Tubes vs tubeless for bike that will spend most of winter on the trainer

Equipment
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I typically run tubeless but was wondering if it made sense to throw in tubes for the winter on my bike that’ll primarily live on the trainer. I’ll take it out sometimes, but I’m not a fan of temps much below 40F :cold_face: and I’m in New England.

Does it make sense to clean out the sealant and use tubes for the winter? They’ll probably hold air longer than tubeless (pump up every few days now) and the sealant will pool if the tires don’t move much, right?

Maybe I’m overthinking this :thinking:

2

Yes, over thinking it! It never makes sense to clean out a tubeless tire. It’s just busy work for no benefit except for the OCD. Just keep topping up sealant as needed until the tire needs to be replaced. And the bonus is that the more dried sealant you have in there, the more flat resistant the tire will be.

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Please don’t discount the OCD factor :grimacing::thinking::rofl:

You make valid points. Thank you!

4

I replaced a GP5000TL recently that had been on my bike for over a year, had lived through a winter, and had been topped up many times. It had a tiny 10 gram ball of dried sealant in there plus some cobwebs, and a general coating of orange seal. It was practically nothing weight wise - definitely not worth putting any effort at all into cleaning it out.

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5

Just want to add one thing - if your bike lives on a static trainer (not rollers), make sure to rotate the front wheel every once in a while, so the sealant doesn’t just sit in one place. If it’s a direct drive trainer, also shake the back wheel around now and then. Or just go on an occasional ride outside.

And yeah, if you had another tubed wheelset, I’d probably swap, but I wouldn’t go to the effort of cleaning out the tyres and putting tubes in.

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6

I wouldn’t even bother adding sealant. You only need sealant if you get a puncture, which I am hoping you won’t have on a trainer.

Can’t imagine how many miles I have ridden completely dry, not realizing it until I either got a puncture, or pulled the tire and found it dry. Oops.

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7

Here’s a GP5000 + orange seal after a year of many top ups plus a lot of sitting around through last winter:

orangeseal

This one didn’t even have a ball of latex. The previous tire had a ball the diameter of a quarter but it weighed hardly anything.

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