Two Wheel Blogs

OK, so there are some downsides to Tubeless. You may have heard one or two.

Saturday, I experienced a tubeless worst case scenario. I really don't think it was all that bad either...sure it sucked, but every advantage you ever take has its price.

OK, so I am going on 11 months with almost* no flats from thorns and zero pinch flats, but Saturday, I encountered one doozy of a sharp rock that sliced my sidewall. This rock clearly won the battle between rubber and chert and my Stan's solution simply could not seal the 3/8 inch long cut.

* I say almost, because I got a flat due to my lack of maintenance of the system (you gotta add Stan's once every month or so).

I have often bragged on the Exiwolf tire by WTB. I like the large sidewall knobs that extend down the sidewall and offer a lot of protection from rock cuts, I like the large volume that a 2.35 inch wide tire offers to tame the bumps a bit. Since mine is now cut, I have to temporarily use the Mutano Raptor in the photo. That is a dime, so you can see that this 700c by 44 tire is a serious step down in terms of volume, but the tread pattern is nice.

So, here is the horror story...I round a corner where there appears to be 3 fist-sized rocks strewn about (that is a low number for rocks on a trail around here), and hear a loud pop (my tire does this very often when one of the large side knobs grips a rock edge, but can not hold on, so as the knob fails to hold a loud "pop" can be heard as the tire slips off the rock). THAT noise is no big deal, but the "thump-HISSS" I hear a split second later is a bit more concerning. I quickly dismount and roll the tire around so that the Stan's can work its magic....nothing doing. There is a bunch of white Stan's solution at the cut site but air is escaping still.

As some of you know, the Crows are off (for now) and the Exi-Wolfs are back on the Monkey. My bike is now back to a heavy do anything tank...just the way I like it.

The LBS is hosting our first CX race tonight....ought to be about 4 guys with various geared CX bikes and me on my SS monkey with monster tires. I hope to have some fun.

After the race, some will have a few beers probably, but my plan is to do some night riding.

This evening should be in keeping with my life lately...mostly un planned and flying by the seat of my pants. I originally planned to go to the big city tonight to ride with 2-old, but my family needs me bright and early tomorrow, so that is out.

No real point to this post other than to say thanks to those here that post up and give me the motivation to stay crazy. Bobber, I never had much intrest in CX before reading your posts, now I want to do some small races. I will have to use my SS rigid MTB that is technically illegal for CX (disc brakes), but I don't think anyone will throw up too much fuss

OK, So Stan's produced the first tubeless 29er tire, so I got some.

First impressions (fresh out of the box):
these are light...really light!
these are not gonna last 5 minutes (they are too light)
they have almost no tread
they are going to rip like paper

Second impressions (mounting them on the rims):
they fit a bit tighter than the old tires
they hold a nice shape and should be easy to inflate

Third impressions (getting them to take air/inflating on a standard Salsa 29er rim):
wow, my pump hose just blew up for no apparent reason...replaced pump hose
these tires hold their shape well
they both were aired up/seated with a standard Park floor pump
they don't seal quite as well as my old non-tubeless tires that I ran tubeless, but eventually they sealed (no tiny air bubbles forming at bead area)

Fourth impression (the test ride in the neighborhood):
these tires are sticky (like a race car tire)
they are soft (like a race car tire)
in spite of their lack of knobs, they will not spin or slide on grass
they seem to have surprisingly large volume for a tire that appears small
they are really supple and soak up bumps
they are about the same height as my old tires

A while back I reported on Stan's tubeless system conversion (and home brew tubeless) on my 29er (Here).

Well, I wanted to get back to you guys and let you know some more about how it is working (still). Recently on a ride, I discovered that I once again had been lax on my maintenance and allowed the front tire to go dangerously low on sealant. I decided to ride anyway with surprisingly good results.

I was riding very hard and ended up crashing pretty hard after doing a wheelie drop off of a pretty large log onto flat. I landed with the front wheel offline and the correction was one of those where the tire hooked up better than it should have and actually rolled the tire off the rim instead of breaking traction. Anyway, the picture clearly shows the tire with a bunch of detritus pinched between the bead and rim. The amazing thing is it sealed up perfectly, and I finished the ride (3 miles back to the truck).

When I returned home and cleaned out the debris, I discovered that the leaves and sticks were partially inside the tire. This indicated that the tire had rolled WELL off the bead, allowed the jungle in, then popped back and sealed up. All this and it only lost a few P.S.I.

In keeping with my recent movement to single speeding (about a year and a half ago), I decided to remove the tubes and run tubeless with my bikes. This procedure involves removing tubes and buying or building a rim strip (typically) and mounting a regular (non-UST) tire tubeless with some sort of sealer (Stan's or homebrew).

My first entrance was a complete fabrication using the knowledge I have about tires and such. I split a 24 inch tube used it as a rim strip on my 29er, along with some industrial sealer we use on off road trucks and quarry equipment. It worked great, but the sealer was a bit thick for the high rpms that MTBs produce (relative to a quarry vehicle). Nevertheless, I used this set up for about 3 months with very little problems, but wanted something even easier.

My second setup was Stan's. I went by the book completely. It worked as advertised, and I aired up the tires with a floor pump as the videos claim.

I don't go around telling people that they should run tubeless, but when asked, I do share my success stories, along with my failures.

The biggest failure occurred a couple days ago, and you guessed it, it was completely my fault. I got a flat. That is not supposed to happen, so I figured that it must be a breached seal. Nope, there was a 1/8 inch hole in the tire that was not sealing up. I went home with my brother, and declared to teach him what I know about tubeless. Little did I know that I would be showing him that the one thing I harp on the most about tubeless is the one thing I did wrong...I did not follow directions exactly.