Tube or Tubeless

[Bigal1463]

I generally ride on paved trails and occasionally ride off road. From whit I read; it‘s not if you get a flat, but when. I’m concerned about it and at 74 years old, I’d like to circumvent this problem all together, and was wondering about the experienced rider out there as to what you would do in my situation?

 

[Tars Tarkas]

Some people will say tubeless is better because they use sealant and are easier to repair if you do have a flat. They are easier to patch unless you have a serious flat, in which case they can be more trouble. As for sealant, like Slime, or other brands, you can use it in tubed tires.

I've had one flat in almost two years, before I added Slime to my tires (tubed tires). No flats since, and my tires are considerably more bald now.

It's true though. It's only a matter of time before you'll have a flat if you ride enough and live long enough. I always carry a patch kit, tools, air, just in case. Flats aren't a big deal.

TT

 

[Nova Haibike]

Flats aren't a big deal.

It is not a big deal if you have a mid-drive bike and quick release wheels. If you have a hub motor and get a flat in the rear, it is considerably more of a headache to fix.

While you can in theory make just about any bike tubeless, I would not recommend it. It should really only be done if the wheels and tires are tubeless ready.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

You are making the assumption that your bike can easily accept tubeless tires. That may or may not be the case but I've found it much easier to go tubeless if your rims are compatible with tubeless tires.

The big, huge, enormous advantage of tubeless tires is that you can run them at lower tire pressure and not have the risk of snakebites. So if you are a mountain biker riding janky tech it is a no-brainer.

A close second to the above is that if you are an in an extremely bike-tire hostile environment (goathead thorn country) you will have a lot less trouble. However, good puncture-resistant tires plus inner tubes filled with sealant are almost as good.

If you are mostly riding pavement I'd recommend getting high-quality tires with some kind of puncture protection, high quality inner tubes, possibly use sealant in the tubes, and inspect them regularly and replace them early and often. I ride about 70/30 unpaved and paved and so far that combo has worked for me.

 

[Tars Tarkas]

It is not a big deal if you have a mid-drive bike and quick release wheels. If you have a hub motor and get a flat in the rear, it is considerably more of a headache to fix.

Very true, but there are all kinds of flats. My only flat on my current bike, a Rad Rover, rear hub drive, was on the back. It was a simple puncture. I rolled the bead off, found the sharp rock, still in the tire, patched the tube, put it all back together without ever tanking the wheel off the rim. Probably 20 minutes, no rush.

But yeah, you can shred a tire and tube beyond repair and bang up the rim at the same time, so you end up having to carry your bike home. Anyway, if it's a flat on the back of a hub drive bike, it is more time and effort if you have to take off the tire, but it's still basically just a matter of a couple more wrenches.

There are people who can't or don't think they can handle flats. Cell phones, Uber, mobile bike services, etc, are out there too.

TT

 

[Bigal1463]

I knew that I could depend on people like you. You’re always watching out for your fellow man or woman. Thanks again. I applaud everyone on this site for wanting to help others. Applaud goes to Court who started this site. Thanks again,

 

[pmcdonald]

A set of these in conjunction with some high protection tyres may mean you never see a flat for the life of the tyres. I picked up a pair earlier today.

While I can repair a flat in the field I don't always have the time to, as I'm rushing to a work appointment or school pickups, etc. Throw night or rain into the mix (or snow, for our Northern Hemisphere friends #sojealous #thegrassisgreener) and it gets a whole lot less pleasant. At least the Tannus Armour should let me limp home without too much delay. Once in the presence of a work stand and the comfort of walls and roof and lighting I'm quite happy to deal with whatever!

 

[Bigal1463]

Thank you Sir, I will look into it.

 

[indianajo]

I ride knobby kenda tires, which keeps my incidence of flats down near zero. As long as the knobs are bigger than 3/32". I take them off at that point. I ride tubes and no slime. We don't have goat head thorns here, as people do out west. Flats have been mostly metal pieces, especially shredded tire core wire. Even with a hub motor, I can change a flat in less than an hour. Turn the bike upside down (no display) unscrew & unclip wires as required, do, do, back on the road. Last flat was an unworn but 10 year old tire. Blew the cord. Foolish of me to use it, even it the tread looked really good. Pushed the bike 4 miles towards my summer property, where I keep spare tire & tubes. Was picked up by a friend in a SUV 2 miles from the property, PTL. Was hot, I was cooling down under a tree.
Changed both tires this january, because knobs were thin. A good morning's work.

