In 1892 Frank Lenz, a young accountant from the USA, gave up his job and set off to cycle solo around the world. Starting from New York he headed west. He managed to get as far as Turkey before he was murdered. Had he seen Midnight Express he might have thought about going a different way. Anyway, his bicycle was equipped with a revolutionary new technology. Pneumatic tyres with inner tubes. Before that all tyres had been solid. Whether it was a good idea to start a round the world trip using inner tubes when there were no LBSs with spares (that is assuming there were LBSs at all)is perhaps a moot point.
So here we are 120 years later still using the same technology and still getting punctures every week. 'Does it have to be this way?' I mused whilst grovelling at the side of a windswept road, my hands covered in grime and my body showing the first signs of hypothermia.
No, it doesn't. You can go tubeless. I found this video that tells you how (Road Tubeless Installation) : http://www.notubes.com/Movies.aspx
I decided to try it out on my commuting bike with a view to converting my other bikes if successful. The financial downside is having to buy tubeless tyres (maybe ordinary tyres would work but I didn't want to risk it). I think only Hutchinson make them at present. I went for the Fusion 3s which are £40 each. The rest of the kit isn't expensive.
I did what the man in the video said and, so far, it seems to have worked. 75 commuting miles without a puncture or, if I have had one, I haven't noticed.
Before embarking on this I discussed it with Hugh Webb and he was firmly against the idea. Now, Hugh W is usually right about most things so I'm not overly confident. Anyway I'll update in a few months time to let you know how I'm getting on. In the meantime happy to field any tubeless questions anyone may have.
We're milling through the grinder, grinding through the mill. This is not an exercise, could it be a ... drill.
Wonderful timing Mr Grainger. I started my own research into this just yesterday for similar reasons of being fed up with dealing with winter puncture repairs.
I have been running tubeless tyres on my mtb for two years without a single puncture in approx 2,000 miles, so I have been dreaming of going tubeless on my road bike for some time. My research last night confirmed that you shouldn't use standard road tyres for tubeless purposes on road bikes because of the higher pressures involved. You can use standard mtb tyres and convert them to tubeless but tubeless road tyres have stronger beads than standard tyres. It would apparently be dangerous to use standard tyres because they can separate from the rim when travelling at speed.
First question; why did you choose hutchinson fusion 3?
Second question; where are they £40? Chain reaction are quoting £49.
Third; Can any rim be used or do you need a tubeless ready rim?
Fourth; Are you now running lower pressure?
I think your tubeless mtb tyres first made me aware of this.
1. Can't remember but I think they are longer lasting than the Atoms.
2. Wiggle - the other stuff is cheaper at CR.
3. Normal rims are fine I think. There are special tubeless rims but that is to do with not having spoke holes (no idea how you change the spokes) so you don't have to tape the rims.
4. The tyres have a recommended psi of 100 so I'm running at a reckless 105.
Let me know how you get on.
We're milling through the grinder, grinding through the mill. This is not an exercise, could it be a ... drill.
Posts: 898
From: Mottingham Mottingham, so good they named it twice
Re: Going Tubeless on the Road
Posted on: 04/03/2012 07:43 PM
Been thinking of going tubeless for quite a while myself, having had a puncture free 6 months on my MTB, however.........after side swiping a root yesterday and dislodging the sidewall, I lost my air and was unable to re-inflate the tyre and had to resort to the old tried and tested method to get me going. Having said that I think a severe shortage of tyre sealant with a result of my tyre losing air making it easier to dislodge was more to blame. Having said all this I will be carrying on with tubeless and will be going tubeless on the road bike too shortly. Having read every review possible the feed back has invariably been only positive, another being more ride comfort without any loss of speed.
You can convert any rim to tubeless if you use something like Stans Notubes. www.notubes.com i've used them on both our mountain bikes for a few years now .... Without any punctures!!
All men make mistakes, but only wise men learn from their mistakes - Winston Churchill
You are close Hugh. It is not a very good advertisement for tubeless tyres as the young ladies demonstrating things seem to have misattached the pump and over-inflated their chests.
Steve
Someone had to look since John's mum wouldn't let him.
I managed all by myself - only coming slightly unstuck with the rim taping. Getting air in is the problem. The people in the videos all seem to have air compressors. I had to make do with frantic use of a track pump. It took a while but when the air started to stay in it was very thrilling - don't knock it until you've tried it. The problem area for both wheels is the rim joint. By holding the wheel horizontal and shaking madly it sealed in the end.
We're milling through the grinder, grinding through the mill. This is not an exercise, could it be a ... drill.
Thanks for advice. New tubeless tyres were easier to fit than I expected (no jiggling or shaking required) just followed Stan's video, certainly easier than mtb to get the air in. I have been out for a recce on them this afternoon and they seem to roll quite nicely. Looking forward to many miles of punctureless riding. Thanks.
I've covered 1,708km since 4th March, the date Hugh announced his move to tubeless.
I think this proves, beyond any doubt, that by using tubeless tyres Hugh has greatly reduced the number of punctures I now get.
Ignoring Martin's fatheaded witterings I'm pleased to announce no punctures to date ... and I've covered literally tens of miles.
I will shortly be putting up one of my ever popular Resonance FM Bikeshow postings so watch out for that.
