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Usually buy caffelatex. Tests as good at sealing as the best, and costs like £16/L if you look around.
The only drama is I'm finding it gumming up my wheels and tyres and needing refilling after really short periods. Say - a month or two of riding and it's basically congealed onto the tyre.
Great, my 800g tyre now weighs 1kg with all the dried sealant, let alone the rolling resistance penalty as the sidewalls are now stiff with sealant.
Is there a better solution or do I have to set a calendar alarm and switch it out every few months?
On my xc and, road bikes, fine. But my thumbs couldn't take having to remount heavy inserts on the Enduro bike that often.
Tried bontrager in the past and that was even worse.
Both Stans and Orangeseal last around a year or more for me. Rarely ever need to top up. Orangeseal I use on the road bikes because of reports that it seals better, but it's expensive. I've never come to a dry tyre with either, and they get checked once every 6 months at most.
Stan's. I've just swapped the nearly two year old tyre on my eeb, and the sealant was still fine.
Orange Seal is the worst I've ever used for drying out, always dried to a layer of gunk within weeks, and it's the most expensive of the lot, terrible product.
Stick with Stan's
Tried several different ones but I always come back to the standard Stans sealant as I find that works best for me.
Orange seal endurance for me, usually enough to pour from one tyre to another when swapping winter and summer tyres over. Every 6 months ish.
Standard Stans for us. Seems to always work well so don’t bother with anything else
Stans
Always used Stans, always lasted well. Need some new sealant actually.
Local sells Mucoff by the litre anyone had good or bad experiences with Mucoff?
Oko tractor the sealant. Rarely if ever top up a tyre. Seems to remain fluid. The initial mix might have a splash of water to it to improve fluidity.
OKO Magic Milk for me- it lasts better than Stans anyway but also, it's water soluble so can be topped up/revitalised with nothing but water rather than endlessly adding more solids to the dried up waste that most sealants create.
I'm not sure it's quite as good as stans race at sealing, when fresh, but it's definitely better after a year!
Slightly off-topic, but any thoughts on which sealant smells the best when it comes to changing it? Stans always seems to smell like shit, as if homeopathic quantities of all those dog shits I've accidentally cycled through have somehow seeped in.
Bog-standard Stans lasts a long time for me.
Blimey, is that a near unanimous recommendation from the STW forum? Thats gotta be a first, and worth some kind of award!
Great, my 800g tyre now weighs 1kg with all the dried sealant, let alone the rolling resistance penalty as the sidewalls are now stiff with sealant.
This is a gratuitous exaggeration.
Once, when I was really bored I peeled all my dried stans off. It came to something like 16g. Something that light and made of latex is going to have a negligible effect on tyre stiffness.
Magic milk for me too BTW. It can take a while longer to do the initial sealing, especially with a larger tyre insert. It can help to paint some one the sidewalls prior to seating, but it lasts way longer than the latex based sealants.
I currently use Mucoff - which smells intense, so much so you can smell if you have a leak.
I don't think it's any worse or better than Stan's, but my LBS insists that they prefer working with it to Stan's. I've had heaps of punctures that neither seal.
I've never seen Oko stuff though...
Surely where you store the bike has a big effect here? If it's somewhere that gets warm and dry that's got have more of an effect than the sealant itself which by and large are water based.
Just topped up my mtb which still had some liquid left after a year, but it's stored in a dank cave like garage. Sealant is some off brand German stuff that has a horrendous UV violet colour that stains everything.
I had never had a problem with the standard Stans stuff and over the years have often left a tyre untouched for a year or more. Usually some left in there and has continued to do its job (far as I can tell). But in the 18 months I've had Rimpact inserts in I have found it to ball up very quickly with those, and to do so consistently. Having had a few tyre issues and swaps I've regularly looked after only a month or so.
I'm not sure whether it's a reaction or maybe insert rubbing in tyre or what, but I'm tempted to try the Oko stuff. Is the "Hi-fibre" the one to go for?
I'm now using the oko high fibre after successfully using the tractor sealant in my plus tyres for a couple of years. I mixed that 2:1 with water and as others have said you can just add water if it starts to dry out.
I've only had one puncture with the high fibre and that didn't seal on its own. It actually took 3 dynaplugs to do that so I don't suppose it was something any sealant would do on its own. I've just removed it from my summer tyres and put it in my winter ones and it seemed fine after 3-4 months of use.
Orange seal here. It always seems to be wet and seals. Had it seal a tyre full of thorns this evening on the hardtail. Use it in both road bikes too. It works a treat this time of year when the farmers take up their annual grudge match against their boundaries.
tomd
Full MemberSurely where you store the bike has a big effect here?
For sure. Mine with the oko live in the house so are pretty warm and still outlast all my experience of stans in a cold garage.
+1 Orange Seal.
My experiences with tyre sealant since the early days of tubeless when stans first came out.
Used Stans- It worked
Tied homebrew latex sealant as it was much cheaper to make- It kind of worked but didn't last very long.
Went back to using Stans for years.
Tried Tyre yoghurt - It was terrible.
Tried OKO High Fiber as it was cheaper than Stans- Wouldn't seal new tyres very well but ok on tyres that had previously had Stans in them. Worked okish but didn't seal punctures as well as Stans.
Had a couple of bikes that came with Orange Seal in them- Worked fine but dried out really quickly.
My conclusion is stick with Stans. Works best for me.
Maxxxis specifically advise against using sealant containing ammonia, which I think rules out stans… so, best sealant for maxxis tyres?
tomnavman
Maxxxis specifically advise against using sealant containing ammonia, which I think rules out stans… so, best sealant for maxxis tyres?
Stan's
Do you add ammonia to your sealant and it is bad for my tire and or rim?
We use natural latex in our sealant and a small amount of ammonia is added to natural liquid latex as a stabilizer when harvested. While there may be a strong smell when initially opening your bottle, this trace amount of ammonia will continue to off-gas over time and the smell will fade. This very small amount in our finished sealant formula will have no damaging effects, even after years of use. Although our Yellow Tape may not be necessary to seal your rim, you may add one layer to protect un-anodized or scratched areas of your rim from oxidation due to moisture in the sealant. Our MSDS can be found on our Tech Docs page.
FWIW I think pretty much everyone ignores that advice from Maxxis. I used Stans in their tyres for years without issue
Same here, I’ve been using Stans in Maxxis tyres for years - sounds like I’m not the only one and no one else is raving about a different sealant, so I’ll stick with stans!
Stans, tried lots of others, always end up going back to Stans