Hey, if it's working for you that's all that matters! Don't know how anyone could argue with it.

 

I'll argue it. Slime in tubes sucks, practically worthless ime. I've spent half of my pathetic life in bike shops and after dealing with thousands of tire failures I can say that with 100% certainty.


But hey, it's not my bike. Go for it!

 

I'll argue it. Slime in tubes sucks, practically worthless ime. I've spent half of my pathetic life in bike shops and after dealing with thousands of tire failures I can say that with 100% certainty.


But hey, it's not my bike. Go for it!

This could prove absolutely correct. The worst that could happen is that it sucks, and I take 2 mins to rip out a tube and pour sealant back in. I'm not above trying it though, managing sealant in my environment sucks. Curious though - what does slime have to do with tire failures? I know they have a tubeless sealant that isn't well reviewed, but I'm talking about the old-school been-around-forever tube slime.

 

I gave up on that over a decade ago, I'll never go back.

 

I really don't remember it working worth a damn.

Edit: as I recall, and it's been a while so my memory is foggy.. I went back to just plain tubes when I gave up on slime filled tubes. Before going tubeless.

 

you do you, but you're wrong.

 

Slime may help with thorns but DOES ABSOLUTELY nothing to help pinch flats which often have long straight tears. Avoiding pinch flats is the number one benefit of tubeless since you can lower pressure. Put slime in your commuter? YES. Your kids bike tires? YES. MTB - hell no.

 

The tube fails because you bottom it out on the rim. You still get pinch flats with tubeless, as you pinch the tire on the rim. Both mean you aren't running enough pressure. If you are doing this, you are also banging the rims off rocks.

 

I'll just say, with a goat head/puncture vine thorn sticking through the tire casing and into the tube, every time the tire goes around, that thorn wiggles the tube just enough to let some air out, even if slimed, and eventually you go flat.
Tubeless, on the other hand, can have multiple thorns poking through the casing, and the latex sealant will keep them sealed, and you won't lose any air. Just don't pull them out unttil you get home. Once they're pulled out, sealant will ooze out until it seals itself back up.
So, tubeless = leave thorn in until home. Tube = pull out thorn as soon as detected so tube will seal.
My experience / $.02

 

If it works for you go nuts. I've spent a lot of time riding in the desert and I'd rather have sealant in my tires. Adding sealant occasionally is pretty painless so I don't understand the problem you are trying to solve.

 

I think I just don't like Stans. I have heard Orange Seal is much better in my environment, maybe I should give that a try and see what kind of luck I have. I admit I'm skeptical of using it on my hardtail. Works a treat on the urban bomber but that's a different case for sure.

 

Cool....I'll burn up the rest of the Stans I have and land some Orange Seal.

 

I used to try not to learn from other people's mistakes.

 

I don't have the experience to give an opinion, but I got the orange seal endurance based on it lasting longer out here in the heat. So, naturally, I saw some site test a few days ago where they said the endurance doesn't seem to seal as well as the original. Stan's Race was the winner IIRC. Ive had no issues thus far...but not many miles or time on it.

Has anyone tried slime as the sealant in a tubless setup? I know they made the bike specific SLR stuff for a bit, but it's discontinued.

 

Stan's Race might seal bad punctures better than others, but they say to check it every 2 weeks. That's for the planet at large, so in sun valley that means checking it about every 3 days. Hell no. I'll take my chances with orange seal.

 

Used slime filled tubes about 20 years ago. It never sealed anything and just kept oozing out of the tiniest puncture holes. Since it doesn't coagulate, it'll always ooze.

 

I use Slime in my Jeep so I used it in my tubes.

Granted, last time I was on a bike for any length of time, Slime hadn't been invented yet, so I'm still playing catch up leaning l learning.

 

Yep, I went there and I said it. I don't care who knows it. I live in a place that is hot as balls with then thousand different things that would love to puncture your tire.

Admittedly I haven't gone there with the MTB - though I'm honestly considering it - but that's where I am with my gravel bike and urban bomber. Yeah, there are a few ounces more rotating weight. Or do they, since you can use lighter tire carcasses? Just saying that a $6 bottle of Slime covers one bike and you can use light, thin tubes. It keeps working for a couple of years, you just never have to mess with it.

Meanwhile in a hot environment sealant is busy drying up and going....somewhere, making stanimals and boogers and slimy gray weird smelling messes the end up dripping on the garage floor, and occasionally throwing the balance of the wheel...then you have to keep replacing it every few months. Airing up can prove stupid sometimes too.

