Tubeless tyres

[Lotobear]

I've just acquired my first bike with tubeless tyres - an Orange Alpine 5 29er. I know zilch about tubeless tyres

We do tend to get a lot of punctures in our MTB group - mostly thorns but the odd snake bite. I'm the first on tubeless.

It's said that tubeless puncture far less and self heal when they do - is this correct? I suppose what I'm asking is when we are out in the wilds what do I need to take to ensure I get back if I pick up an 'unrepairable' puncture?

Tyres are Maxxis Forekaster if it matters

Any thought on pressures, I used to run my old 26 tyres quite hard - they were 2.1's and the new bike has 2.3's?

[Master Bean]

Use something like these for when the sealant inside the tyre doesn't plug the hole. No idea on pressure but you could go as low as maybe 20psi as there's no tube to pinch.

http://www.dynaplug.com/bicycles.html

[paddy1970]

My advice is to carry an inner tube in your rucksack just in case...

[lufbramatt]

+1 on Dynaplugs, by far the best plug system I've used.

The tyres have sealant inside which will seal holes within reason, works much better on low pressure MTB tyres than road. So often you won't realise you've picked up thorns etc. until you look inside the tyre. Low/mid 20s PSI should be ok.

Make sure you actually have sealant in the tyres

[GCH]

You need bacon strips. Others carry an inner tube, which in my mind sort of defeats the point of going tubeless and is yet more sh*t to carry. You can emergency patch bigger holes that won't seal with sealant with stuff like patch kits, dollar bills, small pieces of old inner tube, all sorts of stuff just to get you home. I had a friend stuff his torn tyre with grass to get him home once, gave just enough cushion run flat ride to coast back carefully.

My friend who has returned to biking after a couple of decades was very, very pleased when he picked up his brand new bike recently, and was pretty much told by the shop when they set it up tubeless for him that he basically wouldn't get any punctures.......which is exactly what happened on his first ride Had to explain to him exactly how it worked then.

[Foss62]

lufbramatt said:

+1 on Dynaplugs, by far the best plug system I've used.

The tyres have sealant inside which will seal holes within reason, works much better on low pressure MTB tyres than road. So often you won't realise you've picked up thorns etc. until you look inside the tyre. Low/mid 20s PSI should be ok.

Make sure you actually have sealant in the tyres

Works pretty well on road tyres at about 80psi as well. I haven’t needed a tube in the nearly 5 years I have been using them. I had to use a ‘sardine’ once (the only time the latex stream wouldn’t stop) and have kept reasonable levels of ‘Orange Seal Endurance’ in the tyres.
Also the supposed difficulties in fitting the tyres are exaggerated. Last weekend I changed both tubeless tyres along with tubed road tyres on two other bikes. The tubeless weren’t the easiest to fit, but the hardest were tubed Gatorskins on 18 Year old Mavic rims. Both of the tubeless tyres initially inflated easily and held pressure with a track pump and no sealant (there’s another myth gone…). One final myth….the manufacturers suggest changing the tubeless valves annually. There is absolutely no need to do that. The inner core gets a bit clogged with sealant periodically, but 5 minutes with a pair of tweezers and you are good to go again.

[Chozza]

I have Vittoria Air-Liner on one bike , which is mostly used for playing on downhills runs Don't really notice any punctures until climbing or on tarmac - not sure id use them in the wild though.