[Closed] Road Tubeless - a pointless upgrade?

I have some tubeless set up wheels and some non tubeless cant say I've noticed a difference.

I have some tubeless set up wheels and some non tubeless cant say I’ve noticed a difference.

Size is a factor I feel. I can tell the difference on the MTB and even on the gravel bike with 40mm tyres.
25mm - 30mm not sure I could tell.

Yes and no

As a weight saving then no as you stated there is no weight difference

But then you don't have the hassle of stopping to fix small punctures as the sealant should do this for you

Then again if you do get a puncture on fast descent then most of the sealant will be sprayed up your back ruining your expensive jersey which happened to me recently!

But then you don’t have the hassle of stopping to fix small punctures as the sealant should do this for you

I should also mention I rarely get punctures on the road, like maybe one in the last 7 years

There is no real difference unless you run the tyres with less pressure in them. Running 25mm tubeless tyres at 80psi is more comfortable than a similar width tyre at 100psi (pressures for my less than svelte weight currently, when much slimmer the pressure can be lowered to 70 or below).

There is no real difference unless you run the tyres with less pressure in them. Running 25mm tubeless tyres at 80psi is more comfortable than a similar width tyre at 100psi (pressures for my less than svelte weight currently, when much slimmer the pressure can be lowered to 70 or below).

But what about rolling resistance, road feel, tubeless should be more supple right?

I think that rolling resistance and weight stuff was all nailed with tubulars, and then clinchers got made to be as good.

Although, I will say, and YMMV, but, "road feel" my buttocks. By the time you are at 130psi there is diddly squat difference between one rock hard rock and another.

All my MTB wheels are ghetto'd, and the only benefit I notice there is that I have had zero punctures in the last six or seven years from I have used tubeless.

Depends on the tube and tyre, tests showed that non-tubeless Conti GP5000 with a latex tube rolls faster than the tubeless equivalent.

I'd only consider it for my winter bike, would like the added comfort and grip of lower pressures. But then, the winter bike is the one that I want the least faff and most predictability out of, at least I know I could fix everything out on the road if I really had to.

I should also mention I rarely get punctures on the road, like maybe one in the last 7 years

If that was the case for me I would never bother running tubeless. You could have spent your money on lighter tubes and actually saved on overall weight

I ride gravel roads on my road tyres so lucky if I don't get a puncture in 7 days using tubes. Tubeless removes that hassle.

Road Tubeless – a pointless upgrade?

Nope, not pointless, worse than pointless. There's the slime wrestling required to get tyre on rim, gunk in tyre, and tyre inflated, all without getting gunk all over your basement/ shed/ patio and making yourself look like a painter's radio.
There's the hassle of keeping it inflated. There's the worry that if you get a proper slash in the tyre (from glass, for example), you'll have to wrestle said tyre off the rim in the middle of nowhere, to insert an inner tube. And, from the sounds of it, there's minimal benefit in punctures.

Nope, not pointless, worse than pointless. There’s the slime wrestling required to get tyre on rim, gunk in tyre, and tyre inflated, all without getting gunk all over your basement/ shed/ patio and making yourself look like a painter’s radio.
There’s the hassle of keeping it inflated. There’s the worry that if you get a proper slash in the tyre (from glass, for example), you’ll have to wrestle said tyre off the rim in the middle of nowhere, to insert an inner tube. And, from the sounds of it, there’s minimal benefit in punctures.

How do you setup your tubeless tyres??? I have never got any slime or gunk over any part of my body or my garage in years of setting up tyres.

Also these were some of the easiest tyres I have setup. 12 minutes to change two wheels over from tubes to tubeless.

Running Mavic Cosmic Pro carbon wheels and their 28mm UST tyres on my road bike.

No difficulty getting the tyres on the rim or inflating them, and they don't go down any faster than tubed tyres.

Pressure is 55 psi and seem supple enough. Not had a (visible) puncture in 5000km of riding.

How do you setup your tubeless tyres??? I have never got any slime or gunk over any part of my body or my garage in years of setting up tyres.

😀 Fair point! I should have prefaced that by saying "if you have hams for hands (and fall into one of the worse rim/ tyre combos)..."

better puncture performance, lower psi so better grip and feel, and better rolling resistance.

Apart from that, no.

[32mm Bonty hardcase lites, I think]

And, from the sounds of it, there’s minimal benefit in punctures.

On road, I'd agree.

MTB, just about worth the faff.

I should also mention I rarely get punctures on the road, like maybe one in the last 7 years

Someone has just angered the puncture gods. What a dangerous thing to say.

I've done both my winter and summer wheels. Shimano + Hutchinson went up 1st time, Schwalbe + Stans needed the compressor.

No weight saving, but also no punctures (Chiltern Hills, so quite flinty). Counted 32 cuts and holes in a tyre when I took it off, think I noticed 1 of them at the time!

