Tubeless tyres and puncture repairs

Tubeless tyres have been very popular for mountain biking for quite some time, and have become increasingly popular for road use over the last decade. Tubeless tyres should offer an alternative to fixing punctures on the road, because a sealant in the tyre should fill and seal any puncture holes before the tyre goes flat. It sounds great in theory, but does it really live up to the hype? Peoples experiences of tubeless tyres for road use seem to be a mixture of tales of success and horror stories in equal measure.

One of the factors that seems to be important in whether people have had any success with tubeless tyres for road use seems to be the size of the tyres that they are using. Users of relatively narrow tyres, perhaps less than about 30 mm, often seem to report problems and in many cases have returned to using inner tubes for reliability. On the other hand, riders who are using fatter tyres, with widths typically 30 mm or more, have often had success.

However good the sealant in the tyre is, there is always a chance that eventually there will be a puncture hole that is just too big for the sealant to seal effectively. There are a whole host of different puncture repair kits available that are supposed to help seal the hole, at least sufficiently so that the sealant can make the tyre air tight again.

Of all the different ones that we have tried we have only every had any kind of success with Dynaplug products. Whilst there are people who report having had success with the miniature pitchfork and rubber sausage type I can only report a lot of faffing and no success with them. The Dynaplug type simply require finding the offending hole in the tyre and stabbing it with a little brass tipped dart. Whilst these probably aren’t intended as a permanent repair we have had tyres with multiple repairs of this type go on for several months more use without any problems.

Dyanaplug make and sell a variety of different devices that are mostly a way to hold the tiny darts whilst you stab them into the tyre, and can usually hold a few spare darts too. Both the tools themselves and the replacement darts are relatively expensive, but for their ease of use and reliability that are arguably good value.

You can buy Dynaplug kits from Leisure Lakes.