Kneel down and give thanks that you now live and ride where sealants are
not needed. I did have a very nice 20+ mile fixed ride today, stubbornly
pushing the 75” gear against gusty winds, and the added ~2 fl oz of OS
regular in the rear RH TPU tube did slow the persistent very slow leak down
to the point where I had to stop only 1x to rebuild air pressure (and, to
be honest, I could probably have made it home without pumping).
*BUT!!!*
I added ~2 fl oz of OS regular into the rear TPU tube before the ride,
which involved:
Replacing a gummed-up valve core (which I cleared by soaking the core in
rubbing alcohol and furiously rubbing with a rag;
Cleaning up after the core-less valve stem kept burping quantities of
sealant over the rim, spokes, frame, and floor;
Pumping the tire with newly replenished sealant up to 60 psi (559 x 28 mm
actual RH 32 {labeled} Elk Pass), only to have the valve spit the
now-replenished sealant back up into the chuck, and, when chuck removed,
spitefully vomiting it one more time over everything in an unstoppable
flow. I resorted to filling a water bottle with clean water and washing
down the mess, leaving a puddle on my garage floor.
Once again, most — not all by any means, but most — of the effing hassle of
sealant in tubes comes from the valves (Presta). No matter what you do, OS
gums them up, which makes adding air hard to do; then when you replace the
core, the film hardened across the tube-to-valve stem interface still
resists easy air entry; and when you puncture this film — not at all always
easy — the valve spitefully spits sealant back at you, the spokes, rim,
tire, frame, and floor.
The only things worse than using modern sealants are: riding stiff,
sluggish tires, and: fixing 150 punctures per year.
What I’ve learned: OS regular formula works pretty well with TPU tubes, but
not quite as well as with butyl tubes. And, one more thing: I’ve had
sealant problems with RH 559 x 30mm — 48 mm TPU tubes, but not at all with
the 622 X whatever range RH TPU tubes I use on the Roadeo under 32 mm
Stampede Pass extralights. Odd.
Lastly, the OS *Endurance* in my tubeless Schwalbe 54 mm actual extralight
Thunderburts is generally more benign, except when you get a larger
puncture, when it will spray itself all over bike and rider; and it
inevitably gums up the valves and, lastly, dries and collects as a
weight-adding skin inside the tire casing.
On Thu, May 7, 2026 at 8:46 AM 'Tim' via RBW Owners Bunch <
[email protected]> wrote:
> Although I still have one bike with a tubeless setup, one great thing
> about being back in KC after seven years in the Tucson desert is having my
> other bikes set up without that nonsense. I fought the goatheads there for
> the first 18 months before acquiescing to tubeless, and they made my bike
> life exponentially better down there, they're pretty unnecessary here. As
> far as removing it, my clothes, bike and body all have quite a little bit
> of beausage so I can't help you there :-)
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