Post by Admin on Nov 7, 2013 10:54:23 GMT -7
Originally posted by Epic on the old forum.
As part of my tubeless learning curve and product adoption, I now have about 18 months on a set of Dura-Ace 7900 wheels, Maxxis Padrone tubeless tires, and used the same Hutchinson Protect-Air sealant that we use in our mountain bikes (only about 30 ml). I have to say that I am quite pleased and impressed. Two episodes that summarize my experience.
Hutchinson Protect-Air.
For those of you that have been here a while, several tire and wheel manufacturers void the factory warranty if you use Stan's. Kenda is one of them, and I've now had the Hutchinson product in her Kenda Small Block 8 with no delamination or bubbling problems. Hutchinson is the only product (at least as of last summer) that would not void the warranty on my Shimano wheels. And, I don't even know whether or not we have had any avoided flats on our mountain bikes, the sealants just work as advertised. Count me as "one happy camper".
I will probably try the Hutchinson Fusion road bike tires next, even though a raceng shop I respect said the Padrone's are a much better tire. I have been completely happy with the Maxxis, but the Fusions are several shekels cheaper.
So... we're talking about road tubeless here? Well, I've been running the Shimano Dura-Ace 7800 wheelset since it first came out. I've got the Fusion2 tires and run them dry. IMHO they are superior in every way to tubulars. In fact, that's why Josh is riding tubies. Because I haven't touched my sew-ups since I got the D/A wheels, I gave my old Cosmic/CX setup to Josh on long-term loan (with an option to buy 
).
Tubeless in general is great IMHO. I've been using it exclusively on my MTB since 2004 with no flats yet. I've got two pairs of 819s and a Fulcrum wheelset in current rotation, plus Crossmax SLs on the wife's bike.
Taking her bike as a case in point, I set it up tubeless specifically because she is not a bike person and I wanted to have her on something that is very easy to deal with if it ever needs dealing with at all. To that end, she is on the Crossmax SL with Maxxis Crossmark LUST tires. These are a true UST tire (In my experience, these are better than tubeless ready in terms of ride and ease of use). I have also given her a liberal dose of Hutchinson sealant for an extra dose of durability.
In my own wheels I run full UST though I've dabbled with a little bit of TLR. I mostly run them dry though I have one 819 that won't seal without a little dab of juice for the bead.
About the sealant, I use Hutchinson's stuff. I first got turned onto it when Velonews did a pretty comprehensive test of sealants and it did very well. It doesn't have ammonia so it doesn't eat up your tires. For those of you who are afraid to get mixed up with sealant, well, first of all, I can mount/unmount tires without getting any sealant on myself or the floor. Second of all, the stuff is pretty benign. It's not like it's a big mess of rubber cement or anything like that, if some goes on the floor, I wipe it up witha paper towel. If I get some on my hands, I wash them in the sink. Done. When I take off an old tire, I can wash it out with the hose and /or peel off the dried bits. No biggie. It sure as heck isn't like tubular glue where you need to go into full containment mode and wash with diesel fuel if you get it on your hands
).Tubeless in general is great IMHO. I've been using it exclusively on my MTB since 2004 with no flats yet. I've got two pairs of 819s and a Fulcrum wheelset in current rotation, plus Crossmax SLs on the wife's bike.
Taking her bike as a case in point, I set it up tubeless specifically because she is not a bike person and I wanted to have her on something that is very easy to deal with if it ever needs dealing with at all. To that end, she is on the Crossmax SL with Maxxis Crossmark LUST tires. These are a true UST tire (In my experience, these are better than tubeless ready in terms of ride and ease of use). I have also given her a liberal dose of Hutchinson sealant for an extra dose of durability.
In my own wheels I run full UST though I've dabbled with a little bit of TLR. I mostly run them dry though I have one 819 that won't seal without a little dab of juice for the bead.
About the sealant, I use Hutchinson's stuff. I first got turned onto it when Velonews did a pretty comprehensive test of sealants and it did very well. It doesn't have ammonia so it doesn't eat up your tires. For those of you who are afraid to get mixed up with sealant, well, first of all, I can mount/unmount tires without getting any sealant on myself or the floor. Second of all, the stuff is pretty benign. It's not like it's a big mess of rubber cement or anything like that, if some goes on the floor, I wipe it up witha paper towel. If I get some on my hands, I wash them in the sink. Done. When I take off an old tire, I can wash it out with the hose and /or peel off the dried bits. No biggie. It sure as heck isn't like tubular glue where you need to go into full containment mode and wash with diesel fuel if you get it on your hands
- I had gotten off the trail and stopped under a tree. I walked back to the trail and got on my bike and, as I started riding, noted a wispy white thread attached to my tire. Once I figured out what was going on, I realized I must have encountered a thorn of some sort, and the sealant had already fixed the problem. No pressure loss.
- I was riding along the Westchester Cross County Connector and found a rotted tree stump about 1.5" in diameter embedded in the midst of the trail. Unfortunately, I saw it just as I ran over it. I was really expecting this to be a problem. Result? I checked after my ride and found that I still had some wood embedded in my tire, and there was a little bit of white "stuff" around the edgesof the wood, but no loss of tire pressure at all. That is really impressive. (and I still haven't unmounted the tire and taken the splinter out).
Hutchinson Protect-Air.
For those of you that have been here a while, several tire and wheel manufacturers void the factory warranty if you use Stan's. Kenda is one of them, and I've now had the Hutchinson product in her Kenda Small Block 8 with no delamination or bubbling problems. Hutchinson is the only product (at least as of last summer) that would not void the warranty on my Shimano wheels. And, I don't even know whether or not we have had any avoided flats on our mountain bikes, the sealants just work as advertised. Count me as "one happy camper".
I will probably try the Hutchinson Fusion road bike tires next, even though a raceng shop I respect said the Padrone's are a much better tire. I have been completely happy with the Maxxis, but the Fusions are several shekels cheaper.
