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AASQ #82: Stan’s No Tubes, Peaty’s, Joe’s No Flats and Muc-Off seal up your worries on tubeless sealant

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We know, there’s no such thing as a stupid question. But there are some questions you might not want to ask your local shop or riding buddies. AASQ is our weekly series where we get to the bottom of your questions – serious or otherwise. This one covers tubeless sealant! Hit the link at the bottom of the post to submit your own question.

A tubeless tire setup is now the preferred option for many road and gravel cyclists and mountain bikers too. Initial setup can sometimes be messy, but the benefits are worth the perseverance.

tubeless mountain bike setup means riders can often run lower pressures for improved traction more puncture protection

For MTB at least, a tubeless setup means you may never even notice that small holes have appeared in your tire, as the tubeless sealant (usually) seals them so rapidly. And, it often means you can run lower tire pressures, and benefit from the improved traction that comes with it.

There are hundreds of tubeless sealant options on the market. Which sealant seals the largest holes? Which is the most environmentally friendly? How much do you need to use and how often do you need to top it up? All these questions and more are answered below by the experts at Joe’s No Flats, Peaty’s, Stan’s No Tubes and Muc-Off.

How much tubeless sealant is required for a 29″ x 2.4″ tire?

Stan’s No Tubes: That depends on whether or not the tire has already been set up tubeless or not. A new tire will always absorb a bit of sealant at the initial setup. This is the sealant filling in the imperfections in the casing of the tire.

4oz stans tubeless sealant required for fresh 29x2.4" tire setup

For that reason we recommend more sealant. About 4oz for a new setup, and 2oz for a refresh after the tire has been set up initially.

Peaty’s: The short answer is 120ml for that size tyre.

The long answer is that how much sealant you should use is down to what sort of riding you’re planning on doing and how much puncture protection you want. For example, in some races (with very low/no puncture risk), the Canyon DHB road racing team only paint our sealant onto the rim and tire bead. They don’t run any residual sealant inside the tyre to save on weight. This gives them a tubeless seal but zero puncture protection.

peatys tubeless sealant trail pouch bio glitter

The more sealant you add to float around inside the tire from that point will give you more puncture protection, but add more weight. 120ml is the most we tend to put in any size tire at one time (apart from fat bikes!) which is why we made our handy trail bag, toolbox or glovebox sized TrailPouch 120ml.

Joe’s No Flats: Liquid sealant runs freely inside the tire. When a puncture occurs, a small portion of the sealant is sucked into the hole and seals the puncture permanently. In order to ensure effective sealant protection, the sealant must reach any relevant part of the tire.

Using a smaller amount of sealant reduces weight but leaves you exposed to ineffective protection. The amount of sealant needed for your tire depends on tire size and riding/storage conditions.

joe's no flats recommend ateast 120ml podium sealant for 29" x 2.4" tire

We recommend using at least 125ml for 2.4″ tires. The drawing shows the difference in the tire’s protected area when using 60 ml versus 120ml of sealant per tire during the spin of the wheel.

Muc-Off: For a tire of this gnar-level we recommend using 140ml of our No Puncture Hassle Sealant but you can always add up to 30ml extra for #fullsend protection!

How often do I need to top-up or replace my tire sealant?

Stan’s No Tubes: That really depends on a number of different factors like climate, how the bike is stored, how often the bike is ridden, and how many sharp things are out in the trail trying to ruin your day.

Our bottle recommends a refresh interval of 2-7 months. We rely heavily on local bike shops to be the experts here for customers and recommend a refresh interval based on the climate and conditions in their local areas.

Basically, if you live somewhere hot and dry, you will be more towards the short end of the spectrum, cooler climates can wait a bit longer between refreshes.

Peaty’s: As a general rule, we say you should replace your sealant after six months in temperate climates, but in reality, we’ve had sealant last a lot longer than that. The best bet is to pop the bead off the tire every few weeks and check the sealant is still liquid and ensure you’ve still got a good amount of residual sealant pooled in the bottom of the tire.

peatys tubeless sealant mtb tire clogged hole puncture sealed bioglitter

If you’ve lost some sealant from a puncture, or over several months of evaporation, you can simply top up with some more fresh sealant and you’re good to go.

