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Tubeless Tires.



 
 
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Old November 18th 18, 10:09 PM posted to rec.bicycles.tech
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Default Tubeless Tires.

Finding good data on tubeless tires is hard. And especially so if you have to talk to weekend racers.

So here is what I've studied and the conclusions I've reached:

When you look up rolling resistance it is all jumbled up with tire sizes and types. It almost never presents any real life road conditions.

So to start - wider tires to a limited amount have lower rolling resistance..
In the grand tours the teams have been using 26 or 27 mm tires. These tires have a wider but shorter contact patch. This leads to lower rolling resistance though it is difficult to understand how since the patch is about the same size overall. Perhaps it doesn't allow the tires to develop a tighter suction effect to the road.

The rolling resistance of tires is highly dependent upon the road surfaces. The smoother the road the less rolling resistance you have with higher pressures.

While in most tests tubeless tires on rough road surfaces seems to have about 7% less rolling resistance in another test the exact same tires tested exactly the same showed lower rolling resistance with a latex tube.

There are remarkable advantages with tubeless tires. For one, you don't need a flat kit. I carry a couple of inflators just in case but I haven't had any problems with them despite running over something that was so large that it felt like a bump-bump-bump on the front tire before I wiped it off with my glove while rolling. It felt like a fairly large stone. I felt a bit of liquid sealant spray on my leg and pulled over to look. There was a spot of sealant about the size of a teaspoon around where the puncture was but there was no discernable loss of pressure. They also lose pressure slower than a thin rubber or latex tube. I would only pump them up once a week and they wouldn't be very low.

Now people have argued that if tubeless was so great why doesn't Continental make them. I wrote to Continental and they were in development and expect them in the spring. About half of all the new racing tires are tubeless.

Others argued that if tubeless was so hot why don't pros use them. The answer to that was sent to me by a team mechanic who said that many teams use them on their TT bikes. Why should they refuse to lose maybe 7% in rolling resistance?


Then the argument was that teams use tubulars all the time so why shouldn't play racers. Again a team mechanic told me: There are limited spaces on the top of the team car for spare bikes and wheels. A tubular or clincher tire is a real bear to fix in a short time but with a tubular flat they can simply pull off the old flatted tubular and pull on a new one in seconds, lean out the car window and affix them to the wheel holder on top of the car.

Because of this limited space some teams only hire team member with the same dimensions as the team leader. Others set their seat post height the same as the team leader and the team member is supposed to get used to this (???)

In any case when I become familiar and confident enough in tubeless the only thing I'll carry is a multitool.

Since my seat packs are between 1.5 and 2 lbs that is almost as much savings as I made with the carbon fiber bike. The "light" seatpack I have is the rather heavy large seatpack, the spare tube in a drawstring bag to prevent friction wearing a hole in it, two CO2 cartridges and a filler valve and hand protector and a multitool.

While real information is thin and confusing, my experience with tubeless tires is a thumbs up. You can get a flat on a tubeless tire with a very large hole (one claimed he destroyed his by running over a .22 shell casing) this would destroy any tire. Others have insisted that they could repair badly damaged tires on the road and make it home. I have never managed to do so and have very rarely in 40 years of riding had a flat that bad. One time I carefully rode the flat 5 miles to the nearest shop (conveniently a Performance) and bought a cheap replacement and tube.

Something to think about.
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