Touch wood I won't bother going back to tubes as it's been zero faff. Tyres go on the wheels and don't come off again until they're worn down to the canvas.

Also there's the issue that tubed tyres, if they get a small nick in them tend to repeatedly puncture the tube, I've got an otherwise perfectly good winter tyre that will puncture a tube even on the turbo trainer!

Depends on the tube and tyre, tests showed that non-tubeless Conti GP5000 with a latex tube rolls faster than the tubeless equivalent.

It's within a Watt IIRC.

How about swapping to those Tubolito inner tubes, the light weight orange ones? Spendy I know but an option?

No weight advantage big advantage is being able to run at lower pressures without having to worry about pinch flats. I run tubed clinchers at 90 psi my tubeless road tyres at 70psi. Makes a big difference in comfort and grip and I don’t notice any loss in speed.

I think the benefits are more noticeable on bigger tyres, as they can be run more safely at lower pressures. I *haven’t used* tubeless road, but i have used tubulars (fast and comfy)
Also old school lightweight clinchers with latex tubes, (fast, needed pumping up every day)
And modern lightweight clinchers with lightweight butyl tubes, (virtually as fast, comfy)
Not sure there’s a huge benefit to tubeless there *IMO*
Off road, there’s little doubt that tubeless is better, a lot better for small punctures like thorns, better ride, less weight (in my personal example)
Horses for courses innit.

People keep mentioning grip, are you actually drifting your road bikes round corners? If so you are my heroes.

Back in the real world, even my hack bike with cheap tyres will lean over further than I'm entirely comfortable with ! although I did manage to provoke my cross bike into a slide on tarmac turning into a junction too quickly, turns out there is a sensible lower limit to tyre pressures and grip and at 20psi there wasn't enough!

It’s surprising how slight tyre pressure differences affect grip in road tyres. I had a bad experience years ago running high pressures on Vitoria tyres in the wet. Wiped out leading the bunch going round a 90 degree bend. Luckily I didn’t take anyone else out.

In the wet taking 10 psi off does give you a fair bit of extra grip that’s going from 90 -80psi so 70 just feels that bit more secure to embolden you to carry speed through corners and race out of them with no skipping on the road surface.

It’s a compromise though as higher pressures give you less CRR rolling resistance.

CRR

???

???

Coefficient of Rolling Resistance

c.f. to CdA, Coefficient of Drag x Area for aero drag.

It’s surprising how slight tyre pressure differences affect grip in road tyres. I had a bad experience years ago running high pressures on Vitoria tyres in the wet. Wiped out leading the bunch going round a 90 degree bend. Luckily I didn’t take anyone else out.

Yea, but the number of times I've slid out on the road bike is pretty small. I like a good corner, and generally find I'm the brave one who brakes late and carries most speed in a group. But even then I don't think I've actually managed to slide enough times to consistently say that wouldn't have happened at 10psi less.

Drain covers and crap surfaces on steep climbs aside, but then I doubt any tyre is twice the coefficient of friction of another and able to deal with the likely halving (or worse) that generally entails.

I'm not 100% convinced they're much better for punctures. I've had a fair few holes that wouldn't seal with road tyre pressure, and tubeless tyres are certainly more faff to fix than tubed.

I do think they feel a bit better on the road in terms of comfort and grip, though.

Personally, I wouldn't bother buying new tyres specifically to go tubeless. If I'm replacing a worn tyre then I'll consider it.

Test ride complete. Usual fast 20 mile loop. They definitely feel more plush and smoother. Grip is superb but didn't really have any problem with the old set. Speed? I would say they are significantly faster. At a zone 4 effort my previous avg on this loop was 18mph. Tonight 19.3mph.

^ this BUT,

My experience of my tubeless gravel tyres is anything more than 4mm results in an innertube as the air pressure/volume on a 40mm tyre can’t cope with sealing.
Recent removal of tyre to patch a 5mm gash showed 4 large thorns in the tyre that I had no idea about.

+ Noodles work, sometimes.

I’d only consider it for my winter bike, would like the added comfort and grip of lower pressures. But then, the winter bike is the one that I want the least faff and most predictability out of, at least I know I could fix everything out on the road if I really had to.

This is where I find myself also.
My winter bike is a deliberately cheap, reliable bike with cheap wheels and 25c tubed Schwalbe's that meet my most basic needs, moderate puncture resistance, decent grip, they roll well enough (Rolling resistance is well below puncture resistance and grip as a priority TBH) and a comfortable enough ride on local back lanes and roads.
The investment to put Tubeless on that bike would be significant (i.e. quadruple the value of the bike) and as it stands on the rare occasion I get a flat out riding on it I know I can deal with it Vs the cost and, judging by the still mixed anecdotes, reliability gamble of current road tubeless setups.