Joe’s No Flats: To maintain the correct amount of sealant in your tires, add a third of the original amount used for each tire periodically. In a cold climate add sealant every 3-6 months and in a hot climate every 2-4 months. Add sealant after each time you suffer a serious puncture on the trail.

Muc-Off: Check it every six months when using in temperate/mild climates and top up if required. If you live somewhere super scorcio (35°+) it’s best to check the tire every 3-4 months and top up as required.

What’s the best way to clean tubeless sealant off the inside of a mountain bike tire?

Stan’s No Tubes: The best way to clean out a tire with wet sealant is to rinse it out with water and wipe it with a dry rag or towel.

stans no tubes race sealant should be washed out of the tire after use

It’s especially important to rinse out the tire if you are using our Race Sealant. It can make the tire a bit “crunchy” if you don’t rinse it before putting it away. For dried sealant, it’s not necessary to clean much of it out, just focus on removing any large deposits and focus your efforts around the bead of the tire.

Just a dry rag or a brush will do the job. You don’t want to remove any small bits stuck to the tire. They may be fixing a casing imperfection or a puncture in the tire.

Peaty’s: Our sealant is water-based so when it’s time to change a tire it will wash out easily with just a hose.

Joe’s No Flats: Our sealants do need to stick to the inside sidewall. Sealants should stay liquid and run freely in the tire. The fact that there is dry sealant inside the sidewalls means there are a lot of solid particles that are important for sealing holes actually stuck on the sidewall.

Muc-Off: Our sealant washes off the inside of your tire easily with water, providing it hasn’t dried up! If it has dried up then you can use our Glue & Sealant Remover to sort it out. Simply spray it on, leave it for a few minutes to work its magic, then wipe off! This product not available in North America (yet!) but is available ROW.

Is it necessary to clean sealant off a tire before patching it?

Stan’s No Tubes: Yes, you should clean the area where you plan to apply the patch. Wipe out any sealant and clean the area with a little isopropyl alcohol. We recommend using patches with vulcanizing glue when repairing a damaged tire. If repairing a tire with DART, no clean up is needed.

Stan's NoTubes DART tubeless tire puncture repair tool

Peaty’s: Yes, it’s best to clean any sealant or any other possible contaminants away from the area around the puncture before patching. Next, lightly sand the surface of the rubber to get the best clean surface possible. The best result with any patch will be onto clean, dry rubber.

Joe’s No Flats: Patching the inner side of the tire is not very common. In most cases, if the tire has a big cut, we would recommend you replace it. Some of the tube repair patches are not made with water-resistant adhesive and will not hold when used with sealant.

Before patching, it is recommended that you clean sealant of the tire; otherwise, the patch will stick to the dry sealant skin on the inner side of the tire and not to the tire itself. Cleaning could be done with soapy water. 

Muc-Off: 100%! Self-adhesive patches or patches that need glue really rely on a clean surface to adhere and work well. If you do need to patch it’s best to clean the area as best you can before application.

You could use the Muc-Off Puncture Plug Repair Kit instead which removes the need to take off the tire and clean the surface = less hassle!

What’s the best way to remove dried sealant from a clogged-up tubeless valve?

Stan’s No Tubes: The best way to remove it is by removing the core, and using either a pick or your fingernail to remove the dried sealant that has dried on the core. This will work most of the time. For cores that are really gummed-up, replacement is the best option. The cores are replaceable, so you can continue to use the same valve.

Peaty’s: Our sealant will not clog a tubeless valve. If for any reason you do find yourself with a blocked valve though, we’ve found the Park Tools “UP-1” pick to be the perfect size to fit the internal diameter of a valve… or use a spare spoke.

Joe’s No Flats: Just use a needle or any other object that can fit inside the hole. Water is not supposed to dissolve/ soften the sealant as the sealant sealing is waterproof.

