[Closed] Why is getting a tubelss tyre to work on a gravel bike like platting snot?

Sidewall bubbles means it might be a non-tubeless ready tyre. This is how things used to be back in the old days when it was a homebrew thing. Just keep riding, it should stop.

Used to get that with Continental Protection tyres but it did stop after a few rides.

I've found all WTB tyres to be like that (all the ones I've tried so far anyway, 650x47 Byways and Sendero), it settles down after a few days. They're tubeless ready which means a tubeless compatible bead but need sealant to hold air.

They’re tubeless ready which means a tubeless compatible bead but need sealant to hold air.

it's got nearly 80ml of Muc off sealant in it.

You think I should just ride it and keep topping it up until all the sealant has filled the smaller holes?

Nothing is leaking from the bead or the tread, just sidewalls.

Why is getting a tubelss tyre to work on a gravel bike

Surely, "Why is getting a WTB Riddler to work tubeless on <insert rim name>" ?

Schwalbes on Mavic rims here, and though it isn't a complete joy, once you have the bead on there's no nasal mucus hairstyles involved

I'm running WTB Nano's on Mavic UST rims and they seem to work fine. I've had other tyres though, Specialized, that sweated more than I do, and I'm a right seaty bastard!!

Keep riding and topping up, the leaking will calm down after a while....

re

it’s got nearly 80ml of Muc off sealant in it.

I found that Muc Off was not great at sealing up a worn tyre, but it has been fine sorting out punchers from thorns etc.

Got a WTB with worn sidewalls to seal up using Hutchinson (from Decathlon) sealant, which is a nit more runny and without particles in it.

Tim.

I had similar recently with some WTB Expanse 32. The beads popped straight in first time, but loads of sealant oozed out of the sidewalls.

More of an issue with tanwalls apparently, which makes sense as they don't have as much rubber on them.

I had to use about double the amount of sealant on the first go, give them a good swirl about, and some riding, now they're fine.

I solved a similar problem by just going back to tubes...

Road bikes and tubeless seem to have way more issues than big volume mtb tyres.

No problems with Nano's here, but I prefer black sidewalls so perhaps that's why.

Riding doesn't distribute the sealant that great, take the wheel of and hold it at 3 and 9 o clock. Wobble the wheel so the sealant at the bottom sloshes over the sidewalls and bead, then rotate the wheel slightly and repeat. Never fails to fix tyres that slowly lose pressure...I always do this when mounting (or remounting) a tyre.

if it visibly leaks through the sidewalls - that tyre is not tubeless ready, regardless of what the mfctr believes - you will get it sealed eventually, but any weight or flexibility advantages you were sold on will be lost....... but when the tyre is full, its unlikely to suffer from thorns..

You think I should just ride it and keep topping it up until all the sealant has filled the smaller holes?

Yes.

Some people's tubeless ready tyres seem to be just a bit of extra rubber on the bead. Others put more rubber on the sidewalls to prevent this. This is one significant reason why I use Schwalbe tyres.

Also, isn't 50psi a bit high?

There have been "leaky/sweating" tubeless tyres since the concept was invented. I've seen it on Schwalbe, Maxxis, Specialized, Bontrager, Continental and others

WTB Nano 40s and (Skinwall) 650x47 Byways haven't been a problem for me personally. In fact the latter were particularly painless to set up.

50psi seems ok as a means of seating the tyre but I'd certainly not want to ride them at that pressure

WTB are cheap for a reason, I think. Did several thousand KM on my Riddlers but they never held air consistently and were always soft after a few days (that said, I used Orange Seal on them initially, which is the world's worst product)

Just fitted Pirellis to same wheels/tape and they haven't lost any pressure in a fortnight

my WTB ranger 3.0 with paper thin sidewalls had bubbles at first. just add some sealant and keep going, I think its because of the thin sidewalls.

Seriously, are the benefits of tubeless really worth this amount of faff? I know I am a bit of a dinosaur but why wouldn't you just use tubes?

