idk there's some finesse I had to learn when switching to tubeless. They do need a little maintenance and it took a while to get a feel for it and not cause more problems.

If you're only getting 2 flats in five years though yeah stick with tubes. I get 3-4 a year and they're much less of an event with tubeless, so the extra routine work pays off.

That’s interesting. On my mountain bike that (used to) get a lot of constant use, tubeless was much better than my old MTV with tubes. When the tubes get a flat it is a whole process to get it patched, but tubeless both seem to get less flats and seal better with whatever I put in them.

That being said, tubeless tires do require being used fairly regularly, which includes pumping them up (just topping them off) almost every time you go out. Right now I haven’t gone mountain biking in quite a while so I guarantee that my tires are flat

Sometime I would go a year without flats and sometimes I would get like (this was worst ever) 5 in a month.

I have a similar experience with tubeless, maybe half the time I setup a tubeless tire it works for weeks without refills, the other half i have to reinflate one a week. However it’s worth it because the reason I go tubeless is to have very low PSI for comfort, like around 30 PSI, can’t get that with tubes.

I would suggest looking at different tyre brands or models. I have been running tubeless (on road) for about the past 3 years...varying between 30mm and 42mm (gravel bike, but running basically slick tyres).

Different tyres have different wall constructions, and so some can leak a lot of air. I find that after I put on a new tyre, they leak air for the first couple days, but it's greatly benefited by going for a few rides (the extra pressure gets the sealant into all the nooks and crannies of the tyre casing, filling the gaps), and then maybe lose a PSI or two per week (when I run at 50psi).

I change sealant about every 6 months, just because it dries up. Not particularly due to fluid leakage.

Well said. Tubeless is fora shaving off a few grams from the wheels, which translates to a very low (but measurable) energy saving on acceleration.

Not sure if they still make them, but some many years ago I tried out some Slime tubes that had the stuff built into the tube somehow. Not only did it not work to seal punctures, it was impossible to patch.

Not sure about road biking, but at least in the mountain and gravel communities it's almost universal. There are 3 popular sealant brands that I'm aware of: Stans, Orange Seal, and Slime.

No. I've been riding a road tubeless setup in Seattle and surrounding countryside for half a decade now and the feel has nothing to do with Slime. 55mm x ISO 559 lightweight road tires with Orange Seal. (In the NW we like wide road tires : )

Something like 10k miles later I've had zero incidents where I had to fix something on the road. You do have to more maintenance (e.g. make sure you have adequate sealant in the tires periodically) but for regular year round use especially, it is a worthwhile trade.

There are (small) differences in wheel and tire design to support the sealant based system, and that makes all the difference I guess. Slime tubes are pretty reviled, tubeless is the hot thing. Besides being more reliable it also allows for lower pressures, which is probably the main reason it has become popular. There is very little downside for riders (tubeless is just a bit slower than high end tubes that very few riders use), but for the home mechanic they’re a bit of a pain to work on.

I like the slime inner tubes. They've saved me a few times. Only on lowish pressure tyres though, I can't imagine they work well on a road bike.

People do get annoyed with tubeless to be honest. Its a mixed bag of people who like it because the rolling resistance is 1 watt lower, and people who hate it because its a lot more maintenance keeping up with sealant and hard to patch sometimes compared to just throwing in a new tube (which a lot of tubeless users end up doing when they get a puncture flat anyhow).