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I'm getting interested in tubeless tyres for my gravel bike

I'm curious about the liquid sealant that you put in the tyre.

As I understand, it should stay liquid so that if there is a puncture, the sealant will flow to close the hole.

Does it slosh around in the tyre as you ride it ? do you feel it moving ?

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  • The stuff is ooze. It couldn't "slosh" if it had to. Jun 5, 2018 at 1:08
  • While riding, the centrifugal force will push the sealant outwards and evenly spread it around the tyre circumference ... hence no sloshing should take place.
    – zeFrenchy
    Jun 5, 2018 at 9:13
  • @DanielRHicks From what I can see in many videos, the stuff looks liquid enough, for example youtu.be/9RzASr-cPPs?t=156
    – Max
    Jun 5, 2018 at 14:24

1 Answer 1

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Tubeless sealant has the consistency of roughly soy milk. If you take a tubeless wheel and shake it, you should hear the sealant sloshing around (and if you don't, chances are it's time to add sealant). You need to have liquid sealant to help seal punctures; if its solid and dried out, it won't be mobile.

Will you hear it when riding? No. There are far louder noises in normal riding, particularly wind and tire noise anyway that would prevent you from feeling it.

Will you feel it? No. There's not much sealant in a tire -- on the order of tens of grams; it doesn't have the mass or speed of movement or consistency for you to notice that it does move (it's not like you're putting a bunch of ball bearings in the tire -- its a sticky yet relatively free flowing liquid).

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    If I do the math correctly, the tire on a 28'' wheel going at 21.6 km/h is experiences a constant acceleration of roughly 10g due to its rotation. Any sealant in the tube will quickly spread across the entire length of the tube, and stay there as long as you are riding. No sloshing once it's spread, there are simply no other forces to match those 10g. Jun 6, 2018 at 22:24

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