 

[FlatSix911]

A set of these in conjunction with some high protection tyres may mean you never see a flat for the life of the tyres. I picked up a pair earlier today.

While I can repair a flat in the field I don't always have the time to, as I'm rushing to a work appointment or school pickups, etc. Throw night or rain into the mix (or snow, for our Northern Hemisphere friends #sojealous #thegrassisgreener) and it gets a whole lot less pleasant. At least the Tannus Armour should let me limp home without too much delay. Once in the presence of a work stand and the comfort of walls and roof and lighting I'm quite happy to deal with whatever!

View attachment 53467

Interesting tech... what is the ride feel like with these tires on the road or off-road?

 

[pmcdonald]

Interesting tech... what is the ride feel like with these tires on the road or off-road?

It's firm, unsurprising given they displace air with rubber. I don't find them unpleasant as I usually ride with my tubes up around 75 psi, but if you like it soft you'd compensate by running 10 or 20 psi lower than normal. The ride feels confident enough. My Marathons always required care in the wet or on slippery corners and I don't think the inserts will change that.

Install was easy enough, but took my butter fingers about an hour for both wheels. The Marathons are pretty rigid so didn't allow a long of room for flex. I used a liberal amount of baby powder on the inserts and tyre to ease everything back on the rim. Someone competent would probably do it in a third that time. I somehow managed to thread my front through axle Allen socket when putting everything back together (with a torque wrench no less)! So that'll be one for the shop to fix down the track..

The ultimate test will be how they fare with flats, so I'll check in if I have any issues in due course. Of course, now the axle lock is threaded I never remove the wheel again, so they'd better work!

 

[smorgasbord]

Interesting tech... what is the ride feel like with these tires on the road or off-road?

I've come to really love the Tannus Armours. Hard to describe the difference. Definitely quieter on pavement.

From this review:

it’s really the foam insert and the density of that foam that dictates the ride quality. And I’d describe that ride quality as fairly muted. It’s a difficult thing to describe, so I’ll come at it from a couple different angles.

First: speed. Air compresses progressively, so a normal tire that’s only filled with air is easy to compress at first, but gets harder the more you try to compress it. The foam in the Armour insert is much more linear, so it feels fairly firm on small bumps at lower speeds. If you’re someone who’s extremely critical / particular about traction (especially at lower speeds), this is worth keeping in mind.
But as speeds pick up and you start running into things harder, the foam starts to feel more “right.” It feels like it’s absorbing impacts and rolling more smoothly through roots and rocks. Generally speaking, I’d say that mellower Trail-bike speeds were a bit too low, but the inserts felt better at higher bike-park speeds. There comes a point at very high speeds where it can feel a bit like the foam is getting overwhelmed on big bumps, but in large part, you can tune that out by increasing air pressure in the tube.

Cornering is somewhat similar in that there’s a certain speed, and a certain amount of force where the tire feels good. Speeds and forces above or below that can feel a bit less dialed — it’s harder to maintain traction compared to a normal tubeless setup with the right amount of pressure. That sweet spot is going to be a little different for everyone, but as with straight-line speeds, I was happiest with the tire’s cornering performance at the higher speeds I’d hit on lift-served, more DH-specific trails. Particularly at lower speeds, the issue is that the foam imparts some stiffness to the tire, so it doesn’t feel like the tire wraps around bumpy obstacles in a corner quite as well — it’s more inclined to skip off of mid-corner chunk rather than ease through it. I wouldn’t say the Armour is terrible in this regard, but it clearly gives up some traction compared to a perfectly dialed tire setup that has just the right tire pressure.

But on the topic of cornering, one nice thing about the Armour is that it provides more sidewall support. I found that I could get away with running fairly low pressures, even with tires that had thinner casings (e.g., Maxxis Exo). With the Armour, I could run an Exo-casing tire with ~23 psi in the tube, whereas with a normal tubeless setup I would (1) almost immediately pinch flat that tire with that setup, and (2) I’d roll the tire off the rim in the first corner. That’s also an area where the Armour distinguishes itself from a normal foam insert — I don’t find inserts like CushCore to do all that much for sidewall support, whereas the Armour definitely keeps even thin tires from getting squirrely in corners, which is fairly noticeable in bermed corners where it’s easy to generate a lot of sideways force.

From this review:

The Tannus inserts do an excellent job of reducing vibrations as promised, but that’s not all – Each time your wheel meets a big root or a sharp rock, the usual clunk is greatly softened by the armour. This extra cushion helps reduce arm and hand fatigue, as less technical sections become butter-smooth and big hits don’t rattle your bones like they usually do. In addition to protecting against pinch-flats, the inserts provide 13-15mm of puncture protection on top, and an extra 2mm in the sidewalls.

