I received a comment on my previous post asking,
「Doesn't Caffélatex dry really quickly?」
something along those lines.
Yeah, I think it does dry fast. And when it hardens,
it turns into these gum-like chunks that are a real pain to deal with.
As a sealant, it does perform well on both fronts—
sealing against air loss and plugging minor punctures—but...
So why do we stock it? Well,
there are cases where we need to top it off in tires
that already have Caffélatex in them.
Currently at our shop, for my own use and when customers request it,
if we have overnight observation time to monitor for air loss,
we use Muc-Off's microfiber-reinforced sealant,
otherwise we use Stan's NoTubes tire sealant.
The thing about tire sealants is
the threshold amount needed to work depends on
the bead precision of the tire (IRC tends to get away with less)
and the internal volume of the tire (road → cyclocross → MTB in order of increasing need),
and to put it in an extreme way, if for a given tire and rim combination
Stan's NoTubes works at 40ml or more,
then at 39ml you get air loss and it's basically useless—
that's the kind of behavior we're dealing with.
If the rim and tire conditions are the same,
a stronger sealant requires less volume,
but Muc-Off's sealant, even with microfibers, is weaker,
and based on experience it's definitely clear that
you need to use significantly more than with Stan's NoTubes.
If Stan's works at 35ml under given conditions,
Muc-Off's microfiber version needs about 50ml.
Even then, sometimes there's air loss the morning after installation,
and I'm left wondering whether to add more sealant or just pump it up again and observe.
Usually the latter works out.
This problem happens because I'm aiming for the threshold as tightly as possible
to keep wheel weight down even slightly.
Someone will probably say, if you care that much about weight,
just use Stan's Race Sealant and pursue the threshold rigorously,
but the clumps that form inside the tire are fine since we'll discard the tire anyway,
but cleaning the clumps that stick to the rim's bead hook completely
(I feel like those clumps create gaps between the tire bead and rim afterward)
the fact that it basically washes away with just simple water rinsing
is the appeal that, over a long timeframe, I can't ignore.
Finish Line also makes a sealant with similar texture to Muc-Off's
(looks like vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips),
with the same characteristics of being slow to dry and washable with water,
but where Muc-Off claims「it's synthetic latex but non-corrosive with no damage to rims」
Finish Line's sealant claims
「does not contain latex」.
Per-volume pricing at 120ml and 240ml is higher than Muc-Off,
at 1000ml it's slightly cheaper than Muc-Off,
but I didn't even try it because the claimed threshold (recommended amount)
was abnormally high.
90ml for road, 120ml for cyclocross and gravel,
and 150ml for 29-inch MTB.
I haven't tested it so I can't say for sure,
but if I cheated 20% on road and used about 70ml,
I suspect we'd get the「might as well not have put any in」phenomenon.
Needing to put in large amounts means
the cost per wheel isn't measured in「cost per volume」but「cost per wheelset」
becomes quite high.
At 1080 yen before tax for 120ml,
with cyclocross you're basically using a whole bottle per wheel.
So that's why I haven't tried Finish Line.
「Doesn't Caffélatex dry really quickly?」
something along those lines.
Yeah, I think it does dry fast. And when it hardens,
it turns into these gum-like chunks that are a real pain to deal with.
As a sealant, it does perform well on both fronts—
sealing against air loss and plugging minor punctures—but...
So why do we stock it? Well,
there are cases where we need to top it off in tires
that already have Caffélatex in them.
Currently at our shop, for my own use and when customers request it,
if we have overnight observation time to monitor for air loss,
we use Muc-Off's microfiber-reinforced sealant,
otherwise we use Stan's NoTubes tire sealant.
The thing about tire sealants is
the threshold amount needed to work depends on
the bead precision of the tire (IRC tends to get away with less)
and the internal volume of the tire (road → cyclocross → MTB in order of increasing need),
and to put it in an extreme way, if for a given tire and rim combination
Stan's NoTubes works at 40ml or more,
then at 39ml you get air loss and it's basically useless—
that's the kind of behavior we're dealing with.
If the rim and tire conditions are the same,
a stronger sealant requires less volume,
but Muc-Off's sealant, even with microfibers, is weaker,
and based on experience it's definitely clear that
you need to use significantly more than with Stan's NoTubes.
If Stan's works at 35ml under given conditions,
Muc-Off's microfiber version needs about 50ml.
Even then, sometimes there's air loss the morning after installation,
and I'm left wondering whether to add more sealant or just pump it up again and observe.
Usually the latter works out.
This problem happens because I'm aiming for the threshold as tightly as possible
to keep wheel weight down even slightly.
Someone will probably say, if you care that much about weight,
just use Stan's Race Sealant and pursue the threshold rigorously,
but the clumps that form inside the tire are fine since we'll discard the tire anyway,
but cleaning the clumps that stick to the rim's bead hook completely
(I feel like those clumps create gaps between the tire bead and rim afterward)
the fact that it basically washes away with just simple water rinsing
is the appeal that, over a long timeframe, I can't ignore.
Finish Line also makes a sealant with similar texture to Muc-Off's
(looks like vanilla ice cream with chocolate chips),
with the same characteristics of being slow to dry and washable with water,
but where Muc-Off claims「it's synthetic latex but non-corrosive with no damage to rims」
Finish Line's sealant claims
「does not contain latex」.
Per-volume pricing at 120ml and 240ml is higher than Muc-Off,
at 1000ml it's slightly cheaper than Muc-Off,
but I didn't even try it because the claimed threshold (recommended amount)
was abnormally high.
90ml for road, 120ml for cyclocross and gravel,
and 150ml for 29-inch MTB.
I haven't tested it so I can't say for sure,
but if I cheated 20% on road and used about 70ml,
I suspect we'd get the「might as well not have put any in」phenomenon.
Needing to put in large amounts means
the cost per wheel isn't measured in「cost per volume」but「cost per wheelset」
becomes quite high.
At 1080 yen before tax for 120ml,
with cyclocross you're basically using a whole bottle per wheel.
So that's why I haven't tried Finish Line.