Comment by akgerber | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akgerber | Hacker News Reader

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One popular bike touring writer is a big fan of belt drives: https://www.cyclingabout.com/belt-drive-best-bicycle-drivetr...

I started a long tour across Europe with my bike set up tubeless and gave up about halfway through. Even in Europe, access to consistent sealant to top up inconsistent, and reseating a tubeless bead with portable tools is difficult when possible. And one still needs to carry tubes in case of tubeless failure, which is generally messy. Tubeless ideally trades less roadside maintenance for more at-home maintenance.

Alternate ways to reduce flat risk while touring include armored touring tires (which can be somewhat slower & less comfortable due to how stiff they are) and/or by adding sealant to one's tubes.

Tires and rims differ substantially but you often don't need to reseat the tire bead if you remove the valve core and inject sealant through the stem. High volume hand pumps and soap can usually seat tires in place of CO2 cartridges. If you do need to insert a tube, the mess from the sealant makes life absolutely miserable, you're totally right.

Topping up, reseating? My experience with tubeless (on a mountain bike) is that I buy a new set of tires, pour some sealant in (Stan's NoTubes), put them on a bike and then ride until there's no tread left. I don't think I've ever had the sealant dry up. And that's with a regular rim meant to be used with tubes, converted to tubeless with an aftermarket kit.

I agree with having to carry a tube or two in case the tire fails catastrophically, but other than that I consider tubeless bulletproof. No experience with touring though.

Wondering what "long tour" means here, because you usually don't need sealant top-up very often - maybe once or twice a year in my experience. You have to pump tubeless tires regularly though (lose pressure more quickly than an inner tube), BUT in exchange you need a severe encounter with something extreme to get a real puncture. I had travelled with finger-sized nails in my tires without even recognizing it...

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