Muc-Off: Our Glue & Sealant Remover! You can either spray it on and let it do it’s thing then wipe it away with a clean cloth or, if it’s really clogged, you can submerge the valve in a pool of the spray for a few minutes. This will rip through and eliminate any residue.

muc-off glue and sealant remover tubeless

What tubeless repair plugs work best with your tire sealant?

Stan’s No Tubes: This is an easy one. DART is the best choice to use with our sealant. DART is the only plug on the market that reacts with the sealant to form a seal more quickly, rather than just simply passively plugging the hole or cut. Our sealant is compatible with all other tire plugs on the market as well. 

stans dart reacts with stans tubeless sealant to form plug

Peaty’s: Any standard plug/’dog poo’ /’bacon strip’ (whatever you want to call them!) work really well. We tend to carry 1.5mm and 3mm plugs on rides which work for most punctures.

Joe’s No Flats: Any. We cannot recommend anything special. We designed our products to work with most products available in the market.

Muc-Off: Our Muc-Off Puncture Plug Repair Kit is ideal for use with our sealant!

muc-off-puncture-plug-refills-mtb-gravel-road

Is bike tire sealant bad for the environment? Some of them reek of hydrogen peroxide. Surely, that can’t be good for nature.

Stan’s No Tubes: Speaking strictly to the contents of the bottle there is little to no environmental impact. Several of the key ingredients are food grade and found in things like shampoo, toothpaste, cosmetics and pharmaceuticals, and have no known negative environmental effects. We also use natural latex rather than a synthetic variety, which is derived from petroleum products.

Of course, we’re not perfect and the ingredients are delivered by diesel-powered trucks, shipped in plastic bottles, and so on, but our New York facility, where all of our sealant is produced, is solar-powered.

Peaty’s: Our sealant is about as good for the environment as you can get without it not working properly. It’s non-toxic and we use a water-based formula, which uses synthetic latex instead of natural latex compounds as it can be readily suspended in water, unlike natural latex, which requires the use of harsh chemicals like ammonia.

While the term ‘natural latex’ sounds eco-friendly, in reality, this means deforestation and intensive farming practices which we have experienced firsthand in Indonesian Borneo. 

peatys tubeless sealant 120ml trailpouch is refillable

To further reduce the impact of our sealant, we have always encouraged refilling and re-using packaging rather than treating them as single-use plastics. Our 120ml Trail Pouches are refillable from the larger 500ml and 1L bottles. Then, these bottles are refillable from workshop pump tubs.

Joe’s No Flats: We can divide the answer into two environmental aspects. Firstly, by using tire sealant the rider is reducing innertube consumption and is thus using less rubber that would have eventually ended up in landfill.

joes noflats road tubeless sealant for high pressure road bike tires
Joe’s No Flats tubeless tire sealant for road cycling

The second aspect relates to the tire sealant itself. When we develop a new sealant, we choose raw materials that will not harm the user, animals and the environment. Most of our raw materials are biodegradable and won’t cause any harm, after all, we are outdoor riders as well and appreciate the nature spots we ride in.

Muc-Off: The Muc-Off No Puncture Hassle Tubeless Sealant is eco-friendly and non-toxic or hazardous and the liquid ingredients are readily biodegradable. We had a carbon footprint test commissioned by Intertek which shows that it’s carbon positive vs. using inner tubes.

Using our sealant makes tires last longer and removes the waste caused by inner tubes – check out the full report here! Our sealant is also super easy to clean out of the tire after use so you can recycle the tire too. This is often not the case when other sealants have been used and have coated and bedded into the inside of the tire.

What particles/fibers/glitter do you use in your sealant? How long do they take to biodegrade and in what conditions?

Stan’s No Tubes: We don’t use any glitter in our sealant, and we don’t recommend adding it. Most glitter is made out of plastic and is definitely not something you want to be leaving on the road or trail after a puncture.

Our particulate mix is a proprietary trade secret but we can say the vast majority is biodegradable. The remainder is made up of natural and sustainable products but can’t be termed “biodegradable”, sort of like how one might say rocks aren’t biodegradable.

