Stan’s NoTubes Sealant

 A brief history of Stan’s
notubes.com is the brainchild of Stan Koziatek, a real tinkerer who created a tubeless MTB wheel system that uses standard rims and tires. The first generation of the notubes system was a real home mechanic special – seal the rim with packing tape and electrical tape, throw in some sealant, and bingo! Tubeless tires! The result was a lighter wheel with a more supple tire (no friction between the tire and the tube) that you could run at lower pressures (no tube to pinch). Since then the notubes system has evolved to include rubber rim strips with integrated valves that make a more solid seal against the tire.

Stan’s sealant is a key component of the notubes system. Unlike other sealants, it isn’t viscous, allowing it to flow inside the tire more freely and find the puncture quickly. It creates a seal with a crystallization process which Stan claims is fast enough to seal most punctures within one wheel revolution. This is critical for MTB racers who run extra low pressure for more traction. If the sealant doesn’t act fast enough, the wheel will be too flat to ride, even if the puncture is repaired.

 And I’m reading about this because…
Few things are more annoying than flatting a tubular, especially one with miles of tread left. Stan says his sealant will fix tubies, so I had to try it on my stash of punctured tubies.

Tire #1 was an old Vittoria. After adding the sealant, I pumped up the tire and swirled the sealant around. I could hear the sealant find the hole and plug it in a split second. Truly amazing. Unfortunately, once I deflated the tire and stretched it over a rim, the seal was broken, and I wasn’t able to make it seal again.

Tires 2 and 3 were also old Vittorias. These had fairly large punctures that made it impossible to get enough air pressure in the tire. Since the sealant requires a high rate of air flow to do it’s job, these tires wouldn’t seal. Hypothetically, if these tires had sealant already in them as a preventative measure, these punctures might have been sealed. Since the tire would’ve had been pressurized, there might’ve been enough air flow to produce a seal.

Tire #4 was a Conti that I’ve been riding. It went flat completely overnight – slow enough to be rideable but fast enough to make me wonder how much lower the pressure was after a long ride. You need to remove the valve core to add the sealant, and since this valve had an extension that left the core in the rim, I had to remove the tire to unscrew the core. The sealant did a perfect job on this tire, even after the stress of remounting. Now it leaks no air whatsoever. I haven’t had to pump up this tire in weeks.

Tire #5 was a Schwalbe from George Suter, still mounted to a Campy Bora (see photos). Luckily it had a valve extension that put the core outside the rim, so sealant could be added without removing the tire. This tire went completely flat from 100 psi in a minute or two. The sealant did it’s job in about a second, with about two or three drops escaping. George raced this tire and the seal held just fine.

Tire #6 was another Schwalbe, this time from Mike Sherry. This one was struck down in the prime of it’s life, slashed in it’s first ever race. It had a 1/8″ cut that was big enough that the tire wouldn’t inflate past 60 psi. I threw it on a wheel and aired it up with a CO2 cartridge. I was hoping that the cartridge would pressurize the tire quickly enough so that the sealant could do it’s job. Unfortunately this hole was too big. The sealant sprayed out in a fine mist until the tire went down to about 80 psi, at which point it held. I re-inflated with a floor pump several times, and each time I broke the seal at 80 psi, and each time the tire re-sealed as the pressure returned to 80 psi.

Time for hate
I guess you could say it’s a bit messy, but the sealant is the consistency of milk and wipes right up. The absolute worst case scenario, I suppose, would be if you repaired a tire and glued it, only to find you can’t seal it again. And weight weenies will object to adding weight at the worst possible place, the very outer perimeter of your wheels.

The sealant was developed for MTB TIRES, which run 35-40 psi. Obviously, it won’t work as well in a thin road TUBE at 120 psi. If the puncture is so large that it leaks faster than a floor pump can pump, I wouldn’t bother. But if it’s so small that you can get 100 psi into the tire, I’d definitely give it a shot.

So where does that leave us?
At about 60 cents to $1.50 cents an ounce (depending on the amount you buy) and $6 for the syringe (optional), you can hardly go wrong. When this stuff works the upside is huge. Not only do you salvage an expensive tire, you also spare yourself the trouble of removing an old tire and gluing a new one. The sealant that’s left behind could even prevent a future flat, and do it so well you never even notice it happening (I didn’t have the heart to drive nails into my tires, so this is pure speculation on my part).