I was pleased that I didn’t feel any degree of rebound from the inserts. Where tubed wheels at higher pressures can feel bouncy in rough terrain, the Tannus-equipped wheels felt just as planted and pliable as a tubeless setup (even more so at lower pressures)....

As the testing went on, I let the tubes fall to lower pressures. As I dropped to 16, then 15, then 14psi, I felt the ride change quite a bit. I think every rider who tries out Tannus Armour will find their own sweet spot with tire pressures, as how low you go depends on where your priorities lie.

I’m not sure how much the Tannus Armour helps with rolling resistance, as they claim. I can see how supporting the tire from inside would theoretically help it roll, but even at 18psi I mostly just felt like my wheels had gained a bit of weight. Climbing traction was excellent with the lower pressure, but not drastically better than a tubeless setup.

As I dropped to 15 and then 14psi, it was apparent that the inserts weren’t making up for the loss of rolling resistance created by the super low pressure. Adding weight and lowering tire pressure isn’t the best recipe for uphill performance, and unsurprisingly the lower the tires got the slower they felt on the climbs.

When downhill riding, as the tires got lower in pressure the traction only improved. I never had any issues with side roll while cornering, which was a bit surprising as these inserts don’t flare out against the inside of a tire like Cush Cores do. I didn’t feel like they increased sidewall stiffness, but they definitely discourage side roll even at really low pressures.

Once I hit 15psi the tires started feeling pretty squirmy on rough trails. With so little air in them, your tires feel different as they conform around roots and rocks. It’s tough to describe, but it’s not the same as a tubeless setup… the Tannus-equipped tires feel like they’re squishing and moving around more. Until you get used to the feel, it’s hard not to worry about your tires! At 14psi, I stopped twice coming down a trail to check if there was still air in my rear… and it was fine. Due to the difference in feel and the fact that I was climbing for every ride, this was the lowest I went with pressures. It’s not the lower limit by any means: Tannus’ website says some riders are running as little as 10psi.

This different ride feel isn’t necessarily a negative, it’s just something you’ll have to adjust to. While I did worry about the soft feeling tires more than once, I still charged every trail as hard as possible during my testing. I never managed to pinch a tube or roll a tire off a rim, never got a puncture, and the increased traction inspired me to push my speed limits on everything from flow lines to rock slabs. While Tannus doesn’t make big claims about their inserts protecting rims, the wheels I rode still looked brand new and ran perfectly true after my best efforts to thump them around.

And this review:

You've probably already realized that running lower pressures is no problem with Tannus Armour, but I was surprised to discover that 10 PSI in the tube was entirely adequate for the slow technical trails we were riding because of the structure provided by the system. The feel on the trail is noticeably different from a tubeless system. Everything feels damped and the noise the tires make on the trail is muted as well.

The first trail had 15 cms of fresh snow on it so the inserts weren't noticeable aside from the fact I seemed to have really good grip. The next trail was loose loam but not very rough and my bike was railing through the corners but feeling otherwise quite normal.

Our third and fourth trails changed everything. These were steep lines with rocky, root-laden chutes. Grip was at a premium because it was cold and the trails were wet. To make matters worse I was riding with a couple of faster dudes so I was pushing hard. The funny thing was it didn't feel hard. I had so much grip I felt like I could stop on wet rock faces and even green roots that were shiny enough to see your reflection in seemed covered in velcro. On one steep and angled rock face my friend James, riding plus tires, hugged a notch by the edge so he wouldn't slide on the camber. I rode easily right down the middle, confident in the grip. My tires hugged the ground and seemed to conform even to square-edge hits. This was the secret sauce.

The last trail wasn't as steep but it's punctuated by corners of all descriptions; berms, flat bumpy turns and lots of fadeaways. I know the line well and I found myself on the inside of my usual lines, carving smoothly in the wet with no concern about sliding out despite the slimy conditions. Everything on the descent was better. On the descent...
Once we got to the bottom I rode at a good pace into the curb, with 10 psi in my tires, and I could hardly feel a thing. I went faster and faster, leaning on the handlebars, and at its worst it felt like I was riding over a grapefruit.

And there is your secret weapon.
A week later I went back and rode the same trails on the same bike but with different tires* and with no Tannus Armour. The first couple of lines were fine but the steep chutes seemed entirely different. Everything seemed steeper and scarier, and I no longer had a Sea Otter hangover. The difference was huge.