Joe’s No Flats: We have never used “glitter-like” particles for our products, although it is very cheap. For solid particles we are using natural origin materials, recycled materials and by-products.

Joes No Flats Podium Sealant is the fastest tubeless tire sealant in the world
Joe’s No Flats Podium race day tire sealant for mountain biking

Usually, a material is biodegradable if it has been tested in specific conditions (like temperature, moisture, bacteria, time, etc.). Testing biodegradability is not easy since it is a very long test (6 months) and needs to be done in special labs.

Peaty’s: The platelets used in our sealant are ISO 14851 accredited Bio-glitter made from a special form of cellulose from hardwoods, primarily eucalyptus, sourced from responsibly managed and certified plantations operating to PEF™ (www.pefc.org) standards. You can read much more about it, and the ISO accreditation here.

peatys tubeless dealant for mtb tires contain bio glitter biodegradable particles

Just how long it takes to degrade would be no different to a piece of tree bark of the same size. The length of time is highly dependent on the climate – heat/water/oxygen – and how biologically ‘competitive’ that environment is as microorganisms are needed to start the degrading process. In natural conditions, you could expect the glitter to degrade in around 4 weeks.

Muc-Off: Our Tubeless sealant doesn’t contain any glitter-like particles. Instead we use recycled tire particles in the liquid to aid with sealing but this is not classed as biodegradable.

Muc-Off tubeless tire sealant contains recycles tire particles

We believe that up-cycling used tires extends the lifespan of this material, diverting it from going straight to landfill by making new products from it and increasing environmental value.

What’s the maximum hole size your tubless sealant will seal?

Stan’s No Tubes: Our standard sealant will seal a puncture up to 6mm in size. With more sealing crystals, and larger XL crystals, race sealant will seal 6mm+ cuts quicker, but is not considered a replacement for daily use. For very large cuts that the sealant isn’t able to seal, we recommend using our DART tool to repair the tire.

Stan's NoTubes DART tubeless tire puncture repair tool

Peaty’s: 6mm… The stabber Peaty uses in the attached video is 5mm and these sealed no problem!

Joe’s No Flats: In most cases, any hole up to about 6mm will be totally sealed. Our Podium sealant can show much better performance and in some tires it can seal holes and cuts up to 1cm across.

Muc-Off: Our sealant seals holes of up to 6mm!

Will your tire sealant work if mixed with another brand’s sealant?

Stan’s No Tubes: That is not something we have tested thoroughly. Any time you are mixing different chemicals, things can go wrong quickly. So to stay on the safe side, we always recommend cleaning out your tire before changing to a different brand of sealant.

Peaty’s: Due to the aggressive nature of ammonia in other sealants, and that we simply don’t know exactly what chemicals are used by other sealant brands, we highly recommend washing out your tire of any other sealant and starting fresh.

Joe’s No Flats: Some sealants are similar in composition. It is hard to tell or monitor what other manufacturers are doing. For maximum performance, we totally recommend using one type of sealant in the tire.

Joes No Flats Podium Sealant claims to seal tubeless tire punctures up to 10mm faster than any other sealant

From a user point of view, we make sure that most of our sealants can be mixed together if the rider needs to do so.

Muc-Off: No, we wouldn’t suggest mixing our tubeless sealant with another one. Mixing sealants could result in an unwanted chemical reaction leading to the sealant potentially losing its sealing properties.

Is your tire sealant compatible with tire inserts?

Stan’s No Tubes: Yes, our sealant is compatible with tire inserts. Porous or open-cell inserts may absorb sealant, so you may have to refresh more often, but using tire inserts are fine with our rims, wheels, and sealant.

Peaty’s: Yes, we’ve had World Cup Downhill and EWS riders racing with all sorts of insert combinations over the years with no issues.

Joe’s No Flats: Yes, we tested most inserts, didn’t have any complaints about the others.

rimpact pro tire insers do not absorbe joes no flats tire sealant good combination
We recently used Joe’s No Flats Podium sealant with a Rimpact Pro tire insert, which proved a successful and effective combination

Muc-Off: Yes, it is generally compatible but we’d always recommend checking with the insert manufacturer on their insert/sealant suggestions.

