Video: Tech Tuesday - A Quickfire Run-Through on Setting Up Tubeless

 This is a real problem for the environment. The mega watts or giga watts wasted storing people BS YouTube videos is huge.

 Do whatever, just make sure you don't post it online or the elitists will come for you.

 YUCK

 I hadn’t heard of tannus tube armor before your comment, but it looks like it does very little to prevent the most common tube flats: pinch flats/snake bikes. The foam is only 1-2mm by the bead, and I don’t see that preventing pinch flats unless you run crazy (aka pre-tubeless era) pressure, killing grip and feeling. Anyone try them?

 I went from having tubes to tubeless setup. I still have tubes as my backup, which I did have to use on one of my rides due to a leak around my valve core and the sealant wouldn't seal. I got home and re-sealed it after retaping the second layer and put new sealant in and the valve core area sealed.

I've also tried the Tannus tube armor. Great idea but it's extremely hard to execute! My god, it took over 2 hours for me to get the tire seated onto the rim with that insert with the tube inside! It doesn't weigh that much out of the box, but after putting it in, your whole wheel weighs a lot more! I think if you have an e-bike, weight is not an issue and I'd go with this in addition to pouring some Slime sealant (or some other brand that doesn't dry out over time) inside the tube as added protection. I'd do this for the wheel where the motor resides because you don't want to take off the wheel because of the wire. If it's for a mid-Drive system, I think the Tannus Armor tube insert alone is good enough. For normal trail riding on a regular MTB, no way I'll go with the Tannus Amor with tube.

Tubeless is the way to go for trail riding and I use the Orange Sealant because it's pretty clean. Even if you squirt all over place going through the valve, you can wipe the mess up or wait for the stuff to dry and peel/rub the stuff off. Once it's dry inside the tire, you can rub off the residue or just leave it on. It's just a really thin coating and probably doesn't even add any more weight to the tire.

 You'll wish you stayed tubeless if you try this. I used to work at a shop that installs a lot of Tannus tube armour and I can tell you it is not worth it. Heavier, pretty much no pinch flat protection, and hard to install unless you've done tens of them. A lot of them fit tight enough when new even when trimmed correctly that you have to install the tube with almost no pressure and it sometimes ends up pinching itself as you inflate it. Lots of talc helps some but it's messy as well. It works fine for kids bikes and people who leisure ride and just want to not have flats, but in a performance based scenario such as MTB it's not worth it IMO.

 Have plenty of experience with Tannus Armor and Tubolito with different tire compounds. Here is everything you need to know.

- If you want the most bomproof combo in the sense of never f*cking with tires ever, a DH casing tire with Tannus Armor is the way to go. I run it on my DH bike, and just pretty much stopped caring about running tires into ledges. You definitely cant run as low of a PSI as you can with tubeless because it will still pinch flat, but you have more room compared to pure tubes. Grip is not really any different that I have noticed with the exception of loose dry dust, where tubeless will deform a bit better when leaned over.

- The lightweight tubes with the armor however are somewhat of an issue, as the standard mtb size compresses the armor quite a bit when inflated. While you do have protection aspect (a bit more even since the foam gets more dense), you can't really rideout on a flat flat as the armor gets compressed to about 2mm-3mm thickness. You are supposed to run the standard armor with tubes designed for 1.5-1.95, which are only made in standard rubber. With this setup, you gain a little weight per wheel, but you also gain more compliance and better puncture resistance. Ive tried running mine with tubolito road tubes, but there is definitely not enough sidewall pressure for me to feel comfortable. Ive settled on just just dealing with compressed foam setup to red

- Weight wise, DH tires tubeless vs trail tires with armor and lightweight tubes are about the same. That being said, I tried running a trail casing tire on the dh bike but I did hit a sharp rock hard enough to puncture through the casing and the armor. You gain about 1 lb per wheel with armor+tube, which you can feel compared to a pure tubeless setup, especially if you like to hop around on your bike.

-Tubolito without armor is very good for trail riding where you run 25+ psi. The tires are as responsive as tubeless, but the risk of pinch flat is there, so you have to run higher pressure. Protection wise, modern DH casing tires are pretty good at deflecting sharp things that would puncture the tube. Most people who ride hardpack don't really benefit from lower pressure, so this is an option.

- Tubolito tubes have shitty valves, especially with the black valve extenders. The newer versions went away without the extenders which seem to hold better, but I would recommend replacing the valves with better ones, as well as throwing a little sealant or loctite on the valve threads when you install it. Overall, a well setup tubeless tire will hold pressure longer than these though.

- Repairs can be easier and harder. Small punctures on tubeless you can seal with plugs quite easier and faster than taking out a tube. Larger cuts however are way easier to repair (no tubeless sealant to clean up, easier to reseat the tire, e.t.c) and you can avoid scrapping a tire.

My goto setup is this - dh/enduro bike that is already heavy get tannus armor+dh casing. I don't ride hard enough for the extra weight to matter, and its more important that I get as many laps as possible during the day without taking time out for repairs. Everything else gets tubeless. I highly recommend investing in an air compressor though for tubeless setups, and adding one layer of tape

 @KickFlipABike: Thanks for the details man! This is the feedback I was looking for. I've never had a day ending flat with tubeless DoubleDown and Cushcore. Sounds like I would have to sacrifice adding weight to get the same result with Tannus. At least I have a compressor, so that's one pain I don't have.

 I personally went back to using normal tubes after getting fed up with tubeless. No fancy tubes, just normal tubes in either DH or SuperG casing depending on the bike. I run the same wheel setup (DT EX471's) on all my bikes and the same pressures I ran tubeless.

 I might be ruining your joke, but you realize Henry was professional mechanic for a couple World Cup teams, right?

 @TheR: well he can post away then.lol