Sealant in Tubes Updated Conversation

[Michael D]

Sealant in tubes probably seals 40% of the punctures that tubeless would seal, but when it doesn’t seal you have a wet unpatchable tube and wet inside of the tire.

[giordana93]

slime used to be pretty corrosive to rims and a yucky mess to deal with so I would avoid that. have you tried the orange seal "endurance" flavor? Not sure the seal would be as robust in a tube as in a tire though.

fwiw I run road tubeless these days; usually in 28, though everything was out of stock back in February when I reverted to 26 in Pirelli. With tubeless in those sizes I never go over 80 psi and usually stick around 70 (more 75ish with the 26s). I get it if you don't have the tubeless wheelset, but things have evolved pretty well in the last few years so that there are some reasonable combos that work well. That's what I would probably run under those conditions. Schwalbe, Continental, Panaracer & Pirelli all make reliable tires (Vittoria probably too, but I don't have 1st hand experience)

[54ny77]

i concur with this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pjvQFtlNQ-M

Originally Posted by Michael D

Sealant in tubes probably seals 40% of the punctures that tubeless would seal, but when it doesn’t seal you have a wet unpatchable tube and wet inside of the tire.

[jpritchet74]

Sealant in latex tubes (or tubulars with latex tubes) works great, BUT, you can't ever let the tires go flat when they are at that "drying out phase" or the tube will get glued together. Depending on your climate and sealant used it is around 2-4 months I think.

I had a tubular that had a leak, so I added some Orange Seal to it and the leak was fixed! Then I was religious about spinning and pumping up the tires every few days. I did that for 3-4 months. That tire still holds air like new.

[fourflys]

Originally Posted by litcrazy

Based on the lack of response, this seems to be a bit of niche use.
I'm going to try Muc-offs tube specific sealant. I'll report back how it compares to Caffe Latex.
My hope is that it won't result in sealant clumps inside the tube and that it will seal goathead punctures without loosing as much pressure.
My concern is that muc-off lists every use _except_ with road tires.

Any further news with this?

I've considered sealant in my tubes..

[catchourbreath]

Fwiw I ordered some for my tubulars this season. I'll report when I have info.

[RobbieTunes]

1. No. That's why I use tubes. So I don't have to carry sealant. 1/2 my bikes are clinchers. I carry a tube. Sealant in a tube is like pants over pants. A patched tube is grateful and will love you forever.

2. Sealant in tubulars, not. I tried it. The valve of the tubular was bad, and the sealant tried to fix that. It didn't. Even when the valve wasn't bad, it tried to seal the valve and resulted in a big ball of glop at the valve. Tire was useful, "no mas." 1/4 of my bikes run tubulars, because people sell the wheels cheap, and tape makes it easy for me. I carry a spare or risk it. I've never had a tubular flat that was not the valve.

3. Sealant in tubeless, I'm ambivalent about the genre. 1/4 of my bikes run tubeless, Mavic's pre-mounted Yksions on Ksyrium Elite and Pro rims. The "kit" tubeless (Bontrager RXL TLR and HED Ardennes) are a different story. Gotta keep them inflated, riding them or not. Some holes seal (close to home) and some don't (10 miles away). So I'm ambivalent.

4. 650B gravel bikes. The tubeless are a ton lighter, which means my gal wants hers to be tubeless, too. Another $100. I've not flatted yet; quite sure I will now that I mentioned it.

5. The hole I didn't know I had: In tearing down a tubeless set to sell as tubed, I found a "growth" of sealant stuck to the inside of a tire. It was a hole I never was aware of, fixed without asking, by my sealant. That's a decent thing for the sealant to do. Thanks, sealant.