I was about to leave a comment, but I thought it would be better to write out the content more specifically, so I'm writing again.
To be precise, it's not so much an inconvenience with tubeless tires themselves, but rather an inconvenience with sealant management. These days, there are virtually no new UST tubeless setups that come without sealant, so using the term "tubeless" may have been somewhat controversial.
First, let me talk about the difficulties with sealant management.
Since I've only tried some of the sealants available on the market, I don't fully know the characteristics of each sealant. Generally, when injecting sealant, the instructions say to refill after about 3 months.
In other words, after about 3 months, the sealant dries up or stops functioning.
In my case, I've tried Effeto Mariposa and Muc-Off sealant and Panther, and with Effeto Mariposa, it was really good at sealing micro pores during initial setup. However, contrary to what the manual says about refilling every 3 months, which I think is unreasonable—it lasts about 2 months at best. Not only is the lifespan short, but the sealant often clumps up inside like dirt and hardens, disrupting wheel balance, so it was hard to give it a good evaluation.
When I inquired with the manufacturer, they said this can happen if you use CO2 or if there's moisture inside. You can avoid using CO2, but pumping in humid weather can introduce more moisture inside, and even without careless handling, after experiencing this a few times, the tradeoff was so clear that I didn't want to use it again.
With Panther, I felt it often didn't seal punctures well. With Muc-Off, I personally think it's a relatively good sealant to use, and here's why.
It has the characteristic of washing off easily with water, seals punctures reasonably well, and has no ammonia, so there's little risk of corroding nipples or valves.
However, as it approaches 3 months, the liquid inside dries up almost completely and stops functioning, and you end up choosing to either refill it or clean out the caked sealant inside and the hardened sealant on the rim and bead, and pour in new sealant. Honestly, when you have to clean or scrape off hardened sealant, it's really disheartening.
If you ask whether performance is reliable during the 3-month maintenance period, the answer is no.
For sealant to function, there needs to be enough sealant inside the tire. Often, after just a month, there's almost no sealant left inside, and it only provides enough function to maintain the seal. Many punctures that can't be sealed by sealant occur because there isn't enough sealant remaining to plug them.
That's why even after adding sealant, I end up carrying some in a small bottle or carrying a spare tube.
I don't deny that tubeless ride quality is good, performance is decent, and it's a technical advancement over tube methods.
However, I believe technological advancement should bring convenience to those using it.
Even though there is technology that can work without sealant, the biggest reason manufacturers stick with tubeless-ready methods where sealant is essential has more to do with manufacturer convenience than user convenience.
With UST tubeless, any air leakage is considered defective, but with tubeless-ready methods, no one calls air leakage defective.
Because they design it with the assumption of using sealant, they can use technical workarounds.
For example, removing the puncture-resistant layer entirely, making the tread itself thinner, reducing the number of casing plies—such workarounds.
With this, they advertise that weight has decreased and rolling resistance improved.
However, when sealant is added, there's no weight savings, so the claim that tubeless-ready is lightweight is often not true.
In the end, it's a supplier-oriented market, not a consumer-oriented one.
This was a long digression, but the performance doesn't match the advertising, maintenance costs and effort increase, sealant spray sometimes makes precious bike shorts unusable, and unlike sealant enthusiasts who can ride worry-free about punctures, I often have to carry either an extra tube or extra sealant. The simplification of gear that should come with carefree riding doesn't happen in reality.
Despite all this, after experiencing the comfortable ride of tubeless, reverting to clinchers isn't an easy choice, but that comfort comes from tubeless itself, not from sealant. So I'm often frustrated with sealant feeling like dead weight.
Our situations are different. In my case, since I handle all maintenance myself, I feel the downsides very acutely.
For people who outsource everything from tire changes to all maintenance, they might find tubeless more convenient since they'll go to the shop for tube punctures anyway and will go to the shop for tire changes anyway. However, from my perspective, increased costs and increased time and effort required for maintenance make this inconvenience weigh very heavily.
I hope you'll understand that this is how I think, and I respect and welcome all opinions and comments.
