Interesting! Trials tires are meant to be run at 8 to 10 PSI. Run higher and they are crap. Experts tell us a tire with a Mousse insert is around the equivalent of 12 to 14 PSI if using a normal tube. (perfect off road pressure when running a knobbie ... but not great for paved roads).

I've used a Trials tire off road on my WR250F for the last 3 years and can't seem to wear it out. But very little pavement. I run 8 psi and it's better than any knobbie I've ever used. Simply astounding traction everywhere (save mud)

BTW, in the USA ... at many Moto Cross (and other) race events Trials tires are ILLEGAL. Verboten.

No question current Mousse insert products are NOT going to work on a loaded travel bike where you're doing road and dirt.

What I was suggesting was a NEW PRODUCT from Michelin (or whomever) that would be reformulated to work on a heavier dual sport bike in ALL conditions.

I'm guessing they could engineer one with the proper compound if they thought there was a market got such a thing.

Might be worth investing in a Rabaconda mousse changer



A similar thread has been running over at Adventure Bike Rider forum and several of the respondents have experience of using mousses for long distances.

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I use Mousse from time to time for enduro but I will not recommend it for traveling.
If you want it to last you will have to lube it regularly so in the end it will be more hassle then running a tube and fix the occasional flat.

Lubing is not a problem in enduro because the tires only last 10 hours anyway... But personally I don't use mouse unless it's very important not to get a flat. Mousse is a lot of work and it's not possible (or at least not easy) to play around with pressure. It protects the rim a bit better then a tube.
HD/UHD-tubes works pretty good.

Mousse is very expensive.

A trick is to use mousse for larger wheel dimensions, this will increase "pressure" and it lasts longer - but it's even harder to mount.

25 years ago when I was driving trial I used the old tires on various bikes. It was far from perfect, they didn't last long and they didn't like wet conditions (rain/mud) or sand. Last year I tried a Dunlop 908 on my GS and had to limp home after 250kms...
My guess is that Mitas MC-18 is a far better choice and it works very well in mud. I use it for Enduro and will probably give it a try on the BMW, and hopefully it will last a weeks expedition...

BTW (and back to topic):
I have run tubeless 0.5 bar (7.5 PSI) on a heavy bike without problems for rather long distances.
The last years I've increased pressure (to save the rims) and kept higher speed. It works.

For riding on rough terrain you want spoked weels to better distribute the shock across the entire rim (think of it as each spoke pulling the outer rim towards the center like a drum skin - if a load is put on one place of the rim, then it is pulled/absorbed to the rest of the wheel). With a hard static wheel the entire shock is concentrated in one spot, with a much higher probability of a broken wheel, hub, bearings, etc.

With spokes, as mentioned by others, running tubeless is a risky prospect. Even if you can seal the rims to run tubeless you want to be able to adjust spokes or replace them as needed to make the rim straight and round. As mentioned, sealing the spoke holes is a risky prospect as they can fail and lead to a flat tire in an instant. Like I mentioned before, if you want to deflate the tires for riding on soft surfaces you really don't want to deal with tubeless tyres, at best you will destroy the tyres and possibly the rim. And, even if you can use mousse, why would you want to? The mousse would have to be replaced, which kind of defeats the purpose if you want tubeless so you don't have to change innertubes in case of a puncture.

Tubeless is for smooth surface riding on hard alloy rims only, tubed on the other hand can be used for any type of wheel under any condition...

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There are a few hundred thousand GS-owners with tubeless tyres and spokes (x-spoked rims), so I guess it works....


As other have mentioned it's also commonly used in trial, where they run at very low pressure under extreme conditions.

Don't forget all those Landcruisers and jeeps you see littering the worlds dirt roads when their alloy and steel disc wheels don't flex! ;-)


It's just a case of dimensions to make any design work. A bike alloy designed to save the weight of a manufacturers CEO's pay packet and so get it on the front of MCN is not always going to survive off the highway, especially if made of Chinese toffee. The most unreliable wheels I've ever had to deal with were the fully traditional spoked jobs on the Bonneville (more Chinese toffee). Designed to be shiney in a showroom and only go as far as Brighton on bank holidays for sure. The tooling cost of an off-road specific bike alloy would be too much for the market while small makers can continue to knock out their rim and wire product without the initial outlay.


Personally I'd still say most bikes sell on looks, perception/tradition and fashion. BMW went tubeless with spokes to add another talking point to their list of gadgets, the MX competitors don't want to try and talk their customers into something new and most "adventure" bike manufacturers are still using whatever is in the parts bin from their tourers/racers in the expectation most of us don't go that far off road.


Moto Guzzi (the fools) thought they could get me to pay more for PITA spoked/tubed wheels and more shiney stuff.


Andy

We had a bad cut in a tubeless tyre in Malawi. Don't know what caused it but debris on the road is more common in Africa. We fitted a tube but had no means of plugging or patching the gash in the tyre so the tube lasted about 5 miles. Eventually we were left with no alternative but to ride on the flat back the way we'd come. We spent some time trying to source a 17" tyre in Malawi and in the end had to order one from Johannesburg and get it flown in.

I currently have tubeless tyres on the bike but no plans to go far. If I use the bike for another extended trip I will definitely fit tubed tyres. I will also carry some means of patching the inside of the tyre so that in the event of a cut there will be something to protect the new tube. I'd rather have the means to keep going in any event even if it means that I don't have quite the same convenience for repairing small pin holes.

