Tubeless vs. Staple

25 Sunday Jan 2015

Tags

flat tire, Hetre, hetre EL, Stan's, Toussaint, tubeless, Velo Routier

After about 6 months of riding my Velo Routier on tubeless Hetre ELs, it was time to “change the fluid”. I wasn’t sure how long before the first batch would be dried up and gone. After riding to the beach and back, I noticed a slow leak in the front tire. I brought it back home, got out the Stan’s, and gave it a refill without having to remove the whole tire. I noticed that there was a uniform white residue along the inside of the tire including the sidewalls. There were a few chunks of latex that pooled up around what I took for small holes, and I wiped out the inside of the tire before putting in a fresh couple ounces and refilling the tire. I was able to remount the tire and use my floor pump to pop the bead back into place with little effort.

After a few rides, I started to wonder if I was running on borrowed time with the rear – since that is always the tire that goes flat for me. There had been no noticeable puddle of Stan’s in the front tire when I popped it open. To put my mind at ease, tonight I put the bike up in the stand and popped one side off the rim of the rear wheel. While wiping out the remaining Stan’s (about a teaspoon left – mostly viscous yellow – no sign of the white latex still in the suspension), I noticed the twin prongs of a perfect staple that had pierced the tire mid-tread.

I tried to find it on the outside of the tire to remove it the way it had gone in, but the connecting bar had broken off the tines. I removed them from the inside. I have no idea how long that staple was in there. It could have happened shortly after I started riding these tires tubeless, or it could have happened last week. One thing is certain – I would have had a flat had I been using tubes. As it stands, I didn’t notice the puncture until I went to perform maintenance on the tire.

Pretty cool! I think a few more of my tires will be losing their tubes in the future.

Green in the Front, Blue in the Back

27 Sunday Jan 2013

Posted by Brian Hanson in Cycling

≈ 5 Comments

Tags

a. homer hilsen, bike commute, commuting, cycling, cypres, dureme, flat tire, Gran Bois, Hunqapillar, jack brown, rivendell, schwalbe

I love Rivendell Jack Brown tires. They are a great combo of cush on a 700c wheel and low rolling resistance.

http://www.rivbike.com/product-p/t100-g.htm

Hilsen with Jacks

I have had Jack Brown’s on my A. Homer Hilsen for a few years, with a brief fling using the also sublime Gran Bois Cypres tires. For the past 6 months, I’ve been regularly riding a Hunqapillar with heavier Schwalbe Duremes on my work commute of 10-20 miles, and I have been gradually come to a conclusion. Heavy tires with tough sidewalls are great for avoiding flats, but I don’t like riding on them. They feel really sluggish – like I’m constantly pushing and fighting to keep the bike moving. Not fun to me. Biking should be fun.

Hunqa with Jacks

With that in mind, I swapped out the Duremes for my extra set of Jack Browns and rode in the other day with this configuration. Yes – it made a difference. I also noticed the difference in feel of the bike frame going from the more flexy AHH to the stiffer Hunqapillar. My normal cruising speed on the flats is 15-20 mph depending on the inclines/wind/legs on the AHH. With the heavy Schwalbe Duremes (50mm) on the Hunqa, I was typically struggling to keep it at 13 mph.

Now, I’m not trying to set speed records, but I’ve found that the beauty of “road” bikes is that they typically feel more effortless on the pavement. In my many years commuting with a mountain bike with roadish tires, I know that a lot of it has to do with geometry as well, but tires DO make a big difference. That said, it’s not the diameter, it’s the weight, and the sidewall. Big cushy tires can be AWESOME if they are light and have a supple sidewall.

Blue in Back

Green in Front

Yes, you will get more flats. Only you will be able to decide if the rest of the time riding is worth the few flats. I’m not in goathead country, so the biggest problem is road trash (glass, radial wires, nails). This will result in a flat every few months. I can live with this. To avoid it as much as possible, I use the Jack Brown Blue (kevlar belt) as my rear tire, and the lighter, suppler Green on the front. This keeps me pretty flat proof, as everyone knows that you always get flats on the tire that is hardest and messiest to change (rear).

Now I just need to move those fenders in a bit…