Cycling UK Forum

Hi all, looking for advice/opinions on running with tubeless tyres. I have inner tubes in both my tubeless ready tyres, after 2 punctures last weekend removing the tyre to repair the puncture was a nightmare. I have since found out why. what is your advice or opinions on tubeless tyres.

my 2nd question is touch up paint, can anyone advise on Boardman colours, RAL numbers for the paint or a company that can help with Boardman paint colours.

Thanks in advance.
Trevor.

trev57 wrote: ↑17 Aug 2023, 5:09pm Hi all, looking for advice/opinions on running with tubeless tyres. I have inner tubes in both my tubeless ready tyres, after 2 punctures last weekend removing the tyre to repair the puncture was a nightmare. I have since found out why. what is your advice or opinions on tubeless tyres.

I like them and have them on most of my bikes. Certainly I wouldn't ride a mountain or gravel bike without them; road I do use them but it wouldn't be the end of the world to use normal tubes.

However, some more detail would be useful - what bike is it, what are the wheels and tyres currently on it, what sort of use is the bike getting, what caused the punctures last time...?

It is a Boardman gravel/adventure bike. I use for road and off road, the punctures occurred on tarmac. I was not ready for how difficult it was to remove the tubeless ready tyre and may have caused the 2nd one with the fight I had to remove then replace both tyre and innertube. The tyres are schwalbe G-one speed 700cx38.

trev57 wrote: ↑18 Aug 2023, 8:39pm The tyres are schwalbe G-one speed 700cx38.

OK, the G-Ones are normally pretty straightforward - I've used them for years and never had any issues with getting them on or off. Oh well.

First thing is to check that the wheels are also tubeless ready - if they're not you'll need the full re-taping etc from scratch; if they are you should just need to put in a tubeless valve.
Fit the tyres, inflate to seal them then deflate (the tyres should still stay in place), remove the valve core, add the sealant, replace the core and inflate. You sometimes get some weeping of sealant as it finds the gaps and plugs them, that's normal and after a short ride, everything should be fine.

Sealant generally lasts about 6 months or so after which it'll need topping up to remain effective.

What you'll find is that small punctures - thorns, little shards of glass or metal - should self seal, almost without you being aware of them. You may notice little damp patches on the tyre after a while, that's sealant that has gone into a hole and sealed it with a bit of weeping.
Bigger punctures may spray a bit of sealant for a while before finally sealing and the tyre will lose a bit of pressure. The main thing with a puncture on a tubeless tyre is that (at least initially) you keep riding - that flings the sealant to the outside where it can act quickly.

You can get tubeless repair kits which mean you don't even need to remove the wheel or tyre - things like this:
https://road.cc/content/review/dynaplug ... ger-285387

They're semi-permanent, at least good enough to get you home in most circumstances and sometimes they'll last far longer.

Absolute worst case, if it's a really big puncture that won't seal, you'll have to fit a tyre boot and a tube - but then you'd have to do that anyway with a normal tubed set-up so you're not losing anything by going tubeless.

It's worth getting a shop to set them up if you're not mechanically minded - it's not really "difficult" as such, it can just be a bit messy in the initial set up with sealant, tight tyres etc. But it's definitely worth it on gravel bikes.

Thank you, you have been very helpful. I think I will give tubeless a go.

Get a VAR tyre lever https://www.sjscycles.co.uk/tools/var-tyre-levers/.