We're milling through the grinder, grinding through the mill. This is not an exercise, could it be a ... drill.
**Update**
After three months of 100+ miles a week commuting with no punctures today I had two. The first a mile from work. Tyre was soft, pumped it up, went completely flat and that was that. Had to walk to work. Stuck an inner tube in - very messy - and that got me home. The milky tubeless fluid seemed to have separated out into equal parts stringy rubber and clear fluid. When I got home I pumped up the front tyre only to find that had a non-sealing puncture as well. Poured in another shot of sealant and that fixed it. Then took out the inner tube from this morning's puncture, added a shot of sealant to the tyre and eventually - after emptying a CO2 canister into it - got it to seal.
So the sealant is not for life or even for three months.
We're milling through the grinder, grinding through the mill. This is not an exercise, could it be a ... drill.
"Before embarking on this I discussed it with Hugh Webb and he was firmly against the idea. Now, Hugh W is usually right about most things so I'm not overly confident."
I have tubeless on both mountain bikes and have used the CO2 canister before just to get the damn tyre inflated, but when removing the tyre at a later date found the the sealant had hardened due to the cold temperature of the Co2 and stuck to the inside of the tyre.
When I change my tyres to summer/winter, if I can't get the things to catch/inflate I use a presta valve adaptor and take my chances with the air pump at the local Shell garage.
Otherwise over 3 years of no punctures.
A little nonsense now and then is relished by the wisest men.
~ Willy Wonka
On Saturday I managed to ride over something which made quite a large hole in my rear tyre. The sealing fluid did not do its job this time for two reasons. Firstly the hole was quite large and secondly as Hugh mentions above the fluid had separated into something resembling curds and whey, yuck. It was a messy job removing the tyre and replacing with an inner tube (which ironically was spilt despite being brand new and unused which meant I had to repeat the exercise again to put another inner tube in).
Thanks to Martin G and Hugh G who patiently waited for me without grumbling for which I am grateful.
I am still committed to the idea of tubeless as I have been running this system off-road for over two years and probably covered 3,000 miles without a puncture and last weekend's incident was my first on-road puncture since fitting the tubeless tyres in March.
I think the lesson is to replace the sealing fluid on a regular basis, probably every 6 weeks or so. I will try it and see how it goes.
tyres on you bike if puncture resistance is your main worry. I run these on all my bikes (Brompton, single speed, winter bike) now apart from my summer bike.
I've only ever had one puncture and that was on a nearly threadbare tyre on my Brompton.
They're a hard tyre, are tough to fit, and will slow you down a bit. But for puncture resistance they are first class - unlike other tyres with 'tough' names (eg., armadillo, gatorskin, etc) which I've tried but found unreliable.
Last night during an off-road ride I got my second puncture in a week. This time on my mtb which I have been running with tubeless tyres for over two years and covered many hundreds, if not thousands of miles over a variety of terrains without incident.
The puncture was quite pronounced and went with an audible hiss. I tried to spin the wheel hoping that the sealing fluid would seal the hole but only succeeded in sealing fluid being jettisoned from the tyre in a display similar to a Catherine wheel. I pulled my tweezers out hoping to pluck the offending object from the tyre only to find that instead they plunged inside the tyre as all that was left was quite a large hole. Starting to despair that the tubeless gods had forsaken me and with a continuing hiss I decided that I would try and limp back to Hayes without having to change a very muddy tyre in dark conditions.
As luck would have it the sealant eventually did its job and although the tyre had lost a lot of pressure it held enough to get me back to the shop without having to stop to put a tube in or re-inflate.
Lessons learned. 1. My faith has been partly restored in tubeless technology. 2. Martin G is a very patient companion, thanks again, and sorry to have spoiled a second ride for you in the space of a week.
Yeah man. Surprisingly solid ride even for a 6' 3" rider like me. Hasn't had much road time recently but will be out again soon once my workplace changes to Paddington from Soho.
You can "cheat" and have a tube ( say a schwable tube with removable core) and put stans latex in in.
So, maybe the solution was staring me in the face all the time and I chose to ignore it. Having discarded my tubeless tyres on Tuesday and contemplated ordering the Schwalbe tyres I remembered that I had some Conti 4Season tyres left over from last winter. Lots of people had recommended these for providing many miles of puncture-proof riding. However, my experience with them was very different, averaging a puncture on every ride, hence my desire to find a better way (see above).
I fitted the Contis before this morning's ride but took Sparky's advice and used inners with removable cores and filled each tube with 50ml of sealing fluid.
2.5 miles into the ride, with an audible hiss, another puncture occurred too soon in the ride for my liking, thus confirming that the Conti 4Season tyres are not puncture proof! I pulled up expecting to have to change the tube but by the time I had come to rest I realised the sealing fluid had done its job and the puncture had repaired itself. Too good to be true? Well, I completed the ride, another 50m, without incident and without having to repair the puncture or put any extra air in.
I will still have to carryout a repair but at least I can do this in the comfort of home and I can confirm that putting sealant into tubes is a lot less trouble than trying to mount tubeless tyres and get them to inflate.
Anyway, apologies to Sparky for not taking up his suggestion sooner, I'm going to try his method for a while and see how it goes.
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