Tubeless always sounds to be like lots of bother but without much gain.

I could start a thread on STW every time I fit a tubeless tyre with no problem at all but I suspect you'd soon get bored and not read them.

This sounds like all my experiences with WTB tyres, just swapped my WTB Senderos for some gravel kings for exactly this reason - the front tyre only went down a little, the rear needed pumping up before every ride. Lots of little bubbles on side walls. Lots of different sealants tried.

Gravelkings went up last night with no bubbles at all and stayed rock solid.

Love how they ride, but they are pants for holding air.

soobalias
Free Member

if it visibly leaks through the sidewalls – that tyre is not tubeless ready, regardless of what the mfctr believes

Nah, totally disagree with that, what you're describing is basically UST rather than tubeless ready. UST was airtight without sealant, tubeless ready doesn't have to be, so it's commonplace for it to leak through a little til it seals.

Sidewall bubbles means it might be a non-tubeless ready tyre.

Or it is a Specialized 2Bliss tyre. Nearly two years in and I have worn out one tyre, but the front continues to leak.

it’s got nearly 80ml of Muc off sealant in it

and here in lies the seat of your problems, that stuff is shite, stick some stans in it and be doe.

+1 on the problem being the Muc-off sealant - I had issues with exactly the same tyres with the same sealant - initially they would seem to be ok, then a day later, completely flat...Ended up just sticking some Stans in as well (didn't even bother removing the Muc-Off sealant) and they've been absolutely fine ever since.

Set my WTB raddlers (40mm) up tubeless a few weeks ago and had similar issues. First 20ish mile ride I had to stop 4 times to top up the air. I never saw any micro bubbles in the sidewall though.

So on return:
1) added more sealant (Std Stans) & sloshed it around while spinning the wheel horizontally.
2) added more pressure (probably ~ 50psi )
3) left wheels lying on the bench horizontally so the fluid is pooling in the sidewalls.
4) whenever I passed by slosh around some more and turn over to coat the other sidewall.

Done 3 rides since then and largely fine. Front is still slightly soft a few days later but no pressure loss from the rear at all. Dont have to stop & add more air during a ride any more.

Seriously, are the benefits of tubeless really worth this amount of faff?

A couple of evenings learning how to use a different tyre system, a few swear words, a rant on STW, then it clicks...you get the knack, it works. You've now got tyres* that will suffer a fraction of the punctures you are used to and rarely need to be faffed with out on the trail when you are cold, wet and muddy.

*Crap tyres and the occasionally bastard tight tyre/rim combination excepted.

Seriously, are the benefits of tubeless really worth this amount of faff? I know I am a bit of a dinosaur but why wouldn’t you just use tubes?

Because you get punctures with tubes.

If you really want to go tubeless with pretty much zero fuss, you need to use a rim/strip/valve/tyre combination that are designed (or maybe just known) to work together.

I've used Bontrager TLR components on my MTB for about a decade and on my road bike for about 4 years.

The only issue I've had, is when I managed to put a gash in the sidewall, by the bead - popped a tube and a tyre boot in, and finished the ride.

If you do go down the mix and match route, just find a combination that works, and understand the things that make it work.

+1 for owenh and the horizontal sloshing and leaving overnight, also +1 for binning the mucoff and going stans (race better for low volume tyres). Bubbling reminds me of early tubeless on Maaxis minions, even worse were Spesh storm control 😂

Road bikes and tubeless seem to have way more issues than big volume mtb tyres.

Some people’s tubeless ready tyres seem to be just a bit of extra rubber

I think this is true. MTB tyres have perhaps been generally thick enough to stop these micro-leaks so it was mostly possible to use any old tyre for MTB tubeless. Whereas thin-walled road/gravel tyres are more porous IME.

I've had more issues with gravel tyres sealing slowly than I ever did with MTB. I'm not sure what the difference is between the older Schwalbe tyres (I have G-ones) and the new 'TLR' ones but the old ones leak and the new ones are great.

I'm a long time user of all sorts of tubeless. Pretty much all getto set ups of some sort or another.

