Tires - Tubeless or No?

Laverdalothar said:
correct. A rim designed for tube needs the tube to press the tire against the sidewals of the rim. if the tube deflates, nothing holds the tire on the sidewal, it turns in to the center of the rim and potentially even gets off the rim. Not only talking about you have no controle anymore, you can also not brake anymore as the tire can freely circle around the rim (which is blocked by your brakes...).

Guys, this isn't really worth it! Don't try to be smarter than the designer of these rims. If you want to improve handling, go GSX-R-Rims. Proven to be the best option in terms of value for money.
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I cannot find one instance of the doomsday scenario happening to anyone during 35 years of people doing it; besides, tubes deflate suddenly and I cannot see how a tube is going to hold a tire on the rim in any case, whereas tubeless tires deflate gradually. In my 230K+ miles of riding, I've never experienced a puncture at speed.
 
The things you do eh..... I once ran my Jota 25 miles with a completely flat rear tyre (night time - middle of nowhere - no recovery - no other choice). The tyre didn't come off. It was all at walking speed of course, but all the bits stayed in place. Every tiny bump created a shut-eyed, butt-clenched wince in sympathy for the soft rim alloy, but I got away with it. Fun times.
 
I had a front tyre blow out on my Jota 120 at speed, around 95mph on the M6.
Pirelli Phantom, tube and standard front wheel.
By the time I had pulled up on the hard shoulder (dabbing the back brake only and digging elbows into my knees to reduce the tank slapper) the front tyre was almost off the rim completely.
One side of the bead was off the rim and the other side was just hanging in and no more.
If each side had come off the rim then it would have resulted in a crash.
 
Bloody hell! What causes a puncture/blowout that sudden?? It happens on bicycles and have had a flat on the SF but never a blowout. Scary stuff!  :o :o
 
Even after close inspection of the tyre and tube I never found a definitive answer.
The handling had felt odd for a mile or so before but I thought that was due to the indents in the slow lane caused by HGV trucks.
So I moved into the middle lane and gunned it up to 95 to see if it got better.
And then the tyre went PFFFFT, along with my sphincter,
 
From what I know blow-outs are very rare with tubeless tyres. And from my experience getting almost any tyre off the bead, Laverda included or any rim cast or wire, is really bloody hard and can be the hardest part of tyre changing, there is special equipment just for that purpose that everyone has at the track even if they use tyre levers to get the tyre on and off. I am in the minority with my race bike in that I use tubes in my wire wheels, and going by my recent results it isn?t any hindrance. I had a rear puncture once whilst on the track from a broken spoke but never had a blowout on any motorbike (touchwood!)
 
If your tyre deflates, I can't see how it makes any difference if there's a flaccid tube flopping around inside it or not. It has the potential to come off the rim either way.

If you get a puncture, the tyre (tubeless or not) will usually deflate slowly enough for you to stop before there's any real danger. I've had my share of tyre punctures over the years and none of them caused any arse-clenching moments.

Sudden blow-outs are thankfully quite a rare occurrence. In 52 years of motorcycling (so far) it has happened to me only once. But I was riding on an old tyre (with tube) that was well past its use-by date. It was a front tyre with the old-fashioned rib-type tread pattern. The rubber was perished and had cracks between the ribs in the tread as well as around the sidewalls. One of the cracks suddenly blew apart for about half way around the circumference of the tyre. Seems the cloth reinforcing in the tyre was past its best too. It happened at about 80 kph and somehow I managed to stop without crashing.

Riding on an old perished tyre was a dumb thing to do, but it was 1969, I was an 18 year old student and had no money to spend on tyres. It never occurred to me at the time to do a Burt Munro and fill the cracks with black shoe polish.  :D
 
Never had a tubeless (Including Radials) tire walk off a spooked rim using a tube on my 70 750 SF0 - Not saying it would not be a hazard on a heavier bike.

I did surely miss the rayon belted Pirelli Phantom Radial for our SF's. Never did quit wear them out but they went hard and rotted away when I got married and had kids. 
 
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