Magic, voodoo, witchcraft, other non-miraculous spiritual directions come to mind when I remember that we can use tires without tubes. I remember my first ride on a fullup Stan converted set of mtb tires. I felt shakey, like I was going to lose my balance and fall off somehow. It took a bit of riding before I was relaxed enough to go around a turn, without the fear of the floppy loose fitting bead of those tires falling out of the rim.

I do still beleive that Stan should receive a Nobel prize for letting us get a little deeper in the flat zone of bike riding off road in New Mexico. But, just as WalMart reinvented the mtb after Specialized's original, many inventive riders have come up with the "something better" than the original Stangoo.

Our faovorite CXer at High Desert Bicycles, http://www.highdesertbicycles.com/, couldn't catch me before I got out the door with a small bottle of Caffelatex. Since I had killed another Hutch tubeless something or another on my rear yesterday, I thought I'd give this caffe latte a try. I had a 1/4 inch cut in the center of my tire, I patched it, wiped out the Stangoo, and proceeded to use the new stuff.

Following the Stan rules, since I didn't see any at the caffe latex site, I put some in the tire, mounted the bead, soaped the sidewalls, and pumped. Right away, this stuff started foaming through the bead/sidewall junction. As I watched, I thought I should speed up the process a bit, got out the C02, and got it up to about 40 psi instantly (and supposedly wiped out half the ozone at the same time).

With a Stangooed tire, I usually have to do the rotation shaking 70's version of a Bee Gees movie dance routine to get the Stans to fill in all the edges of the bead/rim seam. The caffe latte sealed instantly. Why?

I think it's because of its main characteristic- it becomes a space filling foam (by some magic, voodoo, etc.), when attempting to inflate. You don't have to shake the bottle, like the Stangoo, but you can shake it without worrying about it exploding like your PBR on a hot day, but its not necessary. So, this foaming action (sounds like a scrubbing bubbles commercial) was a much faster inflation than the Stans. Now, this is just my experience, results may vary, etc. (OK, no more etc's, two is the limit).

I'll be riding the new setup tomorrow, somewhere. I'll keep you informed on the performance. Maybe I'll be faster now, but only on one wheel; this along with the wrong location announcements should increase my odds by 2(?) of doing better in a race.

Try this stuff, it's a choice other than Stans, and it's available at High Desert Bicycles.

http://www.cantitoeroad.com/landing-pages/caffelatex-tire-sealant.php