One other point: The tyre that split was a Metzeler Sahara tubeless (T/L), it was a sod to get off the rim and back on and difficult to seat even with a lot of pressure. The tyre that was supplied from SA was a Metzeler Sahara tubed type (TT). They said that they didn't have the T/L type available in SA. This was much easier to get onto the rim and seated perfectly on the first attempt.

Great story ... and good lesson!
I too have noticed TT type tires mount/dismount more easily than TTL type.
Tube tires also run COOLER than tubeless ... and wear LONGER.

One tip for future reference ... in many less developed countries they have tire repair Kiosks. Tires there are terribly expensive and locals have developed all sorts of repair techniques to avoid buying a new tire. The repair techniques used would be totally ILLEGAL in USA or EU.

We had a side wall split in Mexico. Someone CUT the tire! About a 2 inch gash in side wall. No way would a Mexican throw away a tire with a split side wall if tire still had lots of tread on it. They fix it! The Llantero guy didn't even blink. "No hay problema!"

They VULCANIZE on a patch on the inside. Creates a HUGE smoke bomb and they literally melts the tire. They do this all the time ... especially on big truck tires. The patch was thin and smooth so did not interfere with the tube.

Is that tire 100% safe by our "modern western standards"?
Uh, hmmm .... no! (keep your speed down!)

But it will get you going on down the road. The case I witnessed (friends bike) it was a tube type tire ... and we put in a new tube. But honestly, I think the Mexican Llantero guys could have done the same repair on a split tubeless tire ... and it would hold.

It looks like HELL ... but actually works. 100% illegal in the USA. (the smoke is highly toxic!) My friend ran the tire ... at high speed ... for another 1500 miles. NO PROBLEM! The split did not re-appear, tire carcass seemed OK. Amazing. Nothing is thrown away ... although all those old time values are quickly being lost ... RTW.

My experience after using the same type of wheels in both tubed and tubeless configuration is exactly the opposite

I had a factory tubeless spoke rim on a Road King. The rear tire had a sudden failure at full interstate speed which ended up with me in the ditch. The shop couldn't find any evidence of any kind of puncture or other road hazard damage to the tire. It seems to have just rapidly gone flat. The conclusion I drew was that it was a failure of the rubber strips that were supposed to seal the spoke holes.

I love my current tubeless MAGS... but I will never ever never ever never run a tubeless SPOKE rim again. never. Neither homemade or factory.

fwiw. I think there is a lot of truth in the above statement - certainly with regard to the actual frequency of punctures (I agree a tube is more time consuming to repair a simple [sharp penetration] puncture than a tubeless - just as long as the hole is nice and small and round and can be plugged satisfactorily)...

Ultimately, the tube is really only the vessel for holding the air - just as the chamber created by a tubeless tyre sealed against the rim is - so ideally you do not want the tyre to let through an object in the first place - whether that be due to the thickness of the tread [blocks] or ultimately the carcass itself.

Running low pressures with tubes can increase the chance of a pinch-flat (typically if you hit a sharp/square edged rock or similar), but on the whole, I'd suggest that a quality tyre, inflated to a sensible pressure for the weight of the bike, is no more likely to puncture with or without a tube?

Certainly I imagine that the reason BMW riders (for example) are not constantly complaining about punctures is less to do with their tubeless rims and more because they are almost always running a Continental TKC80, which has nice big tread blocks, and relatively few thinner gaps between the tread than a more dirt/MX derived all-terrain treaded tyres?

Jx

There's been lots of comments on this thread as to the benefits of tubes, but no enlightenment re my question on the original post as to why BMW, Triumph, Yamaha and KTM will offer tubeless on some models of bikes and not on others. I can only think it's a 'marketing position' type of decision.

I ended up going with Michelin Bib mousses coupled with Michelin Desert tyres and have been running my first set now for close on 10,000km. I took the mousses out recently to have a look and they are still in good condition.

The rear tyre will need changing soon, might put the old mousse back in.

__________________
"For sheer delight there is nothing like altitude; it gives one the thrill of adventure
and enlarges the world in which you live," Irving Mather (1892-1966)

As a production / project engineer I would say the usual factors are at play. The arty types want showroom pretty so off road and retro styles must have spokes. The money people want to buy fabricated up to the production level where buying a casting tool set makes more money. Occasionally the parts department will get a money making wheeze based on using a weird tyre size and controlling the world's supply. Not many people buy their weekend toy based on service needs, we are a fraction of the market.

My industry is different. Trucks use three or four sizes of rim and two variants of hub connection because service requirements rule.

Andy

looking at whats available,(and pretty much always has been) it seems to me you can only have tubeless tyres and shaft drive on big bikes, why no air cooled singles or twins around 500cc to 650cc with tubeless tyres and shaft drive ?,(i remember when bmw first hinted they were bringing out a baby gs ,my thoughts of a air cooled single with shaft drive and tubeless tyres vanished when the funduro came out ,just more of the same), i believe its because if there was they wouldnt sell the big top range models, my rant over ,steve

My Moto Guzzi V7 Stone has shaft (don't know why you would want it specifically mind) and tubeless. 48 HP and about the size of a CB500, so the fact it's 744cc doesn't really matter IMHO. Air cooled, single point injection, pushrod valves and a 300 mile tank are good too. Thread on them here http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...guzzi-v7-79979 to avoid going too far OT.

Andy