I’m running some tubeless tyres on a bike I acquired recently, but it seems as though over the course of say 1 to 3 days the pressure will drop to below usable. It’s fast enough such that I’ll pump them up, commute to work in the morning and then be a bit worried about them on the way home. Is this normal? Or could they be failing?
I guess I ask because in a “normal” track environment it probably doesn’t matter too much if you have to pump your tyres regularly.
Both tyres seem to deflate at approximately the same rate.
I had a pair of maxis detonators on clincher rims. They’d go from 120psi to 70psi over the course of 2 days.
I changed to some vittoria rubino pro slicks (same tubes) and they have held up for a week. No pumping required. I can’t explain it.
tubular tires are the ones that are glued to the rim… the tire casing goes all the way around to make a circle. theres a “tube” on the inside too.
tubeless is very new to road bikes, it means no tube but also an “open” casing… it doesnt meet up. instead, the bead is a bit squarer than a normal clincher tire, and it snaps into an equally square rim hook. its then “airtight” and maybe a little lighter than a clincher/tube combo. tubeles also means an airtight rim, so no spoke holes and a sealed valve entry… those things negate the weight loss of the tire to a large extent. but anyway, you’ll prob never have to worry about tubeless tires unless you ride mountain bikes, where they offer a real benefit.
If you have expensive/ high-end tubular tyres (aka ‘singles’ - by all accounts an Australian term), they are likely to have a latex inner tube, rather than a butyl rubber inner tube. Latex is lighter and more flexible that butyl, but it is also porous, so does deflate slowly. The trade-off for a lighter and more compliant tyre is that you have to maintain its air pressure more often!
I’d get some clincher rims and tyres for street riding - if you puncture a tubular, the only option is to change the whole tyre for a new one, which would mean that you’d have to carry a spare tyre in the first place…
To complete the repair properly, you’d have to return to the comfort of your own home, and go through the following process: detach the backing tape at the puncture, undo the casing stitching, pull the tube out of the casing, repair it, put the tube back in the casing, sew-up the casing (which is also why tubulars are sometimes called ‘sew-ups’) and then re-glue the backing tape (which is better done with liquid latex than tubular tyre cement).
…And then you’d have to re-glue the tyre that you changed on the road - which is only staying on the rim due the convex section of the rim, some of the old glue still working (and perhaps a bit of the grace of god working in your favour), and also because you didn’t do any hard cornering on the tyre on the way home so it didn’t roll off… :-o
Tubular-tyred wheelsets are the most tricky, high-maintenance component you could have on a bike! Bonne chance!
Emphasis on ‘old’ there. Repairing tubs is quite the dying practice.
I find it’s always better to actually know how to do something than otherwise.
Whether you practice that or not is up to you, however…
Ignorance is bliss until you actually have to do that something for yourself!
But anyway, who’s the old bloke who’ll do 'em for a tenner - I heard of a guy from up the country who does them and calls into town once a fortnight-ish or so?
The tube in a tubular tyre is sewn into the casing completely. So it’s significantly simpler to repair a tube insitu by opening up and re-sewing a small length of casing, as…
It would be nigh on impossible to un-pick and then re-sew entire inside diameter of a tubular tyre casing by hand and expect to end up with a tyre than rolled true, even after all that effort.