 

[Nova Haibike]

Install was easy enough, but took my butter fingers about an hour for both wheels. The Marathons are pretty rigid so didn't allow a long of room for flex.

Seems to me that the Tannus Armour is thick enough that pairing it with Marathons is rather uneccessary. Wouldn't a more supple and stickier tire be better?

 

[pmcdonald]

Seems to me that the Tannus Armour is thick enough that pairing it with Marathons is rather uneccessary. Wouldn't a more supple and stickier tire be better?

Very possibly. Although I am really happy with the on road performance of the Marathons as is and do like their hard-wearing lifespan (mine are at 4000km and the tread looks like new).

I've also had a metal screw punch right through the thick lining of the Marathon. I had sealant in the tube at the time and it didn't seal the hole. It would have also gone through the Tannus if I paired it with a thinner tyre. Together I hope they present a formidable opponent to road debris.

My goal pairing the Tannus with the Marathon Plus is a) ideally and ambitiously never get a flat for the life of the tyre, or b) failing that, limp on to my destination without delay.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

My new e-MTB came with tubeless Maxxis tyres. Can anyone tell me what to do in case of getting a puncture? Never have had the tubeless before.

 

[Mr. Coffee]

My new e-MTB came with tubeless Maxxis tyres. Can anyone tell me what to do in case of getting a puncture? Never have had the tubeless before.

Most of the time the sealant in the tires will seal a puncture, you might need to add some air but that is about it.

For somewhat larger punctures, you can use a tire plug like bacon strips to plug the leak, then pump up your tire and get going.

For really large tears you'll need to carry a tire boot (Canadian $5 bill, although I suspect a 5 euro note will work well) and an inner tube. Duct tape also helps to hold the boot in place. You need the inner tube because it is usually hard to set the bead on a tubeless tire in field conditions.

Every now and then you should add more sealant to the tires. Some mountain bikers add glitter to the sealant because it apparently makes it plug leaks better, with the downside that it makes things even messier when replacing the tire. Although it can make leaks more festive.

Note that working on tubeless tires can be really messy because of all the sealant. If you are replacing tires indoors a drop cloth, mop, bucket, and some protective clothing are a good idea. Because it is so messy working on tubeless tires indoors is considered a Relationship Crime in many jurisdictions.

 

[Stefan Mikes]

Thank you very much @Mr. Coffee! Probably the PLN20 note would do as well

 

[FlatSix911]

Most of the time the sealant in the tires will seal a puncture, you might need to add some air but that is about it. For somewhat larger punctures, you can use a tire plug like bacon strips to plug the leak, then pump up your tire and get going. For really large tears you'll need to carry a tire boot (Canadian $5 bill, although I suspect a 5 euro note will work well) and an inner tube. Duct tape also helps to hold the boot in place. You need the inner tube because it is usually hard to set the bead on a tubeless tire in field conditions.

Every now and then you should add more sealant to the tires. Some mountain bikers add glitter to the sealant because it apparently makes it plug leaks better, with the downside that it makes things even messier when replacing the tire. Although it can make leaks more festive. Note that working on tubeless tires can be really messy because of all the sealant. If you are replacing tires indoors a drop cloth, mop, bucket, and some protective clothing are a good idea. Because it is so messy working on tubeless tires indoors is considered a Relationship Crime in many jurisdictions.

I am thinking about switching over to tubeless based on the positive feedback in this forum. How often do you need to add fresh sealant?

 

[Mr. Coffee]

I am thinking about switching over to tubeless based on the positive feedback in this forum. How often do you need to add fresh sealant?

Typically you'd replace all of the sealant every six months, and probably top it off every month or so. A lot of that depends in bewildering ways in the environment (the sealant does dry out faster if the humidity is lower) you are riding in -- it helps a lot if there is a local bike shop that can give you advice.

 

[Sierratim]

Thank you very much @Mr. Coffee! Probably the PLN20 note would do as well
View attachment 53559

My youngest sons ride tubeless on their MTBs. As @Mr. Coffee suggests they each keep fresh Slime sealant in their tires and carry a tire boot (usually $1 bills), 'bacon strip' puncture repair kit, tire levers, a spare tube, and a pump - they prefer CO2 inflators. In the rare cases when they needed the tube, they did need to spend a bit of time removing all the sealed over thorns, bits of glass, etc that had punctured the tire and been taken care of by the Slime.