Stan's NoTubes Tubeless Tire Sealant: Rider Review

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In the mountain bike world, there are many upgraded possibilities. Your rig only good if you're able to ride, flat tires are always a threat out on the trail. Kyle is a friend of the shop and he shares his thoughts on Stan's NoTubes Tubeless Tire Sealant. Check it out!

Overview

I recently purchased some new tires for the 2020 season and also added some Stan’s NoTubes Tubeless Tire Sealant to my Worldwide Cyclery cart. Stan’s seems to be the most referenced tire sealant as I’ve read on online forums about which options are out there for tubeless tire setups. There are quite a few sealant options for setting up tubeless tires but in my experience, Stan’s has worked the best. I personally have been using Stan’s for several years with only a couple complaints.

First Impressions

One of the things I’ve noticed with Stan’s sealant is that it does dry out over time. I don’t typically notice thorns or small punctures because Stan’s usually seals them up before my tire loses air pressure on the trail. Which is great and what Stan’s does so well! However, I have had a couple of experiences where I’ll get a small puncture and the Stan’s NoTube sealant has dried up and is no longer effective. My complaint isn’t that the sealant dries up but rather that the timing for when it dries up seems inconsistent. Sometimes I can run sealant for a full season, and it does its job without incident. Other times the sealant has dried up inside my tire and I don’t know until I get a puncture that doesn’t seal. Maybe this is due to user error and I should be more proactive about adding fresh sealant to my tires on a regular basis. It’s just a little pet peeve that I can’t seem to get consistent timing or mileage out of my sealant before it starts to dry up.

The other complaint and experience I’ve had with Stan’s sealant are that it tends to seep out of my tire’s sidewalls. As the sealant seeps out, it gets messy as it attracts dirt and dust during rides. It also seems to happen to my tires before the tire is worn and ready to be replaced. So, I either must live with the seepage or replace the tire. The one caveat that I’ll mention on seepage is that I haven’t had this issue over the 2019 season. I’m using the same brand and model of tires, but it hasn’t been an issue this past year. Maybe that’s due to tire manufacturers making changes to the tires to remedy the problem or possibly Stan’s changing the formula slightly to be less corrosive. I’m not sure if anything has changed but I was happy to see that after several years of this issue it wasn’t a problem for me this year!

Final Thoughts

Several of my rides have been saved by Stan’s sealant and I’ll continue to use it now that my complaint with seepage wasn’t an issue for me this past year. I’d recommend Stan’s to other riders, but I am also curious to try other sealants to see if they have the same characteristics of drying out and seeping as Stan’s does. For now, after this year’s positive experience with Stan’s, I’ll continue to put it in my tires!