Stan's Notubes and Challenge Tubulars

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Permalink Reply by Hamilton on August 4, 2010 at 8:41am

I've been wondering the same thing. I tried Caffelatex this summer on my road bike with terrible results, it needs some sort of fiber or filler material to plug the holes. I was thinking of combining Stans and Caffelatex in the tubies.

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Permalink Reply by Mike on August 4, 2010 at 10:07am

Last October, I got the caffelatex for some challenge grifo tubulars and was all kinds of excited about the cool injector and the marketing about the foaming vs. static action. Then I got a flat while warming up at a big race. In desperation I injected some Stan's into a challenge grifo. It sealed almost right away, and the tire still holds air almost 1 year later. Theprosstuff.com sells a nice injector kit that minimizes the mess and has guidelines for how much to use. I now run stan's in all of my tubies as we have enough goat heads around here to want preventative sealant in tires. All the chemistry & marketing discussion caffelatex provides is impressive, but at the end of the day we want our tires to hold air when punctured and I found their product to fall short of that requirement.

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Permalink Reply by FallDownGoBoom on August 4, 2010 at 11:15am

My experience has been similar but not as negative as the other CaffeLatex posters. I've used stan's religiously over the past 5 years in MTB and a couple years of CX applications. This summer, I used Caffelatex for MTB and it did not seal as well. It did work, but it seemed to need to be left alone to dry up and totally seal a puncture, otherwise it would keep squirting out. When that happened on a dusty trail, it created an effective but strange looking rubber/mud glob on the outside of the tire.

Yes, CaffeLatex works, and it will be the only good sealant you can get into a tube/tubular if you have a non-removable valve core. The CaffeLatex marketing people are quick to point out the potential damage of Stan's ammonia based solutions and aluminum rims, but I have never had any problem whatsoever on any of my bikes or my wife's bikes.

Simply put, if you have a removable valve core, go with Stan's. Stan's seals faster, seals larger cuts better, Stan's wins.

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Permalink Reply by Cameron Marshall on August 4, 2010 at 11:31am

Well, I think that settles it. Stan's it is. Thanks a bunch!

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Permalink Reply by John Mansell on August 5, 2010 at 4:28am

I have used slime with good results.

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