Get Ready For Your Tubeless Tire Experience
July 9th, 2008 by Guitar TedMountain Bikers have been well aware of the benefits of tubeless bicycle tire technology for years. Now some technological advancements have been made which promise to bring tubeless tires to the cycling masses. What do you need to know about this? Is it a good thing? Why bother? It’s just for racing, right? These are some questions that many cyclists ask when tubeless tires are brought up.
First off, it must be said that things are just getting off the ground in regards to this tubeless “revolution”. Road cyclists will likely be the next group to embrace this technology with the rest of us to follow. Why tubeless and why now? Well, for those answers, let’s look at the technology and how it can benefit your cycling experience.
We are all familiar, (I hope!) with automobile tires and the fact that there is no tube inside a car tire anymore. The casing of a car tire is made to hold air pressure and to have its bead seat into your cars rim so it stays mounted and safe during regular use. Bicycle tubeless tires are similar, but the demands for lightweight and strength meant that bicycle tubeless tires had to take a divergent path to become accepted amongst cycling fans.
Instead of relying 100% on the tires casing to hold the air,(which a lot of mountain bike tires still do), most recently tire manufacturers have developed a system of casing plus sealant to help seal the casing and provide puncture protection. This gives the rider two distinct advantages. First, your overall rotational weight can remain close to, if not the same as a tire and tube combination, and in many cases the overall weight can be less than a tire with a tube. Also, you have sealant which allows the tire to heal itself of punctures, often times while you are still riding, and not lose a significant amount of air pressure.
Not only that, but the benefits of running tubeless extend to rider comfort and economy of effort. A tire that is tubeless can be ridden at a lower pressure without fear of “pinch flatting”, which is what happens when a tire with lower pressure with a tube installed hits a sharp bump, compressing the tire/tube to the rim bead, and cutting the tube. A tubeless tire doesn’t have this problem, so a more comfortable and higher traction ride can be realized. Furthermore, rolling resistance is reduced when the tube/tire interface is removed from the equation. The inner tube causes friction with the tire casing when the tire tries to deform over road/trail obstacles. This friction causes higher rolling resistance and thus robs the cyclist of energy.
Finally, the system had to be made “user friendly”. This is the biggest challenge facing marketers of tubeless technology. Cyclists want to know if they can use the system easily and repair the system easily, should the need arise. A couple of newer developments are going to take tubeless tire technology for cycling a long ways towards this goal.
Tire and rim manufacturers are working closely with each other, guaranteeing that the tire bead/rim interface, which is critical for success, is comaptible. Rim manufacturers have also developed rims with no spoke hole drillings in the inner rim well, or have developed special rim strips to seal off the inner rim cavity. This means no rim strips and makes tire mounting/removal all the easier. Tire manufacturers are working on new materials and technologies for tire beads. Carbon is being used in road tubeless tires, as an example, to get a high strength bead that is yet still small enough that a road cyclist can change out a tire, or install a tube in the field with ease, if need be. The mounting and bead seating of tubeless tires is also getting easier. For example, I have mounted all of my mountain bike tubeless tires with a floor pump. No longer will a trip to the compressor be necessary with the newer tubeless tire/rim designs.
Fixing tubeless tires is becoming easier as well. Road tubeless had to overcome the field serviceability tests which allow a road cyclist to install a tube if necessary without special tools. However; that said, a tubeless road tire does have the ability to be ridden flat, much like a tubular, and also loses air if punctured at a slower rate than a tubed tire. These things will help assuage road cyclist that are apprehensive about tubeless road tires and wheels.
Tubeless tire technology is still evolving, but it is coming to all facets of cycling. In time, it may become the dominant system in use for cyclists everywhere. Certainly, the benefits are promising: lower rolling resistance, less chances for flatting, and more comfortable rides with less weight. If the manufacturers and marketers of tubeless tire technologies continue to make advancements, I see a time coming that a bicycle tube might become as scarce as an automobile tire tube.
Only time will tell, but it can’t hurt to get ready!