With MTB its fairly easy to get them to seal and once up they can be fit and forget for a long time - even when the sealant is all dried out they just hold.

For smaller road tyres i found the opposite. Over years of commuting I really hated punctures and really wanted tubeless to work as per the MTB but in the end I got lots of flats and would just fix a tubeless flat by sticking a tube in and the tubes would be far less hassle than the tubeless. The best solution for a commuting road bike for me was tough anti puncture tyres and good quality tubes - the closest to fit and forget for ~28mm tyres.

My current gravel bike has 35mm and i have tubes in.

Now that my gravel tyres have sealed, they're good and I haven't had any puncture since. Pumping the tyre up three times a week until they sealed was tiresome, though, and the benefits seem less than on the MTB (where I used to get pinch punctures weekly).

Now I've found a tubeless setup that works I'm happy with tubeless for commuting but it's definitely not essential like it is for MTB (IMHO).

I reckon tubeless is almost essential for (the sort of) gravel (I ride).

Ha, fair enough. Perhaps I was getting gravel and commuting confused - my gravel bike is my commute bike, you see. For a dedicated off-road gravel bike, I can see how tubeless would be important.

Seriously, are the benefits of tubeless really worth this amount of faff?

The thing is, the faff comes at a time and place of your choosing, whereas punctures always come when you least want it. You'll never be doing a tubeless conversion in a rainstorm up a hill or halfway through a race, but that's exactly when punctures will happen, tubes are bastards.

I have a pair of Raddlers with the SG2 casing and they've been great.

WTB state this on the website:

• SG2 was specifically designed to be a puncture protection layer, but it also improves air retention and eliminates seeping at the sidewall.

They're obviously aware that their standard casing tyres are terrible at air retention...

WTBs sound like more trouble than they're worth but I thought the same about Vittoria Terrenos (and tubeless in general) until some helpful suggestions on here helped me develop my own wee ritual for seating tyres which seems to work well (seat them with a tube first basically...).

I'll never know if it's actually worth it though, I only went tubeless after an Autumn of Hawthorne punctures which I now partially blame on the tissue paper thin Conti CX tyres I was running. I don't think my Vittorias would have suffered the same. But now I'm tubeless I have the fear of all the punctures I maybe don't know about!

Will find out soon enough, ironically pinched the tyre hard enough that it wouldn't seal and it's too old to be worth repairing, will run it with tubes again until time to switch to winter CX tyres.

I dropped the pressure on my 650x47 Rutlands to traverse a particularly rocky track the other day. I think I overdid it a bit, judging by the subsequent noises. I didn't get any punctures though. I measured the pressure when I got back home and it was 12.5 psi 🙂 I'm not convinced I would have got away with that had I been using inner tubes.

Oof! Do you not mash your rims at those sorts of pressures?

This is why I might never truly reap the benefits of tubeless, I hate hitting my rim (especially for fear of just pinching the tyre instead of pinching the tube) so end up at pressures barely any lower than I would run with tubes anyway.

It was lower than I intended and would normally run. No damage done though.

I could start a thread on STW every time I fit a tubeless tyre with no problem at all but I suspect you’d soon get bored and not read them.

Although you do have one set of tyres you inherited because they refused to seat properly on the previous owners wheels...

I consider going tubeless every time I read all the enthusiastic posts here at STW, but I've always decided against in the end. There seem to be two types of tubeless threads:

1: Someone asks 'Should I go tubeless?' and there are loads of replies saying yes, it's the easiest thing in the world, you'll never look back, never have a puncture, have no issues, etc

2: Tubeless horror stories - non-seating tyres, getting punctures after going tubeless, sealant explosions, bust rims, air leaks, sealant leaks, not being able to get tyres on (or off), ripped side walls, non-sealing rim tape, leaking valves, ruined clothes and carpets, that picture of Badger, etc

So I've resisted for a few reasons: I'm really not very gnar (is that the word?) so I don't need to run super-low pressures; I don't get many punctures; I've had poor experience with 'tubeless ready tyres' (eg they seem to be made from tissue paper).
Most importantly I've got a lifetime of experience of dealing with tubes - I know loads of tricks and dodges to get a tubed tyre up and running, whereas when I read the tubeless threads I often have no idea what anyone is talking about: bacon, mushrooms, anchovies - it sounds tasty but what would I do with it?