How much Muc-Off tube sealant would you use in a Brompton 16″ inner tube like a Schwalbe AV4?

Muc-Off: There is a handy guide on the side of our inner tube sealant bottles. 50ml of inner tube sealant should be used for wheels up to 18”.

muc-off inner tube guide on bottle amount required tire size

Thank you to Gilad Yarkoni, Bryn Morgan from Peaty’s, Drew Esherick from Stan’s No Tubes and Hollie Weatherstone from Muc-Off for contributing to this week’s “Ask A Stupid Question”.

Got a question of your own? Click here to use the AASQ form to submit questions on any cycling-related topic of your choice, and we’ll get the experts to answer them for you!

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Some guy
Some guy
4 years ago

Just to give a heads up Peatys sealant does not work. Here in arizona we have the unfortunate luxury of having every sharp and pointy thing imaginable try to make it’s way into your tires . The shop I work at is very open minded and we try every brand that comes out to look for that magic sealant that can topple the gold standard (stans). Peatys is by far the worst we have ever used . It could not handle even the smallest of cactus needles/goat heads . I didnt think it was possible to have a sealant that worked worse than slime pro or the finish line sealant but this has.

Greg
Greg
4 years ago
Reply to  Some guy

So many people say Peaty’s doesn’t work. I can’t actually recall hearing anyone saying it DID work! That’s quite the consensus, and quite unfortunate.
Around here, it’s Stan’s and Orange Seal.

Patrick
Patrick
4 years ago
Reply to  Some guy

There’s something worse than Finish Line? Wow.

Admittedly, that’s the only one in the article and your comment I haven’t used though. Everything else (and Orange Seal and Bontrager TLR) just works for me.

Andrew Yount
Andrew Yount
4 years ago

Huge fan of most things Muc-Off… Their sealant? Not so much. It no worky worky

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
4 years ago

How Orange Seal got left out of this conversation I have no idea. They were literally the first to 1up Stan’s by introducing nanoparticles to help clog holes fast. Anyone add glitter (yes, glitter) to Stan’s milky-watery sealant back in the day before they caught on to what Orange Seal was doing?

Tony
Tony
4 years ago

Orange for me. Surprised they weren’t included in this Q&A. ALSO! I didn’t even know about it, I would very much like to know which sealants do not corrode aluminum nipples. Specialized rim strips (horrible) let a lot of sealant leak through to the inside on the rim/nipples, corroding them, then needing a rebuild with brass nipples probably.

Greg
Greg
4 years ago
Reply to  Tony

All sealants corrode nipples. They all have water in them. That alone is enough to corrode, especially with carbon rims.

Tony
Tony
4 years ago
Reply to  Greg

How does the rim material relate to how the nipple corrodes? Irrelevant whether it’s carbon rim or peanut butter rim

K-Pop is dangerous to your health
K-Pop is dangerous to your health
4 years ago
Reply to  Tony

It’s very relevant. Aluminum nipples on carbon rims are at risk of galvanic corrosion. When you add water, or water based substances like sealant, it accelerates the corrosion. For this reason carbon wheels should always be built with brass. Some do, but most don’t to appease the gram counters.

MTB4ME
MTB4ME
4 years ago

Orange and Stan’s never disappoint…Peatys was a total fail performance-wise and so done with the blue glitter frikin everywhere!

Christiano
Christiano
4 years ago

The answers given to your very important environmental question are simply pathetic. Stan’s contains ammonia to balance the Ph mostly. Open any bottle and you can immediately smell it. Ammonia is a highly toxic chemical in ANY amount and doesn’t simply ‘disappear’ at Stan’s claims. As for the rest – No actual hard data – Just nice marketing hype.

Rider
4 years ago

Ammonia is a chemical present in any biological system, even in your own body. While it is strongly toxic in high concentractions, its effects are negligible if you’re talking about a few mililiters leaking into soil (and we’re talking about a solution here, not concentrated stuff).

