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Best tubeless sealant for road and gravel bike tyres

Cyclist
Best tubeless sealant for road and gravel bike tyres

The best tubeless tyre sealants will provide you with confidence that you’ll be protected from many punctures as you ride.

Tubeless tyre tech has taken over in a big way for road bikes, with even the pros converted to its use. Tubeless is pretty much essential for gravel bike tyres, where the risk of flats from loose surfaces, debris and thorns is much greater than on the road.

Run at lower pressures, gravel bike tyres are easier to get to seal than road bike tyres, but some brands have formulated sealant specifically for higher pressure use. A tubeless repair tool can help seal larger flats, but it’s always a good idea to carry a spare inner tube and a mini pump just in case.

As you’d expect, smaller volume bottles of sealant can work out expensive for what you get, although they’re handy to carry with you if you’re on a longer trip and running tubeless, just in case you get a flat and lose a significant volume of sealant.

It’s not just when underway that the best tubeless sealants will help though; they’re essential for fitting a tubeless tyre, getting it to seat and hold air in the first place. It may be worth investing in a workshop-size bottle for home use. Most sealants are available in one-litre sizes, although the five-litre vats that many offer are probably overkill.

Here’s our pick of the best tubeless sealants. With most of our review bikes now running tubeless, we’ve had plenty of opportunity to use the majority of them, although in many cases without a puncture, or at least without one that we noticed.

Best tubeless tyre sealants

DT Swiss

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dt swiss sealant

£14.99 | View offer

  • Pros: Separate high and low pressure formulations
  • Cons: Smallish volume for HP formula

With its range of tubeless-ready wheels, branching out into tubeless sealant is a handy extra for DT Swiss. But rather than one sealant formulation, DT offers two: one for low pressure and one for high pressure. It marks the dividing line at 60psi, so the low pressure sealant is more for gravel bike tyres and the high pressure sealant for road bike use.

DT says the low pressure sealant can fix holes up to 6mm without a plug, while the high pressure sealant will work with holes up to 3mm. It sells the low pressure sealant in 120ml bottles, which it says will handle four 40mm gravel bike tyres; there’s a litre bottle if you want more. The high pressure sealant is sold in a 60ml bottle, enough for a pair of road tyres.

Effetto Mariposa Vegetalex

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effeto mariposa vegetalex sealant

£28 | View offer

  • Pros: Plant-based biodegradable formula
  • Cons: Needs a little more per tyre than Caffelatex

Effetto Mariposa sells a wide range of tubeless tech. Alongside its Caffelatex sealant, it now offers this plastic-free biodegradable sealant. Effetto reckons that it’s also low maintenance. We’ve found that Caffelatex tends to dry out quite quickly, whereas Vegetalex is claimed to stay effective for six months’ use.

Going green, Vegetalex is based on ground olive stones and cellulose fibres, all held in a xanthan gum binder. Effetto says that it’s easy to clean, an advantage over latex-based formulations, and can handle cuts up to 5mm. It recommends around 42ml per tyre for a 28mm tyre, a little more than for Caffelatex.

Hutchinson Protect’Air Max

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£8 | View offer

  • Pros: Good value, Available in larger volumes
  • Cons: Latex-based formulation

Hutchinson was one of the first tyre companies to offer tubeless bicycle tyres, long before they went mainstream on road bikes, so it knows about tubeless tech. Protect’Air Max is a latex-based formulation that Hutchinson says will fill holes up to 3mm.

Although the 120ml size will only treat a couple of tyres, Protect’Air Max is also available in one or five litre bottles, the latter useful if you’re running a workshop. It’s good value too.

Joe’s No Flats Super Sealant

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£6 | View offer

  • Pros: Good range of volumes, including carry-with sizes
  • Cons: Prone to clog valve cores

Joe’s No Flats offers a range of sealant formulations, with the Super Sealant claimed to act fast and fix holes up to 6mm wide. It’s another sealant where you can choose between a range of volumes, from a 60ml bottle for one or two tyres, right up to one litre.

Joe’s claims wide temperature stability from -20°C up to 70°C and that Super Sealant will work for tyre pressures from 15psi up to 100psi. It also sells gel-based sealants, eco sealant and specific formulations for racers and road and MTB use.

