Stan's No Tube Preventive Liquid Tyre Sealant

Product Information

It is at the more expensive end of the sealants currently on the market – but its price is by no means an outlier. No other sealant we had on test was able to plug such a large hole and many failed on much smaller diameters. There’s no exact science to this, although Finish Line, again, has recommendations on its bottle, Effetto Mariposa actually goes into the most detail. After we’d finished testing a sealant, we cleaned the tyre thoroughly with water and rags, plugged the existing holes in the tyre with tape, and tested the next sealant on a different section of tyre. Pirelli makes a few versions of sealant, with the P Zero aimed towards road bikes and both Cinturato and Scorpion sealants designed for the larger gravel and mountain bike tyres. The formula itself is not different, but the naming is more about the bottle sizes: the Cinturato is available in a small 125ml quantity and the Scorpion variant is available in three sizes from their 240ml, 1-litre and workshop-sized 5-litre bottle. Most latex-based sealants also contain small particles, such as glitter or small fibres, suspended in the liquid.

There definitely is something about long stranded particles that really boosts sealing performance. Although Silca has made a lot of fuss about its carbon fibres and its research, it appears that the Muc-Off sealant works in much the same way, with very similar-looking fibres visible in the plugged holes. Muc-Off 's pink logo is nearly synonymous with bicycle cleaning and lubes. Many of its products have adopted the pink colourway, and this sealant is one of them. The pink colour is not just for being cool, though, but it highlights any wounds in your tyre and uniquely shows smaller sealant bungs that might have formed unnoticed under a UV light. The best way to think of tubeless sealant is as the lifeblood of your tubeless system. Its primary job is to plug puncture-causing holes by coagulating or, keeping the blood reference, by clotting. The best tubeless sealants form a seal that will ensure the tyre remains airtight.

Orange Seal Endurance 3. Orange Seal Endurance Really effective at sealing small and medium sized punctures It's a good idea to carry a pump or CO2 canister so that you can get some more pressure into your tyres. Sometimes the sealant plug just won't hold at higher pressures, so you might need to ride a soft tyre home. Leave it overnight and it will often have set enough to take full pressure though. They also help form an airtight seal between the wheel rim and tyre when you first mount a new tyre, so that the tyre will hold air and keep its pressure. Pirelli says the sealant works from 15 to 100psi pressures and in a range of temperatures from -20 to +70 degrees Celsius - and we found that it lasts very well without the need for replacement.

The quantity and size of crystals in this special formula means that Stan's Race Sealant can only be installed directly into the tire. As a result of its immense sealing capabilities, Race Sealant is not compatible with injector or other valve installation methods. Race sealant should be inspected every 2-3 weeks for best performance. Be sure to rinse race sealant out of used tires intended to be stored/reinstalled.Further down, we also answer some of the most frequently asked questions about mountain bike and gravel tyre sealants. To test the sealants’ operating temperatures, we put each of them in a freezer set to -18°C and an oven set at 50°C. Not exactly a real-world simulation, but it gave us an idea how the sealants would behave in warmer or colder climates. If you're going to be far from home and calling out the broom wagon isn't an option, carry tyre plugs or a product like Zot! or Stan's Dart to help deal with larger holes. As a last resort, it's worth having an inner tube with you that you can swap in if all else fails, although the sealant will make this a messy business. In the event of a puncture, locate the source and rotate the wheel until it is at the lowest point to enable the sealant to begin the process of plugging the hole. Then rotate the wheel until the puncture is at the top. This will allow the air to get to the sealant and enable the sealant to begin coagulating and plugging the hole. If it still leaks air, repeat the process until it works.

If you have set your tyres up tubeless, don't assume that you'll never have to make a roadside repair. You'll almost certainly avoid those annoying stops for small punctures from thorns and road grit, but performance on larger holes in road bike tyres is still quite hit-and-miss, as this opinion piece tells. Effetto Mariposa's Végétalex Tyre Sealant is quite different to anything else we've used. It's got a gloppy, almost oily, gelatinous consistency to it, which is a result of its plant-based ingredients – it's fully biodegradable and totally plastic-free.Silca's Ultimate sealant launched in early 2022 and came with a raft of innovations and bold claims – notably an ability to seal punctures up to 6mm at 80psi and up to 8mm in lower pressure systems. Impressively, it has gone and lived up to the hype.