slime worth it?

bails87

OK, fair enough with the actual numbers, I was just making a point about rotational vs 'static' weight in general. The point still stands though, strapping weight to your rims will change the ride more than strapping it to the downtube.

As to the weight of slime being noticeable, you'd probably have to be a pretty serious racer, or ride 2 identical bikes back to back, one with & one without slime to notice a major difference, but whether or not you feel it, the difference is undeniably there. If 150g doesn't make a difference, then neither does 151g, 152g etc, until you end up with 10,000g. It all makes a difference, just depends on how noticable it is, and at the end of the day if you care about it!

Oh, and I've used slime for ages..... :roll:

Thewaylander

Shotgun

150g on your wheelsis very noticble. it effects handling and acceleration as its like a giant level and the weight is 28" out from the turning point.

Trying to fight punctures is hard going in the end i just use a sensible set of tyres for the rough nature of the trails i ride. and run sensible PS (2.35" tyre about 35psi or so) and the rest is luck with a spare tube in ya bag

noodleman

Tie a 150g weight to a piece of cord and spin it round above your head. You will feel that, and that is exactly what is going on with your wheels. You might not notice it as much as the cord experiment, but its happening all the same.

noodleman

Tie a 150g weight to a piece of cord and spin it round above your head. You will feel that, and that is exactly what is going on with your wheels. You might not notice it as much as the cord experiment, but its happening all the same.

noodleman

Tie a 150g weight to a piece of cord and spin it round above your head. You will feel that, and that is exactly what is going on with your wheels. You might not notice it as much as the cord experiment, but its happening all the same.

shogunsteve

noodleman wrote:

Tie a 150g weight to a piece of cord and spin it round above your head. You will feel that, and that is exactly what is going on with your wheels. You might not notice it as much as the cord experiment, but its happening all the same.

Weight on a wheel is evenly distributed, whereas your so called "experiment" has weight at one point at any position, rather like a lasso.

150 grams is not a small amount of weight (even assuming slime weighs this!!!), but its not going to shock anyone the way their bike "handles".

And I am not suggesting that its a weight that doesnt matter, but unless you have a 5 grand carbon fibre bike...just chill....

k2rider

i tried slime tubes in a roadbike a few years ago for the winter, never again, it felt like it had oval wheels and gave me no confidence in the handling what so ever, i got rid after one ride.

noodleman

k2rider wrote:

i tried slime tubes in a roadbike a few years ago for the winter, never again, it felt like it had oval wheels and gave me no confidence in the handling what so ever, i got rid after one ride.

Exactly my point! might only be a matter of grams but you can feel it. Noticed straight away when i put slime in my tubes. I'm sure people will argue for ever more that the weight makes no difference but it does, you can feel it and for something that doesn't work very well isn't particularly cheap and affects your handling seems a waste of money to me.

bails87

I think this is because slime is very thick, it seems to settle at the bottom of the wheels when the bike is left for a few hours. It really struggles to spread out again, this is what I've got now, its much more of a liquid so it spreads out throughout the tyre and doesn't unbalance the wheel. It's probably more noticeable on a road bike than mtb anyway, but it's still not pleasant.

shogunsteve

noodleman wrote:

k2rider wrote:

i tried slime tubes in a roadbike a few years ago for the winter, never again, it felt like it had oval wheels and gave me no confidence in the handling what so ever, i got rid after one ride.

Exactly my point! might only be a matter of grams but you can feel it. Noticed straight away when i put slime in my tubes. I'm sure people will argue for ever more that the weight makes no difference but it does, you can feel it and for something that doesn't work very well isn't particularly cheap and affects your handling seems a waste of money to me.

Then its clearly not evenly distributed.

The weight would make no difference if it wa evenly distributed throughout the circumference of the wheel.

For the record I dont use anything. Just watch where I'm going and carry a tube.

tiny_pens

shogunsteve wrote:

Stokie wrote:

I've had the slime tubes and i'm really impressed, most of my riding is off road and i've not had one flat yet. I'd reccomend them to anyone and i'd definately buy them again.

I dont use them and have only had 2 punctures ever.

Tyre pressure and watching where I'm going I guess counts for alot, but I'd never bother with slime, just reckon its a gimmick.

Oh and everyone going on about weight is madness. If you have abig breakfast or pick up some mud thats extra weight so 20 or 50 gramms aint gonna mean much!

This raises an interesting point. I'm looking into these slime liners after a ride this week where I had 3 p*nctures in 10 miles including one where whatever I hit ripped a section of tread completely off (would have been well and truly screwed with a tubeless setup) but left a suprisingly small (single) hole in the tube.

My question is whether the professional riders get less flats, perhaps due to smoother riding style? It would be a big incentive to get better if this was true :-)

To summarise then, the slime liners are reasonable against thorns but spoil the ride so can anyone recommend a good kevlar belted tyre.

Tiny

deffler

Tried the liners. What a complete waste of time. Im sure theyre some kinda sick joke, they just didnt work, I once got 3 punctures in the space of 100 metres.

Chaz.Harding

shogunsteve

I'm still not sure you fully understand how much an affect of adding weight to the outside of the wheels will affect your bike. Let me break it down.

Adding weight to the fork lowers, or the hubs (yes it is rotating mass, but it's rotating slowly, at the centre, so the affect will be minimal in a lardy hub) it sits as UNSPRUNG weight. This will cause the suspension to act more sluggish, and will be less responsive to the terrain, as more energy will be needed to actvate the forks. However, the overall affect on the bike is MINIMAL

ROTATING MASS, however, is totally totally different. On flat level ground, I dare say once you are up to speed you'll find it almost impossible to know of the weight. However, when the ground gets rough, and corners are involved, the gyroscopic effect of weighty wheels will resist you leaning over, changing direction, accelerating and braking. This also acts as unsprung mass, but I'd say the effect of 150g per wheel would be almost un-noticable AS UNSPRUNG WEIGHT, unless you were already running a superlight setup. The act on the bikes dynamics, will almost certainly be clear as day. Whatever your current set up us (I'd guess weighty and protected), try fitting a super light weight system (or borrow a mate's bike with light wheelset, and you'll see the difference. It can totally transform a bike.

No, I'm not having a dig at you shogunsteve, just trying to explain fully how the physics will change!

Yes, I am a geek 8)

Chaz.Harding

Also, meant to add, that a 29'er system, the difference will be even more obvious. Weight further away from the central point it's rotatig around, is even more critical - like the hub I mentioned above.

Why do you think the F1 teams, and the World Superbikes all try like fcuk to lower the weight of the suspension linkages, wheels (NOT tyres ) discs and calipers, to have them as light as is safe to do so, but still having to conform to a minimum weight...?

shin0r

They work to a degree but I'd go for a decent thick tyre and some DH innertubes instead.