Similarly my "best" road bike is on slightly nicer 25c Tubed Conti's and doesn't seem to be holding my meagre efforts back, that would also need a new tubeless ready wheelset or conversion and while I'd be more comfortable with the extra spend on that bike, I don't want to do it just for the sake of it, if I buy new wheels I want to be getting more than just TL ready rims as a benefit.

I think I (like most people seem to be on here) will probably find myself at some point having either bought new wheels or a new bike with new wheels that happen to be TL ready and that's when you really start mulling the option over...

The risks that come with higher pressures and arguably more marginal benefits as well as sheer cost vs Tubeless MTB/gravel/CX tyres, mean it's not something the majority are going to go out of their way to "just try" (IMO). But I think it highly likely TL will probably be the default choice in a few more years on most road bikes over ~£1k.

Test ride complete. Usual fast 20 mile loop. They definitely feel more plush and smoother. Grip is superb but didn’t really have any problem with the old set. Speed? I would say they are significantly faster. At a zone 4 effort my previous avg on this loop was 18mph. Tonight 19.3mph.

Now I'm the first person to sing the benefits of tubeless on road bikes, but I fear there are other factors at play here. Much as being able to tell the average person that converting to tubeless tyres on their road bike would raise the avg speed by 1.3mph would make my job much easier, I've seen the science, and it ain't that much I'm afraid! I've got a similar fast 20 mile loop I do quite a lot, and my pace will vary by 1mph easily just based on the ambient conditions, and the same again depending on how I'm feeling myself...

However... The Conti test aside where they suggest their tubed GP5000's are slightly faster than tubeless, everyone else seems to have proven that tubeless is a little quicker than tubed like for like. Not so much in the Grand Tours, but in the one day classics in particular where reliability over rough roads is very important and team cars can't get to their athletes for large periods of the race, a lot of Pro's have been running Tubeless for a while now for certain events. Tubs don't posses the level of benefits they once did, and tubeless technology has been catching up with tubs fairly rapidly, and they're certainly more robust.

Then there is the fact that tubeless can be run at lower pressures for more grip and comfort than tubed tyres, with no increase in rolling resistance (lower pressures increase the friction between tube and tyre in a conventional clincher setup, which increases rolling resistance), and the increased puncture protection of running a sealant inside the tyre...

The biggest issue I have witnessed with tubeless on road bikes is people expecting it to be absolutely bombproof. Sealants that were mostly (but not all) designed to run in low pressure, high volume MTB applications, and as such, many are not as adept at sealing anything more than a very small hole in a road tyre at pressures greater than you may use in an MTB tyre. Choose your sealant carefully basically! Also, there is the fact that most tyre manufacturers have focussed on the performance end of the market first, which traditionally has meant minimal puncture protection built into the tyre itself. As the market has matured, and more focus has been put into the midrange/training tyre market where puncture resistance has traditionally been more of a purchase requirement, these expectations are now being better met than running they were when people were running lightweight summer race tyres on their winter training bikes.

Similarly my “best” road bike is on slightly nicer 25c Tubed Conti’s and doesn’t seem to be holding my meagre efforts back, that would also need a new tubeless ready wheelset or conversion and while I’d be more comfortable with the extra spend on that bike, I don’t want to do it just for the sake of it, if I buy new wheels I want to be getting more than just TL ready rims as a benefit.

I think I (like most people seem to be on here) will probably find myself at some point having either bought new wheels or a new bike with new wheels that happen to be TL ready and that’s when you really start mulling the option over…

The risks that come with higher pressures and arguably more marginal benefits as well as sheer cost vs Tubeless MTB/gravel/CX tyres, mean it’s not something the majority are going to go out of their way to “just try” (IMO). But I think it highly likely TL will probably be the default choice in a few more years on most road bikes over ~£1k.

Agreed, to a large extent, and it's why the manufacturers haven't stopped developing their high end clinchers too. Anyone with a £2k+ bike purchased within the last 3 years most likely has the opportunity to run tubeless if they want to, but as roadies generally buy a new bike much less often than MTBer's, there's a large portion of road cyclists out there that still don't yet own a tubeless ready wheelset. Obviously, this will change over time as almost every aftermarket wheelset above about £200 is now tubeless ready, and most bikes above £1500 now come with tubeless ready wheels, in 5 years time tubeless road tyres will naturally outsell conventional clinchers by some margin just because there will be less of a barrier to take up, and most people who have tried them seem to appreciate the benefits at least.

