Potential new bike could come with Tubeless setup - or should we stick with tubes?

daniel_b

Afternoon all,

my partner may be looking at getting a 2022 Liv Devote Advanced Gravel bike, the lbs have said they can set it up for tubeless, or with tubes.

I've never used or even ridden tubeless in my life, so have no sealant, or any special high pressure pumps etc.

Also have as a result never used any of the hole repairing devices should they be required - worms is it?

My instinct is to stick with that I know, and go for tubes, but wanted to ask forumites what they would do.

This will be her winter bike/light tourer/local CX races/family rides bike.

It's a pretty decent spec, and has 30% off, only downside is it is a tad porky at a smidge over 10kg, but then I won't be riding it 🤣

slowmart

theres lots of noise from bike marketing departments about the benefits of tubeless.

regardless of any perceived benefits the real world of cycling offers a different view.

Since tyre pressure is a large part of comfort on a bike and running lower tyre pressure on a tubeless set up is a so called benefit means problems are moved along. Last year myself and a buddy were in a chainy, unfortunately no one called out about a pothole which I hit and pinch flated and my buddy directly behind running tubeless, hit the same pothole and dented his tubeless rim ( lower pressure, big guy) Inconvenience for me but a rather large bill for my mate.

I am not sure if I’m a luddite, I migrated to Di2 in 2013 and moved back to mechanical shifting in 2015 and haven’t looked back. Yet.

there’s less maintenance with tubes, no topping up sealant and roughly a good portion of tubeless riders I ride with still carry tubes as a back up.

the only puncture I had last year was from that chainy. I run tyre pressures fairly high for that reason and if I do I have an all ride I usually have my tyres around 80psi rather than 100psi.

no doubt others who migrated to tubeless will sing the praises but as with most things, subjectivity will always be a factor, much as my personal experience .

whyamihere

I think the advantages of tubeless are much larger off-road. You can run lower pressures without worrying about pinch flats, small punctures from rocks and thorns should get sealed and the sealants just work better at the lower pressures you'll use with bigger tyres. On-road, I'm less convinced, I've actually switched my road bikes back to tubes with the TPU tubes.

If you're planning to have 2 wheelsets, one road and one off-road, it might be worth setting up the off-road set tubeless. If you're likely to frequently switch between road and off-road tyres on the same wheels, I'd definitely stick with tubes as dealing with the sealant when you're swapping tyres is a pain in the arse.

davebradswmb

I definitely fall into the camp of using tubes for roads, but then I am still running 23 mm currently, with a plan that my next set of tyres will hit the heady width of 25 mm. I run tubeless on my gravel/cyclocross bike though, and I switch tyres to convert from one to the other. I don't find sealant to be too much of a problem, I have bought a syringe off ebay that came with a tube that wil fit throught the valve. I just suck out the sealant from the bottom of the tuyre once I have one side off, and inject it back into the new tyre after its fitted, topping up with some fresh sealant to make up for the losses. If I was running 32 mm or more on the road I would run tubeless, so my advice would be to get them set up tubeless.

You do have to consider what this will mean to you in terms of servicing and replacement. A lot of the riders I know that run tubeless on the road get their tyres changed and sealant topped up at the LBS, but that is not for me as I have always serviced and repaired my own bike. I have invested in the syringe as already mentioned, and a Schwalbe Tubeless Tyre Booster so that i can seat the tyres.

N0bodyOfTheGoat

Especially if lbs isn't charging for tubeless, give it a go.

I've been mildly curious about tubeless for few years, but I rarely got punctures, was a bit sceptical about use on road bike and I used to be a serial tyre swapper on my hybrid plus fat bike.

Danyradar

I've never tried tubeless myself, but while I've had few issues with tubes, I'm definitely curious about the potential benefits like improved comfort. I'd be interested in testing a bike with tubeless tires if the opportunity arises 😀

davebradswmb

On the subject of comfort, I can't tell the difference between tubed and tubeless, mind I could never tell the difference between butyl and latex tubes either. I think I must have a really unsensitive bum, I can barely tell the difference between Gatorskins and GP5000s!

daniel_b

Thanks for all the comments - much appreciated.

I think on balance, as it will be running much lower pressures, we will try the no cost option of a tubeless setup, and worst case if it all goes pete tong, we'll slap some tubes in - she'll still need to take one out with her and a pump of course anyway.