Also, ammonia is immediately incorporated into other chemicals due to its high reactivity, therefore its effects are short-lived. That is the direct opposite to microplastic particles present in many other agents.

Christiano
Christiano
4 years ago
Reply to  Rider

As you correctly state it’s highly reactive with other elements/materials – Including varieties of alloy rim materials in common use. I recall a major legal case involving a well known racing wheel brand and Stan’s where the claim was that the Ammonia in Stan’s was ‘eating’ into their rims despite the rim tape. If you trawl various cycling forums you’ll see this often referred to. VERY nasty stuff. Your argument seems to be similar to saying that a small oil tanker spill is OK – Tell fish that. Multiply the number of riders foolishly using Stan’s and you’ll see this is NOT a small amount of toxic chemical entering the environment needlessly when there are vastly superior products in the market.

Tiny Tim
Tiny Tim
4 years ago

Same bought a large bottle of Muc-Off and it works well for general tire wear and seating but if you get a puncture of any kind it is pretty much useless. I have doubled the amount of sealant and still leaks.

Rider
4 years ago

Christiano, you so are terribly wrong comparing ammonia to an oil spill. No offence, but one can clearly see you don’t know too much about basic toxicology.

There is NO safe amount of hydrocarbons. Anything more than zero is toxic to biological systems and except extremely rare instances, they are not part of any metabolic process in living organisms.

When it comes to ammonia, however, only high concentrations are toxic, while low are not only not toxic, but actually essential to being alive! Even your own body contains ammonia, which is actually a key ingredient in making amino acids, which in turn are building blocks of proteins.

Compare that to oxygen – 21 per cent that we have in the atmosphere is just fine for us, while 0 would suffocate you and 100 would kill your cells within a short period. The same goes for ammonia – too much is dangerous, but when it leaks into soil as a few stray drops dripping from a tire, it has no measurable effect on anything – maybe except the very, very tiny spot it falls onto.

Christiano
Christiano
4 years ago
Reply to  Rider

Correct – I’m not a toxicologist – I’m a professional composites wheel and components designer so I know marketing B/S when I see it. I’m also not a professional apologist for Stan’s toxic sludge. If breathed in, ammonia irritates the respiratory tract and can cause coughing, wheezing and shortness of breath. Inhalation of ammonia can also cause nose and throat irritation. People can smell the pungent odor of ammonia in air at about 5 parts of ammonia in a million parts of air (ppm). That’s just what it does to us humans who have been extensively studied! Open any bottle of Stan’s and you’ll instantly know what this means. Yes, Ammonia is PART of the natural nitrogen cycle, but that doesn’t mean we should be dumping it into the ground whenever we get a sealant leak or flush it out. Ammonia solutions for industrial use are usually concentrations of 25% or HIGHER and are CORROSIVE. You might like to let the public know exactly how much you actually put in Stan’s that apparently is so insignificant why bother at all? I’m glad you at least acknowledged that you have no clue what it does to the soil “spot” when it does leak. Last and only time a friend of mine used Stan’s he left a wide leaking trail of it for hundred of meters through a pristine forest!

Thrifty American
Thrifty American
2 years ago
Reply to  Christiano

Please don’t drink the Stan’s!

There’s lots of evidence that the ammonia is bad for rims and bad to breathe in, but do you know how many gallons of anhydrous ammonia are sprayed on cornfields as a fertilizer every year? The ammonia spilled from a leaking Stan’s filled tire might actually help the plants grow! Don’t worry about it.

Christiano
Christiano
4 years ago

Just saw this new Vegetalex sealant from Italian Effetto Mariposa in which the reviewer states “Biodegradable, ammonia-free & totally plastic-free, Vegetalex comes in 1000ml bottles for $30 / 25€ and is not damaged by the use of CO2 inflation.” Bravo.
Seems the vast number of responsible, concerned sealant manufactures won’t use ammonia. Wonder why my Rider friend? Time overdue for a Stan’s boycott perhaps? Enough said.

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