Re: tubes vs tubeless? you decide.

Frank Krygowski <frkrygow@sbcglobal.net> wrote:

On 2/16/2025 4:04 PM, AMuzi wrote:

On 2/16/2025 2:23 PM, Frank Krygowski wrote:

It seems that fashion often transforms "better under this very
limited circumstance" to "You gotta have this!!!"
 
Really, most "modern" examples of bicycling fashion are chasing
diminishing performance benefits. Any decent quality bicycle is an
amazingly efficient machine. Aero cables, fancy bottom brackets,
tubeless tires give practically unmeasurable performance benefits.
 
And I suspect a fair number of tubeless setups are bought by people
who never learned to fix a flat.
 
But I'm an admitted retrogrouch.
 

 
For road bikes that probably explains a lot of adopters, but there are
purposes for which tubeless (even in this current primitive state)
solves real problems.

 
Right. Those purposes constitute what I noted as "better under this very
limited circumstance" above.
 
 

Clearly lot more than limited, after all people are making an active choice
to run tubeless and continue to do so.

And inner tubes work with hookless rim and so on, no setup they don’t need
tyres that are compatible with hookless rims but tubeless or tubes is your
choice.

It’s fairly common with MTBers and Gravel riders for number of reasons, but
seems to be becoming more prevalent even with roadies who tend to be being
more conservative plus the advantages are less.

This said it’s more than just lack of punctures but lower potentially
pressures, a more supple ride ie more comfortable and slightly faster how
much this last one is noticed by the average club rider is debatable.

But as tubeless has become less of faff, older tyres and rims could be sods
to get to seal and so on, and was definitely the preserve of the early
adopters.

Come quite a way now.

Roger Merriman