Oliver: Tubeless tires have several big benefits.
Firstly, punctures can self-repair as you
ride along. You can run them at lower pressures,
meaning more comfort and better grip. The
setup can be lighter than that with a conventional
inner tube, and also offer lower rolling resistance
too, meaning that you can travel faster for
the same amount of effort. Maintaining a tubeless
tire setup is different from that of a standard
clincher tire and an inner tube.
First off, you've got sealant inside the tire.
Do you need to replace it? How often do you
need to replace it? How do you replace it?
How do you know if it needs replacing? Plus,
what do you do if you get a big hole in your
tubeless tire and the sealant doesn't seal
it? It can't happen. In this video, we're
going to aim to answer all those questions
and more.
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Whether you've punctured or not, you'll need
to maintain your tubular setup, and you might
not even know if you've punctured if it's
sealed really quickly. This is because tubeless
sealant can and will go off, but the amount
of time it takes for it to go off, it's kind
of, "How long is a piece of string", question
because it depends on loads of factors; humidity,
temperature, where you've ridden, where you've
stored your bike, loads of things.
[music]
The first thing you should do is regularly
inspect your tires for signs of punctures.
Sometimes you'll get a tubeless puncture and
you won't even notice because it will seal
it so effectively and quickly, but you should
be able to see little holes or little cuts
in the tire, or sometimes little traces of
sealant. Also, have a look on your frame of
your bike because if some sealant sprayed
out, it can often leave some residue maybe
on the fork, crown, or if it's on your rear
wheel, just look on the rear brake or around
the bottom bracket and seat tube area.
Sometimes when you get a puncture with a tubeless
tire, sealant goes everywhere. It’s like
that scene at the end of Alien when Bishop
the cyborg gets brutally attacked by the Queen
alien. Sorry, a spoiler alert. Bad if you've
not seen it. Either way, it's hard to tell
how much sealant you've lost from your tire,
so a good thing to do is to top it up.
[music]
To top up your sealant, there are two ways
you can go about it. First, you can undo your
valve core with a valve key and then inject
sealant into the tire system. The other way
is to unseat the tire, fully deflate it, unseat
it from the bead and then place in sealant.
Undoing the valve core is a preferred method
because it's usually less messy and less hassle
than having to reseat the tire on the rim.
After your remove your valve core you'll need
a valve key. They often look like this, a
little plastic gadget that comes with your
tubeless tires when you buy them. If not,
they’re really easy to get hold of at bike
shops and stuff. Also, you can find valve
cores often hidden on multi-tools that you
take out with you in your saddlebag. Usually,
they're craftily featured into the chain breaker
tool on the multi-tool, but you simply take
it like this, and then remove the valve core
by turning anticlockwise.
To remove the valve core, I'd recommend that
you first deflate your tire and then place
the valve at the bottom of the wheel like
this, and then remove the valve core. Don't
have it like this, because then sealant can
dribble out and go all over the place. When
you inject your sealant through the valve,
you've got a couple of options. You can either
use it straight from the sealant bottle, and
most sealant bottles now are actually designed
in such a way with a head that will make it
easier to do this. If you do it with this
method, it's hard to gauge how much is going
in and it can often be a little bit messy.
The best way to do it, and how I would recommend,
is with a syringe and a tube. This way, you
can actually measure the exact amount that
you're injecting in. Ideally, I'd say you
want to use around 60 mils of sealant when
you're using road tires. If you're more performance-oriented,
perhaps you're doing a hill climb or something,
or you're really bothered about weight, then
you can get away with 25 mils of sealant.
A syringe really does come in handy for this
job and it's also useful for other jobs and
things you do with tubeless tires, but more
on that in a little bit. After you've put
your sealant in, simply replace the valve
core. Make sure that you do it up tightly.
Not over tight, you'll strip the threads and
stuff, but make sure it's firmly in because
if it's not what will happen is it will effectively
be like you've got a slow puncture on your
tire, so by overnight, your tires will completely
deflate.
If you do need to reseat your tire on to the
rim, one of the best tools for the job is
to use a special compressor pump such as this
one or a charge canister such as this that
you can then inflate and then it releases
all the air in one big go to just below the
tire into position. After you inflate your
tire with your new sealant, a good thing to
do is to just give it a spin as this helps
distribute the sealant around the whole tire
and just make sure it's all fully sealed as
well.
If you don't have a removable valve core,
you'll need to unseat the tire, deflate it
first, and then pour sealant into the tire
directly. To do this just use a tire lever
to pop the bead of the tire off the rim. You
don't need to go all the way around that.
