the tube changes. Replace the whole stem & tape or just the valve?

I have clean the orange seal off my rims using nothing but water and a paper towel. Exactly zero work. Do you worry about your tire vavles on your tubes? These are ridiculous arguments.

[MikeD]

The good thing about MTB UST was that it just worked when most other options were decidedly unreliable or required lots of experimentation and tweaking to get a result. For that I was willing to cop the slight weight and cost penalty of Maxxis UST tyres at the time, then the rest of the market matured over a few years and UST wasn't needed as much. It almost sounds like the same story might play out on road tubeless.

Re system lock-in; I still use my UST rims on non-UST tyres and it works well. I wonder if you can use non Mavic tyres on the road UST rims.

Exactly. I'd like to see how other brands like Schwalbe, Maxxis and Panaracer tubeless / tubeless ready tires work on Mavic Road UST rims.

Campag / Fulcrum has been producint 2-way-fit rims I can't see them joining Mavic... and then Shimano maybe even earlier.... (WH-6700 TL? 7800 TL?)...

If you watch the GCN video on the Mavic UST road tubeless, the big point of the system is the ease of mounting /dismounting the tires (no tire levers required). That's the biggest beef with current tubeless systems. If you put some other brand of tire on a Mavic rim, you lose that main feature. Mavic tires have kevlar beads, stretchier than the carbon beads of other tires.

[jfranci3]

I have clean the orange seal off my rims using nothing but water and a paper towel. Exactly zero work. Do you worry about your tire vavles on your tubes? These are ridiculous arguments.

Ridiculous??
Presta valve stems get bent so easily. I go through 4-5 tubes/year, so the bad ones get cycled out. With tubeless, you're adding air every ride vs once/week and the stems stay installed. They need replacing every now and then.
On the sealant, the web is full of threads about what a PITA it is cleaning sealant out of tires. I haven't tried it yet.

[morganb]

I have clean the orange seal off my rims using nothing but water and a paper towel. Exactly zero work. Do you worry about your tire vavles on your tubes? These are ridiculous arguments.

Ridiculous??
Presta valve stems get bent so easily. I go through 4-5 tubes/year, so the bad ones get cycled out. With tubeless, you're adding air every ride vs once/week and the stems stay installed. They need replacing every now and then.
On the sealant, the web is full of threads about what a PITA it is cleaning sealant out of tires. I haven't tried it yet.

My tubeless set ups lose air at the same rate as a butyl tube, if not slower.

[bm0p700f]

If you watch the GCN video on the Mavic UST road tubeless, the big point of the system is the ease of mounting /dismounting the tires (no tire levers required). That's the biggest beef with current tubeless systems. If you put some other brand of tire on a Mavic rim, you lose that main feature. Mavic tires have kevlar beads, stretchier than the carbon beads of other tires.

Time is going to tell on the mavic tyres. a stretchy bead is not normally a good thing with tubeless as it can cause some refttining issues. I am sure Mavic are aware of this and therefore the bead is not actually stretchy.

Why has using a tyre lever become so difficult? Cycling it self is quite a difficult thing and yet people can't cope with using a tyre lever anymore. I remember one night with a Pacenti SL23 V1 (not known for easy tyre fitting) and a schwalbe one tubeless that let me down my lever breaking when removing the tyre (or some other similar problem maybe I forgot them) and having to remove by hand fit the tube (as there was no choice) and remount the tyre by hand. I managed somehow even though it was a cold dark january night. This is an example of tyre that I dont think is much good as it let me down (literally) like clockwork.

Why does anyone want to take the tyre off and clean the sealant out. Mistake!!!!!!!!!!! a tubeless tyre is meant to be left installed for the life of the tyre. you remove it to replace it. the problem with tubeless is not the technology or the ease or difficulty of tyre fitting. It is simply end users making life hard for themselves.

yes presta valves get bent but if it breaks as they do sometimes then you simply put a new one in. Again where is exactly is the problem with that. all you need is a valve core and a valve core remover, it's easier than changing a inner tube.

Given I fit tubeless tyres every day with levers I would add, most of the time I can say it take no longer to fit the tyre than it does a clincher with tubes. What take the time is fitting the rim tape tape, fitting the valve, first inflation to seat the tyre, injecting the sealant and finally the second inflation to refinflate it after the sealant is added. Mavic'seasy UST system will not speed up the process as the tyre fitting time as it is already quick, and that with every tubeless tyre on almost every rim that I have tried. I think this is the real reason why it wont catch on as many of the problems identified in this thread are not problems in my eyes and in many cases are simply inexperience.

Although having tyres that mount by hand is nice so it is not unwelcome either.