I just went to swap tires saw my sealant in a ball with a consistency of recently chewed bubble gum. The tire has only been on my bike one month and I ride very frequently
I had to put a little air in my tires every few days but I wouldn't have even noticed this unless I swapped tires.
Orange seal with some glitter mixed in
GP5000
by ComfortableEmploy231
8 Comments
A puncture that healed
It’s normal for sealant to dry up over time. That does seem a little fast but standard Orange Seal has an average lifespan of 30-45 days. The endurance and sub-zero varieties will last longer but not seal holes quite as well.
https://preview.redd.it/1nnr2gsk2r2e1.jpeg?width=1286&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c9edf0b445436c8c310b60a63716079f2b5b245e
It clumps like that at the low point. I remove my tires and clean out there old sealant a couple times a year.
Not uncommon. It happens over time. It’s called a “Stans Ball” or a “Stans Monster”.
That’s a tire turd if I’ve ever seen one! Never seen a clump *that* big. How old is the sealant? (Did the bottle sit around a really long time?)
My theory is that you hang the bike with the wheels free to turn so the heaviest part settles to the bottom. There the sealant dries in a thin layer until the next time you hang it with the wheels free to turn. Eventually this mass of dried sealant gains enough weight and breaks free, rolling like a snowball and getting bigger with time as it settles into the pool of sealant when you continue to hang your bike with the wheels free to turn. I had this issue from doing that and figured it out years ago. Never hang your bike with the wheels free to turn to the heaviest point down. I spin the wheels to a random point and store them on the ground.
This happened to me once when I put CO2 in my tire with the valve rotated to the bottom. My guess is that, because of the valve position, the cold CO2 sprayed into a pool of sealant and freeze-dried it into a ball.
Since then, I always rotate the valve towards the top before using CO2. I’ve never seen that happen again.
Because it was sitting still for a while. I try to remember to give all my tubeless tires a spin every so often.