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Did you actually test road tubeless?
mike: Nope, I didn’t, but I spent a lot of time with the Hutchinson folks on two different occaisions talking about the concept and having demonstrations done for me. I have also researched some with Shimano about the concept as well as speaking a bit about it with the folks from Stan’s NoTubes. I think when it gets out amongst the public we will get some positive takes on it, but time will tell.
Talking about Road- I wonder how well the Stans kit works?
Mountain- I know that I am going to have to get new 29er tires and I am really leaning toward tubless.
GT- nice post. I have to agree that “Tire and rim manufacturers are working closely with each other, guaranteeing that the tire bead/rim interface” is critical for tubeless tires to work well. In my experience, most folks who claim that tubeless tires are ‘crap’ are the folks running half-assed conversions in the name of cost- or weight-savings. On can’t pick and choose only parts of a system and expect the result to work as one. Along these lines, as popular as their products are with the racers out there, I feel that Stans has done as much harm to tubeless’ acceptance as good by selling rims & ideas that haven’t always been ready for prime time. Their method of ’sealing’ a non-tubeless Small Block 8? Use pints (quarts?) of sealant in the tire, let it set up a bit, then dump most of it out. I can’t tell you how many folks I’ve come across at races who (when asked how things went) report flatting out of competition on ‘converted’ tires and/or ‘ghetto strips’ (the bellies of undersized inner tubes). Of course, their rims have come a long way since the blowout days (of 2 years ago), but I’m a bit leery of bike companies that use customers as beta testers- that went out of fashion in the late 1990s.
I truly believe in tubeless tires: I haven’t had a tubed flat on my own bike in over a year (not bad for thousands of miles in the desert), but have thrown $30 worth of tubes away in a weekend on tubed test bikes I’ve been sent. Even if tubeless tires are slightly heavier, their performance benefits are great (traction, comfort, etc) and they’ll always be faster than a flat tubed tire.
Given my off-road experience, I’d love to try a strong tubeless road tire (think Maxxis Re-Fuse or Conti GP 4 Season) for riding, racing and commuting- though it is hard to go wrong with a bit of Stans squirted into a Conti tube. I’ll be right there in line when my favorite 29er tires are available in a tubeless casing, too.
marc
Stans road tubeless conversion works great! Im not sure why more people dont use it. I have ever since they debuted it at last years interbike and its fantastic. Especially on a full aluminum roadbike it really smooths out the road.
Now they just need to make more tires available. I know they are coming Hutchinson says. Different widths and designs for more applications like commuting, etc.
You know exactly where I’m at on this one — tubeless is where it’s at, hands down. From all performance perspectives that matter on the trail — traction, rolling resistance, flat resistance (especially to pinch flats), the ability of the tire to have a more supple feel, with an ability to run reduced air pressures — tubeless dominates over tubed every day. The only time it doesn’t is perhaps in the shop, upon initial installation, if you aren’t lucky. If all goes well however, it’s all good in the ‘hood. Lately for me, the latter has been the case more often than not, even when running tires/rims not specifically designed to be run tubeless (ie., running ‘getto tubeless’).
Different widths and applications for tubeless exist today, and have for years. It’s called converting tires. There’s a pretty good brain trust of reliable tubeless conversion candidates out there. You just have to know who to ask. For example, for commuting, I’ve been running the Schwalbe Marathon Cross wire bead 700×38 tubeless, the front for more than six months totally reliably now — finished 5th at the Dirty Kanza 200 on them actually. I had to pull the rear tire off after the ‘Kanza because I ripped it up on the Kansas flint rocks and didn’t want to have it fail on me somewhere. I’ve been running a WTB InterWolf 700×38c wire bead getto tubeless, believe it or not, 100-percent reliably since the Kanza, so for about a month and a half. It’s working great and is lighter than the Schwalbe. It rolls nice and fast. Too bad WTB quit making them. It’s basically a 38c version of the Vulpine 29er tire tread pattern. Works good tubeless, especially on the rear. But I digress…
Have a good night.