Message #19407

[jim-ratliff]

I want to thank all, and especially Liam, for all of the education and insight around tubeless tires. Not only did it give me a lot of information, but it pointed out areas that led to a lot of googling, and I thought I would share some of the things I have found.  As Bushwacka predicted last year, I am now riding tubeless on my mountain bike at 30 lbs front and rear, and liking it.  On my most recent ride on a gravel road along the Delaware river I was going downhill at about 30 mph and hit two consecutive sharp-edged potholes that were hidden in the shadows. To my surprise, this was pretty much a non event -- at higher pressures I never had been comfortable enough to be going down a gravel road at those speeds and would certainly gotten bounced around. I was surprised that there seemed to be no after effects, we just kept riding.
My reading has found a lot of interesting stuff, so I thought I would share with any who want to spend the time reading. My reading has also included reading about road tubeless, so that's here as well.

• Hutchinson is the only company that makes road tubeless tires. As Meput said, if they remain the only company then road tubeless will probably die, but all of the reviews are as positive as the mtb reviews. Hutchinson (and a couple of other companies, including Kenda) don't recommend using latex based (i.e. Stan's) sealants.  They have their own products that they say last two years.
• A video of two guys racing to mount tubeless tires on Shimano and Compagnola rims --     -- and people say tubeless is hard to mount.
• Hutchinson Rep'Air (version for mtb and for road bike). fix a tire along the road without taking the tire off the rim.   http://www.bikerumor.com/2010/11/23/reviewhow-to-hutchinson-repair-tubeless-tire-patch-kit/

Three categories of mtb/road wheels and tires are emerging. 1) standard wheels and tires converted to tubeless, 2) tubeless, and 3)   tubeless ready.
In category 1 Stan's is clearly the product of choice.  This category doesn't exist for road bikes.  The beads of normal tires stretch too much to stay on the wheel.  In fact, Hutchinson developed a Carbon Fiber bead specially for road bike tubeless.
In category 3, the tire and wheel have the UST bead but are not airtight and not UST rated. Some recommend Stan's (WTB, for example), many of the bigger tire companies recommend against Stan's because of the chemical base, and recommend their own products (and rate them as lasting longer than Stan's, 2 years for a couple I read). Hard to know how much is marketing hype, but using Stan's on Kenda voids your tire warranty.
Category 2 is truly tubeless.  The wheel and the tire are airtight. You can run sealant inside if you are overly worried about flats (like I may have been). Hutchinson says that most flats on their road bike tires are much like car flats, the leak is so slow that you can usually complete the ride.

I am intrigued by the idea of road tubeless and the increased comfort and decreased rolling resistance of riding at 80 lbs of pressure instead of 110. And I am especially intrigued by the Hutchinson internal/external repair kit for road tubeless.
Many of the reviews that I have read said that they mounted the Hutchinson Fusion III tubeless, no sealant, and never had to unmount the tire until it wore out 3,000 miles later (that's pretty maintenance free and attractive).