Would it be shockingly stupid to try to run the same setup with 2.6s at 18 or 20 psi and smash rocks? I may have to find out. I'm pretty sick of dealing with sealant.

I rode in Tucson throughout the 90s back when people thought that a 700g tire was heavy (WTB Velociraptor 2.1 on a Mavic 217 was the gnarcore option). Odds of getting a flat on any given ride were 1 in 3, maybe 1 in 4, so I (and pretty much everyone I knew) tried anything that promised to help. Slime, Mr. Tuffy liners, latex tubes, etc. Slime made a huge mess in the tire any time I would pinch flat. The best solution I found was to carry two spare tubes on normal rides and three spares on long rides.

I clean out my tires and put in new sealant a couple of times a year living in an area with much lower temps and higher humidity. I suspect that if I still lived in the desert, I'd just resign myself to doing that significantly more often

 

Stan's race. The name says it all, great stuff but not optimal for daily use.

 

I used Slime tubes in my commuter mtb for a couple of years, there were a couple of off road sections in my commute. I remember eventually getting a flat, and finding about 3 big thorns in the tube, - more than once. It did work for commuting, but heavy and messy, I think I could pump it up and it would leak slowly enough that I could make it home and fix the puncture there. In the better bikes I've had good luck with TruckerCo sealant (ebay), I've only flatted out once in the past 10 years of quite a few races, and that was because I didn't add enough sealant prior to the first race of the season ("this should be just enough!, - I don't want it to be too heavy...") - bad idea.

 

I find tubeless to be a pain in the ass, both on my mountain bikes and my dirt bikes ("Tubliss system"). I was going back to tubes on my MTB and was short a tube so ordered a pair of slime tubes from amazon. Those things showed up and good god are they heavy. I am not a weight weenie and tube in my spare tire around my waste is definitely heavier, but the thought of adding that much mass to the wheels just seemed silly. Of course, it is the one product I bought from amazon in 15 years via prime that says "no returns". Gee, I wonder why. Anyone want some 27.5 slime tubes before I chuck these in the trash?

Tom

 

That just seems incredibly wasteful to just throw tubes in the trash just because they are a little heavy

 

Slime in tubes is a no-go for me.

But Stans in tubes works pretty well against goatheads, but the missing link is that you have to use tubes with good latex content. Latex is the most expensive component in inner tubes, so you have to use expensive tubes. If you use cheap tubes with mystery rubber then the Stans doesn't work.

I am an expert in this because I drag a trailer a lot and trailers are goathead magnets because the tires run outside the path all the time. Trailers also have crappy rims that don't go tubeless easily.

When I run Stans in Schwalb tubes, it solves probably 90% of goatheads. When I use Walmart tubes, it's more like 40%. Running stans in Schwalb tubes is good enough that it's delayed me from switching my trailer to tubeless, but I'm still going to switch to proper tubeless this year because real tubeless is basically 100% against goatheads. I finally found some 28h trailer hubs that I can use to install tubless-ready rims.

 

Slime in tubes is a no-go for me.

But Stans in tubes works pretty well against goatheads, but the missing link is that you have to use tubes with good latex content. Latex is the most expensive component in inner tubes, so you have to use expensive tubes. If you use cheap tubes with mystery rubber then the Stans doesn't work.

I am an expert in this because I drag a trailer a lot and trailers are goathead magnets because the tires run outside the path all the time. Trailers also have crappy rims that don't go tubeless easily.

When I run Stans in Schwalb tubes, it solves probably 90% of goatheads. When I use Walmart tubes, it's more like 40%. Running stans in Schwalb tubes is good enough that it's delayed me from switching my trailer to tubeless, but I'm still going to switch to proper tubeless this year because real tubeless is basically 100% against goatheads. I finally found some 28h trailer hubs that I can use to install tubless-ready rims.

You might consider installing tannus liners instead for the trailer, they're light, ride nice and you'll never get a goat head flat with them.

 

I haven't really had a problem with OS Endurance. Does it seal holes that are as big? No. But typically if I've got a big hole, it's gonna need a boot anyway.

 

I thought slime worked better then no slime, but agree it would MOST often end up with a slow leak and not a full seal. Still, it would mean a quick stop to air up instead of stoppling longer and doing a patch on the trail. That way I'd save doing the patch job at home.

