Road tubeless

[Dave2t]

So, I'm building a new set of wheels with kinlin rims, and I've some Hutchinson tyres on the way. What are people carrying for roadside repairs? I've seen the tyre worms, and I've used these with success on the motorbike, I've also seen reference to flexible superglue, anyone got a link to a suitable product?

[Bobley]

I cant get tubeless road tyres to last. All ours have tubes in now or are hanging up in the corner. They aren't a patch on MTB tubeless (boom boom). On cyclocross tubeless when the boy has hit something they usually cause a slit rather than a hole so I've either stuck a bit of card inside and a tube or more recently stuck normal puncture repair patches on the inside of the tyre. They work very well and I've not had any further issues. On road tyres, when they are damaged they'll just horse all the fluid out everywhere. Just my opinion but I think road tyres are too delicate to go ragging a file through the hole and poking goo sticks in them. I'll stick to tubes from now on.

[AyBee]

I still carry the same stuff to repair (tube, gas, patches, levers etc) but see the main benefit in that hopefully I won't need to use them.

[SAS Tom]

I carry a tube. If the puncture doesn’t seal then just chuck a tube in.

[Your Dad]

I usually carry two tubes and a pump.

Yesterday I went 'billy big balls' and only took one tube.

[Steve vRS]

I though tubeless tyres were such a tight fit, a road side puncture repair would be a sore fingered challenge at best!

[Bobley]

Once tubeless have been on the bike for a while they'll soften up and as long as you have some nice tyre levers with you then it'll be okay.

If you try fitting tubeless tyres on a Stans rim though you may have fun. I put some new Vittoria Terranos on my mates Iron Cross a few weeks ago and even with big Pedros levers it took blood, sweat and tears to get them on. Proper nasty.

[lufbramatt]

Anyone tried the IRC tubeless tyres? tempted to order some with some new wheels I'm planning on getting. Get good reviews but don't appear to be that readily available in the UK.

[Dave2t]

I've seen some good reviews of the IRC, but went for some cheap Hutchinson off of a-cycles in the end.

[ALawson]

I have used IRC tubeless for about 3 years. I have only had to remove a tyre twice to insert a tube.

First time the tyre had only done 105km I may have damaged the sidewall on installation but I think it was a very sharp object slicing through the side wall.

2 normal tyre levers and a tube sorted that out with a Park Tools boot to cover the hole.

Second time (14 months later) was another side wall cut in an IRC Lite tyre, again 2 levers to remove and tube stuck in. The hole was about >5mm in both cases and would never have sealed.

I had at the time read this from Malcolm (who is the only IRC distributor in the UK) about what he carried to effect a repair.

https://thecycleclinic.co.uk/blogs/news/tubeless-t...

But I hadn't bought any worms or superglue.

When I got home I bought some worms and superglue, and whilst breaking one of my best levers called Malcolm up and then bought these and a new tyre.

https://thecycleclinic.co.uk/products/irc-tubeless...

As well as as an airshot for £25 from one LBS (after the other couldn't seat my repaired tubless tyre, more of that later).

https://www.evanscycles.com/airshot-tubeless-tyre-...

As the bike was now on the turbo I had a good play trying to repair the side wall hole. I first tried a single worm, it held in the sidewall hole and would hold about 40psi, however, if you approached 75-80 it would get pushed out.

Apparently a double worm (or larger) one can then be tried, I did the former, it held about 50-60psi but then got pushed out.

I took the tyre off and tried Malcolms suggest repair of a patch on the inside, a normal tube patch will stick to the inside of the tyre and it held air (as a trial of a permanent repair), it was ok until the patch started poking out through the hole. At that point I had a new tyre and mounted it with the new levers and air shot in 5 mins.

Personally I will not use my LBS for mounting or inflating tyres now as I can do this easily with the correct levers and airshot.

In terms of what I will carry, I am inclined on short rides to carry nothing if the road surfaces are decent and the weather ok, daylight hours etc.

Failing that I am confident that some worms (varying size) and super glue will repair all but the worst holes which are very unlikely. By not removing the tyre you don't risk it not remounting if you try and patch it or worms fail (having said that with a tube it will mount easily).

So I think when I get out of the garage and back on the road I will carry -

1 Box of tubeless rapair gubins i.e. worms, inserting fork thing, razor blade.
1 Tube of super glue
1 Hand pump or CO2 and replacement canister (you need to be careful not to blow the worm out)
1 50ml bottle sealant and valve core remover.

and/or
2 IRC lever
1-2 tubes
Pump/CO2 etc.

The later is guaranteed to get you going, the former should work. In terms of kit in pockets its probably similar.

Obviously I have had plenty of small punctures which have all sealed. Malcolm is running is tyres up to 10k km (unless they get a terminal failure).

[lufbramatt]

ALawson said:

Useful stuff

thanks for that, very informative.

I wonder if I could use a car spare wheel+tyre as a ghetto airshot. Would just need a couple of valve adaptors and a bit of hose. Maybe use bits of the broken eazibleed in the garage....

[ALawson]

lufbramatt said:

thanks for that, very informative.

I wonder if I could use a car spare wheel+tyre as a ghetto airshot. Would just need a couple of valve adaptors and a bit of hose. Maybe use bits of the broken eazibleed in the garage....

Maybe, I have mounted IRC new tyres with a track pump quite easily, success was about 50:50.

I was really pissed off when the new mechanic at my LBS simply shrugged his shoulders and said he couldn't get the tyre to seat. The head mechanic would have at least suggested replacing and increasing the amount of rim tape which can help them to seal/seat.

The airshot is a revelation and the chaps at Spokes and Spanners could have charged me £100 for it, in the end they did me a Strava discount! The LBS normally seated the tyres with a compressor, C02 works some of the time but there isn't the volume sometimes to get it to seat. I do worry about dropping the fully loaded airshot and it taking off around the garage.

I think any set up where you can pressurise and control the release of a large volume of air at 140psi will do the job.

The other thing to consider is sealant type and frequency of recharging, you can easily forget to top it up and then find out the hard way!