Good report! I'm VERY close to giving up on my non-sealed 700C set up. My ride was ended by goatheads today. Had to call in for support as I was close enough to home to not want to change fix two flats in the blazing hot 100F sun.
On Sun, Aug 30, 2015 at 11:19 AM, Doug Williams <salg...@minbaritm.com> wrote: > UPDATE: Ride with GPS reports that it has been 611.8 miles since I > converted my Babyshoe Pass EL's on my tubeless ready Pacenti SL23 rims to > tubeless. So I suppose I should give a midterm performance update. > > Short version: ZERO flats! Wonderful! Great! Should have done it sooner! > If you have tubeless ready rims and run tires 42mm or wider, I recommend > you go tubeless. If you have narrower tires or rims that are not tubeless > ready…I don’t know. I just know that what I did works great! > > Long Version: I used to get MANY flats from goat heads, star thistle, > and other thorns. Before, with inner tubes, I was averaging a flat every 42.75 > miles. With my tubeless setup, I still get many thorns, but they don’t > result in flats. If anything, I get more thorns than ever because I do more > dirt trails now that I don’t have to worry about flats. In the beginning, I > used to carefully go over my tires after each ride and pick all the thorns > out of the tires. Now I am much more casual about it. I pick out the really > obvious thorns but I often just leave most of them in until my weekend > maintenance. When I pull a thorn, I get a brief leak of Orange Seal, and > then it seals up. No worries; and I have never had a significant pressure > loss. I just got back from a bike free 5 day vacation and the tires lost > less than 5 PSI. In normal use, I just top off the tires every few days. > The only real issue I have had is that the Orange Seal is so good at > plugging leaks that it eventually clogs up the valves. I have removed, > cleaned, and replaced each valve stem once during this 611.8 mile test…not > a big deal. > > Doug > > > On Saturday, July 18, 2015 at 10:40:47 AM UTC-7, Doug Williams wrote: >> >> I converted my Babyshoe Pass EL's on Pacenti SL23 rims to tubeless >> yesterday. So my 58cm 650B Homer is running SMOOTH. Everything is great so >> far, I'll followup with a long term report after some more miles. Some >> preliminary observations: >> >> From what I had read, I was expecting a battle; but seating the tires was >> actually quite easy. I didn't want water inside the tires, so I used no >> soapy water or lubricant of any kind. I had an injector for the Orange Seal >> sealant, so I added the sealant AFTER the tires were seated. In short, the >> tires were seated while completely dry. Here is how I did it. >> >> First, I seated the tires in the normal manner with an inner tube. Then I >> broke ONE bead and removed the inner tube. I installed the tubeless tire >> stem. Then I worked my way around the rim and pulled the loose bead outward >> on the rim to seat it as best as I could. It wasn't fully seated of course, >> but somewhat close. Then I just pumped the tire up and seated it, didn't >> even remove the valve core (as some recommend for faster air flow) because >> my pump fit the valve stem better with the core in. It was actually quite >> easy to seat the tire with my floor pump! Full disclosure, I have the high >> volume Lezyne Dirt Floor Drive Pump, but really I think any floor pump >> would have worked. My daughter seated one of the tires and I seated the >> other. Easy both times. I think the key is to have one bead completely on >> and the second bead pulled in close like I did. >> >> So far I'm quite satisfied with tubeless. My goal was to avoid having to >> use a heavy commuter tire because I really love the ride of the Babyshoe >> Pass EL's. I see no weight savings with tubeless and I don't care. If there >> is a difference in performance I can't tell. I was already using Schwalbe >> SV14 light (130 gram) inner tubes and the ride was sweet (when I didn't >> flat). I'm interested only in flat protection because with all the goat >> heads and other thorns around here flats were annoyingly common with tubes. >> I probably used more Orange Seal than necessary, but we will see. I'll >> probably carry two inner tubes and a patch kit as emergency backup, so >> again...no weight savings. But if I don't get flats, it will be worth it. I >> use my bike to commute to work. It is only 5 miles each direction, but I >> get up early and extend my morning commute somewhere fun to get a 90 minute >> or so morning ride. I don't want to be fixing a flat out in the boonies at >> dawn before work. Been there, done that! >> >> So hopefully tubeless will be the answer for me...time will tell. >> >> Doug >> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "RBW Owners Bunch" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. > Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/rbw-owners-bunch. > For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout. > -- Cheers, David Member, Supreme Council of Cyberspace "it isn't a contest. Just enjoy the ride." - Seth Vidal -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to rbw-owners-bunch+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To post to this group, send email to rbw-owners-bunch@googlegroups.com. 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