The thing I hated about slime though was getting pinch flats/snake bites where all the slime would spill out between the tube n tire. That was a PITA!!! You either had to spend for ever rubbing dirt on it to dry/clean the slime enough to get a couple of patches to hold OR you had to have another tube... I went to ghetto tubeless and actually preferred that over real tubeless for quite a bit. (but all good theses days)

As far as Stans, I might be missing out by never trying anything else? But my .02 is it is tire dependent. Some tires just leak and dry out faster then others IME. I have tires I'm adding sealant to often and some that just get it once a year or so? (I guess it's also the amount of goat heads some tires are being exposed to more then others)

 

I've done the Stans in tubes thing. It was a particularly effective solution during the early days of 29" tubeless wheels and cyclocross race bikes that I couldn't afford tubulars for in the midwest where the goatheads were fierce. It was nowhere near as good as modern tubeless setups for either; I have tubeless road, gravel, cyclocross, enduro and xc setups now that I never worry about besides topping off once a season.

However: I still fill my kids stroller, strider and my commuter tubes full of sealant and call it a day. Works great on that front.

 

I have no doubt that the stans race seals larger holes. It very likely does and that would make sense in a race situation. I also really don't want to have to deal with the shorter lifespan. (Two weeks, per stans, which also makes sense in a race).

 

I have an old cyclo-cross bike with Tufo 33mm tubulars. Orange Seal regular works better than endurance or Stans for me. Any tire with a low volume needs a sealant that seals real quick before all the air is gone. Otherwise you have to get off and keep pumping it up and spinning and shaking it until it seals. Endurance works too slow for those really narrow tires.

I used to exclusively buy Slime Lite mountain bike tubes 15 or 20 years ago. Slime at best slows down the air leak, and at worst just gets slime everywhere. But it was better than nothing back then. At one point about a decade ago I had a bunch of bikes that still had those Slime Lite tubes. I'd gotten a bike that was tubeless with Orange Seal in it from the previous owner and saw the light on how much better it was.

Before I converted everything to tubeless I wanted to know if it was running tubeless that made the big difference or if it was just the sealant. I washed the green slime out of every tube and started filling them with Orange Seal standard. I ran out of that and the local shop only had Stan's, so I filled the rest with Stan's.

Both were much better at sealing than Slime. Tubes that had slow leaks before with Slime in them, suddenly started holding air between rides. When I did get punctures I could hear them seal up while riding and I could finish my rides without having to air up, where Slime a lot of times I'd have to stop and add air if I got a leak.

Of the two, Orange Seal was the clear winner at sealing fast and staying sealed, but it does clog valves unless you are really careful. Stan's does fine at first, but over winter it dries up in lumps in the bottom of tubes and you can't get it out. I don't recommend it in tubes.

Tubeless is still better, and I prefer tubeless. But I've damaged sidewalls that wouldn't seal tubeless that I've put tubes in and run both Orange Seal Standard and Orange Seal Endurance. The best for me is to start with OS standard and then top it off with OS Endurance.

Forget even trying Stan's Race any time you have to inject through the valve. It says right on the bottle not to do it.

"MUST BE POURED DIRECTLY INTO TIRE CANNOT BE INJECTED THROUGH ANY VALVE. NOT COMPATIBLE WITH TUBULARS AND INNER TUBES. WILL PLUG ANY VALVE OR INJECTOR"

On tubeless, I start with Stan's Race, then top off with regular Stan's. The chunky part that seals the big holes stays in the tire, you only need to refresh the gooey part.

 

Forget even trying Stan's Race any time you have to inject through the valve. It says right on the bottle not to do it.

"MUST BE POURED DIRECTLY INTO TIRE CANNOT BE INJECTED THROUGH ANY VALVE. NOT COMPATIBLE WITH TUBULARS AND INNER TUBES. WILL PLUG ANY VALVE OR INJECTOR"

On tubeless, I start with Stan's Race, then top off with regular Stan's. The chunky part that seals the big holes stays in the tire, you only need to refresh the gooey part.

Weird, they sell it in those little bottles that are made to line up with and fill through the valve. One per tire, i keep a new sealed little bottle in my pack. (which mostly stays in my truck these days) And have kept a couple old lil bottles that I refill and use to top off tires through the valve. I have had valves get a little gunky now and then. But nothing so bad to make me hesitate at all to keep topping off through the valves...???

 

No thanks. Slime doesn't seal ****.

 

I use orange seal in my fat bike tubes when they have leaks since the rims are not tubeless and 4” tubes are expensive and I don’t care about weight on my fat bike. Works very well!