And yes, the higher the pressures, the less the benefits strictly speaking... But as 23c is a distant memory, 25c is largely going the same way even on rim braked bikes, and 28-32c is the "new normal", the pressures are dropping, and the benefits of tubeless are becoming more apparent to the average customer. 👍🏻

Now I’m the first person to sing the benefits of tubeless on road bikes, but I fear there are other factors at play here

oh, absolutely. But I doubt any of it has come from me. That's quite a big increase though and whilst its totally non scientific I would put money on at least half of that increase coming from the tyres. Not necessarily the fact they are tubeless, there is the compound, the pressure, the speed carried through corners etc...

but as roadies generally buy a new bike much less often than MTBer’s,

Really? Wheres your evidence for this? True I know some old skool roadies that ride bikes that are 20 years old, but there are plenty of MTB`ers around that never buy a new bike until the current one is totally dead. Equally the new generation of roadies will change bikes every 2-3 years (myself included).

Yea, but the number of times I’ve slid out on the road bike is pretty small. I like a good corner, and generally find I’m the brave one who brakes late and carries most speed in a group.

I may have my wires crossed on who Aberdeenlune is..... But if it's who I think it is.....I doubt your pushing harder in corners than he does.

As for tires making all the odds. I had some nutraks that came on my road rat which were not even safe to commute at low speed in the damp.

But more so I have tubeless on the propel. It's a far cry from the MTb system . It just stays inflated I only need 75 psi on 25c tires. Makes a nice stiff bike a comfy bike.

Not necessarily the fact they are tubeless, there is the compound, the pressure, the speed carried through corners etc…

Most definitely not because of tubeless. You are comparing a different tyre at a different pressure.

Setup a Marathon Plus tubeless and see how much faster than makes you than a tubed GP5000...

Really? Wheres your evidence for this?

Colloquially, in my head... Years and years of selling bikes to people both in my own shop and others, picking up on repeat customers etc. However, I've also been party to some manufacturers data in the past suggesting that typical MTB enthusiasts purchase a new MTB every 2-3 years, whilst for road enthusiasts it's longer, typically half as often or every 4-6 years. Notice the key word there... Enthusiasts... Your guy who still rattles around on a 1994 Raleigh M-Trax cos it hasn't fallen apart yet and it still gets him to work, doesn't count.

I'm trying to remember who else did a survey on this, may have been GMBN/GCN, can't remember. I'll have a dig around. But the findings were certainly similar to my own experiences and the data I have seen from manufacturers in the past. It also rings true for any new technology introduced into the market, roadies are typically much slower on the uptake than MTBers are. Obviously, there's always exceptions to the rule, but generally speaking, roadies keep their bikes and their kit longer, and are more reluctant to embrace new technology.

I have a love hate relationship with my tubeless road set up.

Tyres are always a major ballache to mount to the LB carbon rims (25c Schwalbe Pro One) and can be a struggle to get off without damaging the rim tape.

Once on I need to use the compressor to seat them as they're so tight.

The old Schwalbe Pro One's are a bit fragile, big cuts don't always seal but the newer ones are meant to be more robust. I cleaned the bike for the first time in a while last week and noticed some sealant on the frame so it has been working.

Did the C2C in a day last year and got a thorn in my front tyre after 130+ miles, I was pretty tired and the thought of having to fit a tube in the middle of nowhere after 10hrs in the saddle was pretty grim. I even considered snapping the twig around it and leaving it in for the rest of the ride. Pulled it out in the end and with a couple of revolutions it sealed up and I could carry on without having to top up the pressure. Tubeless love rekindled.

Really? Wheres your evidence for this? True I know some old skool roadies that ride bikes that are 20 years old, but there are plenty of MTB`ers around that never buy a new bike until the current one is totally dead. Equally the new generation of roadies will change bikes every 2-3 years (myself included).

Most of my Roadie type acquaintances seem to gradually build themselves up to purchasing a bike over a period of maybe 12-18 months roughly every ~5-10 years maybe?
It's not like the technology has changed that massively, I have one mate who's happily rolling about on an 8 year old Cube. Not that you'd look at it and sneer unless you were a massive bike snob, and know your year models at a glance. He bought it with first-gen Ultegra Di2 and He's still apparently blown away by it, an extra cog seems of little interest.
We've discussed new bikes with discs brakes/more aeroness/more gears/less gears/tubeless/wider tyres/etc/etc. He simply asks each time, what would he really be getting out a bike costing ~£3K (for the modern equivalent), over and above the benefits of the (bought and paid for) ~£2k bike from 2012 he already owns. He's waivered a bit on some things, but overall that bike from 2012 is more than adequate for a good while yet...
Another roadie friend has some nice, relatively new bikes, but his favourite is a ~2002 Trek Madone with full "Period" Dura Ace, which is still a very nice bike. They just don't "age" like MTBs.

The MTBerists I know do seem to be more easily sold bikes, some get itchy credit cards every 18-24 months almost without fail. I do increasingly find myself adopting the "Old Roadie attitude" and questioning the actual benefits rather than getting a massive lob-on for stuff just because it's new and the comics say it's teh awsumz!