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Contemplating doing the ghetto tubeless . Couple of questions....
1, best sealant for ghetto tubeless?
2, how often do I have to top up or change it?
3, my mtb lives in the warm lounge on the wall, would it dry out ? And how long would this roughly take ?
4, anybody gone back to tubes and why ?
1: Stans, it just works.
2: Depends on how opften you ride/punhers/temp. Over winter i didn't top it up once. This summer it's been every month.
3: My MTB lives indoors also, see above.
4: Three people have but they are all dead now. Take from that what you want.
It's the future
1. I've only ever used stans, they're all virtually the same price anyway.
2. I top up about every 6 months & I always check there's enough in before a big ride.
3. n/a as mine lives in an outhouse.
4. why would you?
Don't hesitate, do it. See those trails that you avoid as they're covered in brambles, you could now go down them. See that annoying member of your cycling buddies who takes 20-30 minutes to fix a puncture, you will no longer be one of them.
I use Slime in ust and ghetto tubeless setups. It's fine and available in the lbs.
I tend to wreck tyres before they need a top up (s downs flint is the usual villain) but 3-6 months I would say but I put a lot in (the downhill measurement on my xc bike) with the ghetto setup.
Off road tubes are good for serial tyre swapping but that's about it in my view
4. Not gone back, but one wheel set never got that far. DH rim has a crack in it after a couple of months use, so not going to bother. This was always a concern for the DH bike
Is it easy to change your tyres etc afterwards ? If you needed to ? I run race kings now but thinking of mountain kings for the autumn .
[i] 4, anybody gone back to tubes and why ?[/i]
Yeap.
[i] 4: Three people have but they are all dead now. Take from that what you want.[/i]
😆
I ran those Bontrager Mud X tyres, which claimed to be "tubeless ready". But they burped once too often, so that was the end of that. While the tyres are good, the beads didn't look clean enough, off tool to seal that well, hence I guess the burping. Could have been just a duff pair of tyres, but I ended up running tubes.
Also, a nagging thought was based in sod's law. That it would be just my luck, the sealant had dried recently before I collected a thorn.
At which point, I'd be stuffing a tube in the tyre to complete the ride.
I liked the Hutchinson sealant.
No experience of "ghetto" but I'd suggest giving tubeless a go. Impressive when it works.
If you are the type of rider who changes their tyres all the time depending on the terrain, weather conditions, mood etc. then tubeless does make changing the tyres more of a faff and you'll probably end up getting extra wheels.
If you change your tyres a few times a year then it's not difficult to change. It's messier than tubes but so what.
I'd never go back to tubes and run tubeless on my road bike as well.