Muc-Off No Puncture Hassle

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£10 | View offer

  • Pros: Long-lasting, UV active
  • Cons: Expensive

Muc-Off’s sealant formulation, as with many others, has a claimed capability to fix holes up to 6mm. Muc-Off says that it should last up to six months between top-ups. As with Muc-Off’s lubes, there’s a purple UV-active dye included, which you can shine a UV torch on to help identify punctures.

It comes in handy 140ml pouches with a top that screws onto a valve, for easy administration. These are pricey, although you may get up to four tyres treated per pouch. The larger one litre size is better value, although still more expensive than most alternatives.

Orange Seal

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£10 | View offer

  • Pros: Three formulations for different uses
  • Cons: Seal may not hold air at higher pressures until fully set

No prizes for guessing Orange Seal’s signature colour. The brand sells a regular formulation, Endurance sealant, designed to stay liquid for longer, and Subzero sealant for temperatures down to -20°. The regular formulation has greater claimed plugging power for larger holes up to 6mm, against the other formulas’ 3mm.

In our experience, the regular sealant will seal holes effectively, although the plug tends to blow out easily if you try to get back up to higher pressures. Leave it to set overnight and it will stay in place and airtight though. The standard bottle comes with a hose to make application easier, although you can buy refills in a wider range of sizes.

Silca Ultimate Tubeless Sealant

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silca ultimate tubeless sealant

£28 | View offer

  • Pros: Carbon fibre content enhances plugging
  • Cons: Can’t add with a syringe or through a valve

Silca adds short carbon fibres to its latex-based sealant formulation to increase its plugging power. The fibres are reclaimed from bikes, wheels, racing cars and aerospace components, which is a handy way to reuse carbon waste. Silca claims their stiffness also leads to more effective plugging, which can handle holes up to 7.5mm.

The downside is that you need to pour the sealant in before fully mounting the tyre, as the fibres will clog a syringe or valve stem. Silca sells a separate fibre-free Replenisher though, which will make up for any drying out and can be added without dismounting the tyre.

Specialized RapidAir

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£10 | View offer

  • Pros: Formulated specifically for road bike tyres
  • Cons: Expensive for small volumes

Specialized says that its RapidAir sealant is specially formulated for higher pressure road bike tyres of 24mm to 30mm width. It claims sealing of holes up to 3mm with little pressure loss and that the plug will stay in place when you pump your tyre back up to full pressure.

Compatible with CO2 inflators, RapidAir is also claimed to work at temperatures from -20°C up to 70°C, with between 40ml and 60ml needed per tyre up to 30mm.

Stan’s No Tubes

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£20 | View offer

  • Pros: Decent value in larger sizes
  • Cons: Not the most effective on larger punctures

Stan’s No Tubes was one of the original tubeless sealant brands and is still well regarded. It claims longevity of up to seven months for its sealant and its larger-sized bottles offer decent value.

Alongside its original sealant, it also sells Raceday Sealant, a formulation with twice as many crystals as the original for greater clogging power. It’s also branched out into tubeless-ready MTB and gravel rims and wheels and the Dart tubeless repair tool.

Vittoria Universal

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£9 | View offer

  • Pros: Will work with Vittoria’s cotton tyres
  • Cons: Smaller sizes are expensive

Vittoria’s sealant is claimed to have the capacity to seal larger holes up to 7mm, thanks to a formulation with suspended particles. With Vittoria’s Corsa road tyres having a cotton casing, the sealant is designed to be compatible with these, with an ammonia-free formula that won’t cause tyre degradation.

There’s a good range of sizes, from 80ml up to 1,000ml, so you can carry a tube along for top-up duties on longer rides and bikepacking adventures, while still having a larger quantity back at the workshop.

WTB TCS

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£15 | View offer

  • Pros: Synthetic latex to avoid allergy problems
  • Cons: Not as effective at very low temperatures as some alternatives

WTB claims sealing at temperatures as low as -9°C for its synthetic latex formulation, which forms part of its offer of rims, tyres and other tubeless components. It says synthetic latex avoids allergy issues which can arise with natural latex.

As with many other sealant formulations, WTB claims effective sealing of holes up to 6mm from its suspended particles, which cure in the hole, rather than requiring evaporation of a solvent for plug formation. The lower antifreeze content allows WTB to increase latex content.

Read our guides to the best tubeless road bike tyres, best gravel bike tyres and best tubeless repair kits to complete your tubeless set-up.

The post Best tubeless sealant for road and gravel bike tyres appeared first on Cyclist.


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