I guess if I did a lot of group riding so I was with people who knew what they were doing I might have gone for it by now, but I'm usually out solo so I stick with patches rather than taking a pasta puttanesca recipe with me.

It's like anything else - there's a learning curve.

Oof! Do you not mash your rims at those sorts of pressures?

Good tubeless tyres have firmer thicker sidewalls - essentially the rubber of the tube is redistributed - and you should also be using wider rims. I run 2.1 tyres at 27psi and I've never dinged at rim (even when I was 93kg), whereas back in the day I'd be running 40, I'd weigh less, and I'd still pinch puncture occasionally.

A good tubeless tyre is a quite different thing to a tradtional tubed one.

Yeah, but 12.5psi is a bit sporting.

I've had a couple of tubeless gravel bike pinches at <30psi so I'll be sticking with 40-50psi on 40mm tyres. I am not a fat biffer but there are pointy rocks where I ride.

I was aiming for about 20 psi but I was also fending off the flying death so got it a bit wrong 😂

I'd normally be riding them at about 30 psi.

I find 50 psi to be uncomfortably harsh when the going gets rough. I have thought about changing handlebars to see if that would help though. I'm using aluminium Woodchippers and, while I love the riding position, they are pretty stiff and unwielding.

Just wanted to say I love the thread title

I consider going tubeless every time I read all the enthusiastic posts here at STW, but I’ve always decided against in the end. There seem to be two types of tubeless threads:

1: Someone asks ‘Should I go tubeless?’ and there are loads of replies saying yes, it’s the easiest thing in the world, you’ll never look back, never have a puncture, have no issues, etc

2: Tubeless horror stories – non-seating tyres, getting punctures after going tubeless, sealant explosions, bust rims, air leaks, sealant leaks, not being able to get tyres on (or off), ripped side walls, non-sealing rim tape, leaking valves, ruined clothes and carpets, that picture of Badger, etc

I think it comes down to the type of tyre and the appeal of low pressure. For MTB then it does seem to work so maybe give it a try. If you pump your tyres like rocks any way as you hate the idea of rim dings on rocks then might as well have tubes in.

Smaller roady type tyres definitely harder and more faff with tubeless. Again if you are happy with tubes and have no desire to run low pressure then don't bother. I tend to run high pressure anyway so less enthused with tubeless than others.

My brother has a 1 year old Raddler that has bubbles on the sidewall. It's the 60 tpi casing, so don't know if the 120 would be any better. You'd hope so.

With regards to general faff, there is a lot of hawthorn around where I ride, so 2 of my 3 bikes are set up tubeless.

My gravel bike came set up tubeless from the shop and requires a bit of air every week.

My MTB had 2 massive thorns in the rear tyre with no detectable loss of air when I had to remove that the other week. I'd much rather be sorting that out at home, than changing a tube on a dark, rainy night in the middle of Axe Murderer Woods.

This is why (repairing a puncture in the wind and trying to balance the phone at the same time)

I faffed a bit, if I heard the puncture earlier and hadn't tried to film it, I wouldn't have had to add any air!

Bicycle Rolling Resistance tested 3 different WTB gravel tyres in TCS Light construction and found they all had poor puncture resistance in the sidewall (and tread) compared to other gravel tyres. A WTB gravel tyre in SG2 construction had better puncture resistance when tested and so, as an earlier post suggested, the SG2 versions should suffer less sealant leakage.

My experience with Gravelkings is that both tan wall versions I tried suffered from sealant leaks from the sidewall (which settled down eventually) whereas the black wall version sealed straightaway. No punctures with any of the 3 versions (all 3 in Plus construction).