Silca Ultimate Tubeless Sealant

[wickedstealthy]

Mmmm I'm almost jumping the tubeless bandwagon.
If I read how much faff it is finding the good combination tire-sealant I wonder why I should ride tubeless. Bought the silca stuff but will likely return it. Typically only have one or 2 leaks in a season of 12km and simple replace my tpu tube and fix it home.

[MikeD]

Mmmm I'm almost jumping the tubeless bandwagon.
If I read how much faff it is finding the good combination tire-sealant I wonder why I should ride tubeless. Bought the silca stuff but will likely return it. Typically only have one or 2 leaks in a season of 12km and simple replace my tpu tube and fix it home.

After years of using tubeless, my opinion is if you aren't getting many flats it isn't worth it.

[TobinHatesYou]

Mmmm I'm almost jumping the tubeless bandwagon.
If I read how much faff it is finding the good combination tire-sealant I wonder why I should ride tubeless. Bought the silca stuff but will likely return it. Typically only have one or 2 leaks in a season of 12km and simple replace my tpu tube and fix it home.

I mean it's pretty apparent/obvious what the best sealant is and what the best tires are.

[spdntrxi]

people just need to start with orange seal.. that's what I did years ago and have seen no reason to switch.

[Poddle]

Long time lurker here who's been reading this thread since the beginning and was initially intrigued at the claims Silca was making, but since rather disappointed from the reports here.

Also a shame that Josh from Silca appears to have disappeared. I was half hoping they discussed the issues (i.e. is it a QC problem etc.) on the most recent episode of their Marginal Gains podcast but they didn't.

[wickedstealthy]

Mmmm I'm almost jumping the tubeless bandwagon.
If I read how much faff it is finding the good combination tire-sealant I wonder why I should ride tubeless. Bought the silca stuff but will likely return it. Typically only have one or 2 leaks in a season of 12km and simple replace my tpu tube and fix it home.

After years of using tubeless, my opinion is if you aren't getting many flats it isn't worth it.

Thx for the honest reply. Im seriously intrested in tubeless as I see some advantages. But for me basically a tubeless tire should only flat once every 3 years
That is for me just the point of using sealant giving your the option to run fast tires and still dont have the major risk flatting.
My major frustration is that an end user needs to find out what tire and what sealant work ok.
I was honestly intrested in the Silca stuff but believed the hype to quickly :)

I ride 25mm and with the TPU inners I hardly flat. The last two times where hard hits in a pothole where the casing of the outer tires was damaged and NO sealant could have fixed that.

[FlatlandClimber]

I feel like tubeless is definitely higher maintenance for road, and either makes sense if you puncture a lot (bad roads, bad luck, thin tires) or if you don't care about the added maintenance.
I am willing to devote time to my bike, and care about clean bearings, a waxed chain etc.
Tubeless has its benefits but can definitely suck to live with.
I however really love riding the low pressure, for added comfort and grip, and hardly ever care about punctures.
Also, I think tubesless has improved so much in the past few years, especially with the ETRTO and tire materials improving. My first set up was Schwalbe Pro One with Schwalbe Tubeless Sealant, on a ZIPP 404 rim. They were so difficult to keep sealed, and the high pressure (25c tire on 19c rim) also meant it lost significant pressure before sealing a puncture.
Getting the tire on required a compressor and soapy water.

GP5000s TR now get onto the bead usually with a hand pump if you wanted to.

[robeambro]

This time round with Silca, we learned that cutting holes in a tyre in your garage (as some 'video reviews' by third parties did) does not tell you how the sealant will perform in real life after N days / rides.

Orange Seal just works better than most sealants in most circumstances for most people. Do I hope that Josh sticks to improving this product? Of course. But until that happens, one would need a very good reason to pick anything else other than Orange.

[SCJKJ]

I'm pretty convinced that Josh will at some point answer our concerns. I think he's figuring out what's wrong and what can be done at the moment. I'll agree it does seem like an unusual oversight on their part.

I would find it to be expected that he isn't answering without knowing the exact solution. On the other hand, I'd then also expect him to make a statement and take the sealant of his site if there truly is a problem, which it seems there is.

[bobones]

Perhaps manufacturing is just not able to (consistently) produce the sealant Silca designed. It's the first sealant to come with a separate "replenisher" fluid. Was that seen to be necessary because they knew the original formula was prone to drying out, or as I belived, to make it easier to top up through the valve?

The product I have does not live up to the claims on these counts:
1/ it doesn't last 90-120 days: mine had dried up in 2 weeks
2/ it doesn't exist as a foam in which carbon filaments are suspended
3/ carbon filaments do not help to plug punctures: they just clump into little balls that roll about inside your tyre.

It's a massive fail for me. I have had one puncture in the time I have been using it and there was no liquid sealant in the tyre to do anything useful, and in a little over 2 months, I have just about ran out of replenisher and I'm 3/4 of the way down on a 24 fl.oz bottle of sealant.

The lesson for me is never to stray away from Orange Seal. The only question is whether I can be bothered trying to get a refund on the Silca stuff I bought.

[FlatlandClimber]

I was sent a new bottle right After issuing my complaint. Some bottles work, some don't. There seem to be batches of varying quality.

[cat4forlife]

I was sent a new bottle right After issuing my complaint. Some bottles work, some don't. There seem to be batches of varying quality.

What was the reason, if any, given by Silca for the carbon fiber forming rat-dropping-like balls? I just unmounted one of my Schwalbe Pro One TLE a little over 6 weeks after installing the sealant and there's still ton of sealant in liquid form. However, i found three separate large clusters of balls attached to the tire with not much loose strands of carbon fiber remaining in the liquid.

[FlatlandClimber]

They did not give an explanation. What type of "ball" are you talking?
Hard, inseparable balls, that rattle around?
Or rather loose bunches?

[whataboutEee]

Mmmm I'm almost jumping the tubeless bandwagon.
If I read how much faff it is finding the good combination tire-sealant I wonder why I should ride tubeless. Bought the silca stuff but will likely return it. Typically only have one or 2 leaks in a season of 12km and simple replace my tpu tube and fix it home.

As someone who just went tubeless, I can say I am never going back. The ride quality is just too good. I usually only punctured once a year or so with tubes, so the puncture protection wasn't a big deal for me. Our roads are terrible, so the low pressure makes a meaningful difference, but if I lived somewhere with awesome roads then I can see the argument going towards tubes.

[cat4forlife]

They did not give an explanation. What type of "ball" are you talking?
Hard, inseparable balls, that rattle around?
Or rather loose bunches?