You can get away with just doing a little
bit like this and you don't have to put the
whole bead on-- the whole way around. Just
enough so that you can get your sealant in
there.
As you can see, this method is a bit messier
than doing it through the valve core, but
I'm just injecting some sealant in now. Because
we've unseated the tire bead from the rim
using this method, it's usually much easier
to use a compressor or a big compressor bottle
like this that you can blow the tire back
on to the rim using a standard pump, but sometimes
you can get away with using a standard pump.
I'm going to use a compressor because I've
got one. I'll just repeat the same thing as
you would before. Give it a spin, check it's
properly seated and there's no air leaking
out. Yes, we're all good.
[music]
Over time your sealant can dry out. Also if
you've replaced your sealant periodically
a couple of times, there's probably a fair
amount of congealed sealant, dried up sealant
and gunk accumulated in the tire, it's a good
idea to completely you remove the tire and
clean this. Just bear in mind that when you
do remove the tire it can be quite messy then
you can get sealant everywhere.
I'd recommend either doing it in a workshop
or outside. Just definitely not in your mom's
living room on a nice new carpet. It wasn't
me mom, honest. Unfortunately, most tubeless
tire sealants are water-soluble, which means
you can just use some water and a damp cloth
or a sponge to remove most of the old sealant
and simply run around the rim and on the inside
of the tire.
This also gives you an opportunity to inspect
a few things so you can inspect the inside
of the tire for any big cuts or things that
you might need to pay attention to. If there's
a hole in your rim tape or it's become worn
in a place, you might need to replace it as
well. While you're doing this, it's also a
great opportunity to remove your tubeless
valves entirely and then just give them a
bit of a service as well.
What can happen is that sealant can actually
get blocked up inside the valve and then stop
it working effectively. What I'd suggest you
do is take them out and then take the valve
cores out and you can give them a good clean
from both ends. A pipe cleaner is a really
good thing to do that with. Once you've cleaned
your tire and your wheel from the old sealant,
which I definitely have, this isn't a completely
new clean wheel and tire. Then the best thing
to do to dry mount it onto the wheel without
the sealant in and then use your compressor
pump to seat the bead and then inflate the
tire rather than putting in sealant first.
You'll know you're a true road cyclist when
you're fit enough that you can ride up all
category mountains yet you get out of breath
and sweat on when you just trying to put a
tire on a rim. Jesus, I bet even Chris Froome
gets out of breath trying to get his tires
on his rims. [laughs] Weighty arms.
[laughs]
What about big cuts in your tire? This is
something we get asked quite a lot here at
GCN. What to do if you have a big hole in
your tubeless tire and the sealant doesn't
seal it? It can often be in the sidewall of
the tire, or if it does seal it, but then
once you pump it back up to pressure, the
clot for sealant just pops out and it deflates
again. This can happen sometimes with tubeless
tires and also it means that you can't just
simply repair it by putting an inner tube
because if the hole is sufficiently big, the
inner tube will simply hemorrhage out from
the inside and then burst itself.
There are some solutions though. If your tire
is old and fairly worn out, then you might
want to just replace it entirely and then
that solves the problems. If you want to continue
using the tire and get some more use out of
it, then you can plug the hole from the inside.
To do this, you can either use an old piece
of tire and fix that in place and it acts
just like a patch on the inside. You can also
buy dedicated products such as tire boots,
or you can use a plug.
These wind in from the outside and then you
tear off-- You twist them off. Then there'll
be a little lump, but as you ride this will
wear down. I actually used one of these in
Iceland when I got a puncture on the Rift
gravel race. "What a nice chap. Gave me a
plug."
One quick tip though. If you are inflating
your tubeless tire with sealant in there at
the side of the road, be cautious when using
CO2 cartridges, because CO2 is very cold when
it comes out and it can freeze the sealant
inside the tire, stopping it from working.
Just be aware of that. I hope you've found
this video on tubeless tires and sealant fulfilling,
and if you have then please give it a like.
If you've got any questions about tubeless
tires and sealant that we haven't answered
in this video, then let us know on social
media using the hashtag #askgcntech and we'll
endeavor to answer them in the future, as
it can be quite a nuanced and technical topic,
especially for people who aren't used to using
it. I've got to now set up everyone else's
tubeless tires. I don't know how I've been
given this job or ended up with it, but, yes,
fortunately, I've got my apron to keep me
clean.
[00:11:44] [END OF AUDIO]
