Article on Tubeless road tires

[oldpotatoe]

Interesting response from Vittoria about tubular/tubeless. On Velonews.com


"Ciao Lennard,
I’ve read your column about tubular vs. tubeless, and I would like to go through it a bit more in detail, as I’m not convinced about the superiority of the tubeless setup at such high pressure (while I’m of course enthusiastic about tubeless tires at inflation pressures below 45/55psi).

The reason why Vittoria isn’t on board with it, even though we have developed the technology already, is the balance between various factors:

* safety and mounting: a tubeless bead that will hold safely at 120psi will be almost impossible to mount safely (safely means with almost no tire levers); a mountable one won’t keep pressure or keep the bead in place instead (which is the case with products actually available in the market which of course we have tested internally)
* air tightness and riding quality: a casing wall which will keep 120psi has to be so thick that it will make the overall performance drop, first of all rolling resistance (we tested it with an external laboratory), even if the rolling feeling is of being faster. On the other hand, a thin casing won’t hold pressure enough, even with dense latex sealant (we tested it too, making a 120tpi 230g TNT 23mm prototype, amazing riding quality but lost too much pressure even in short time and with a modified sealant inside).

These key compromises are made by no other tire industry (truck, aircraft, automotive, motorbike, industrial) using a tubeless environment; none go above 45/55psi…

On the whole other hand, tubulars are still proving (laboratory tests and feedback from pro riders) to offer unmatched performance (grip, speed, comfort) not only in road racing, but in MTB too, where the tubulars are so damn much faster than any tubeless around that it’s just a matter of letting riders try them to fall in love…
Samuele Bressan
Product Manager & Designer
Vittoria S.p.A.

[dekindy]

My Hutchinson Intensive's lost approximately 10 lbs pressure from the time that I inflated them early Sunday morning prior to a 50-mile ride until Tuesday evening when I checked prior to a ride. Front has sealant and rear does not and there was no difference in air pressure loss.

Who inflates road tubeless to 120? I inflate the front to approximately 90-95 and the rear to 95-100. I have every confidence that the bead holds better than a regular clincher.

If Vittoria can't compete with road tubeless they can stick with their OC design and we will see who wins. I like both but prefer road tubeless.

My only disappointment with road tubeless is that sealant has not prevented flats like I had hoped so I am considering switching from Stan's to CaffeLatex. Plus there will be less installation mess since the CaffeLatex pump will push the sealant through a valve core.

I really like not having to worry about pinch flats or pinching a tube during installation since the majority of my flats used to be pinch flats.

[brians647]

since when is using tire levers considered "unsafe?"

[stephenmarklay]

I did like my road tubeless wheels. I did however have a hit and miss ability to mount them without comprising the bead in such a way that I would lose pressures faster than I had with tubed tires. They were certainly hard to mount.

I was basically pumping the tires up a little of each ride. With my tubed tires I do it like once a week.

My experience is by no means conclusive but it is perhaps similar to others

[dekindy]

since when is using tire levers considered "unsafe?"

Poor choice of words. Vittoria probably means without damaging the bead during installation which has happened in some cases(not sure if these were on tubeless specific rims or were conversions) but is rare to impossible if you are careful. Hutchinson used to list a special tool on their website but I have never been able to find one and do not know if they currently list it on their website. I always use tire tools to remove and only used a tire tool to install once when I had a flat on the road and my hands were slick from sealant.

[Charles M]

Rather than take the vittoria guys words out of context, he doesn't say tubeless doesn't/can't hold air, he says that when you build that structure to hold air properly, you make sacrifices overall to get there. So far, I agree...

Pump tubeless high enough to feel faster and they ride like crap because of casings with garbage suppleness. Leave the air out to get ride quality and the rolling resistance flops...


Nobody has a tubeless yet that has all of the benefits of good tubulars. I would be all over em if there were but they're just not...

And , don't forget that vittoria "can't make it work" is off base.

They have a very good line of tubeless mountain (remember they are also geax) that run in the pressure ranges that are more suited to the tech...

[oldpotatoe]

If Vittoria can't compete with road tubeless they can stick with their OC design and we will see who wins. I like both but prefer road tubeless.

.

'Can't compete', that's funny. 'Wins'? Wins what?

I'll bet Vittoria is a 'wee' bit bigger than Hutch and I think they see the shortcomings of the tubeless tire technology in bicycle tires.

Tubeless has been around for a decade and there is still only one player in the tubeless road tire market. Conti, the other 'big' player, also sees no reason to enter this market.

If ya like 'em, great but I don't think it's any 'answer', IMHO.

[dekindy]

I just did a search on CaffeLatex and realized how extensively that I have discussed road tubeless.

AFAIK road tubeless was introduced in 2007 and many long time industry experts felt that it was an improvement over tubed clinchers and rivaled tubulars. I have seen a few comment that they felt road tubeless was not an improvement or inferior but these comments have been very few and far between. A rider in our group that we respect his equipment opinions very much adopted road tubeless very early and liked it very much and never looked back so that is what got me interested in road tubeless initially.

As far as staying on the rim, I have seen enough clinchers blow off the rim that even if there is a small chance that it is better I wanted it.

I also liked the idea of not having to deal with rim strips and tubes anymore since almost all my flats were pinch flats.

With or without sealant, air loss between rides is the same or less than regular clinchers althought my experience is limited to Shimano 7850-SL wheels which are second generation road tubeless.

I was pleased by the ride and the overwhelmingly positive review of a 30-year bicycle industry writer were also persuasive.

I have never ridden tubulars and maybe I missed the boat but I have never personally proclaimed road tubeless as superior since I have no experience. However I have seen plenty of long time tubular users switch to road tubeless because they were better.

Vittoria's open case design is great and I would not fault anyone that prefers it. In fact, I researched tires and selected the Pave Evo CG for durability and ride quality to use for Winter riding and currently have them on my backup bike even though the green color does not go with my bikes. I hope they decide to make the black version again.

BTW, the mechanics at my LBS say that my Legend with Shimano 7850-SL and Hutchinson Road Tubeless tires is the smoothest riding bike they have ridden.

[dekindy]

Comments from Jim Langley at RoadBikeRider.com

http://www.roadbikerider.com/newsletters/issue-no-487-readers-favorite-mapping-software#newsletter-jims-tech-talk
http://www.roadbikerider.com/newsletters/issue-no-488-eating-drinking-pros
See. No. 6.

http://www.roadbikerider.com/newsletters/issue-no-487-readers-favorite-mapping-software#newsletter-jims-tech-talk
Commentary on sealant