Running a tubeless setup is the way to ride these days, but when something goes wrong, it can turn into a 30 minute nightmare on the trailside with your mates ribbing you and offers of “here, just put this tube in before it gets dark” and you snapping back “hang on… I’ll just try pumping it up one more time, keep your wig on”. There are two main issues at play here. The first is that as your tyre spins around, the centrifugal force sends the sealant to the outside (tread area) of your tyre so any cuts in your sidewall miss out on the sealant trying to escape and block said hole. The other thorn in its side (get it?) is that no sealant advertises its ability to repair any holes over 6mm, and in the real world I’ve struggled to seal a 3mm cut.
Caffé Latex has rushed to the rescue and addressed these two issues with some serious innovation. Firstly their sealant is designed to foam when it gets shaken up so is much more likely to get to any holes nearer the bead of your tyre. Secondly, they’ve come up with a product they call Zot, which is a separate bottle of liquid in 10 or 30ml bottles that you carry with you, and if your tyre cut doesn’t instantly seal, you just push the nozzle of the Zot into the hole and squirt a bit in. What it does is react with the Caffé Latex causing it to bind together in a much larger plug and effectively block any hole up to 10mm.
So I’ve been riding with this stuff in my rear tyre, but alas I was obviously riding like a nana as I couldn’t get a puncture if I tried. I put this down to not wanting to smash up my very expensive carbon rims, so today I donned my white lab coat and set up a very high tech and sterile laboratory experiment in the Spoke Workshop (the local Z forecourt by the air compressor).
I set up an old tyre that I’d punctured with a snakebite hit on a rock. It had a large (8mm) slash at the base of a knob and a 2mm hole right next to the bead. When I had this ‘accident’ I actually cracked my rim and it took about ten minutes to get them to seal with Stan’s sealant and I had to use a rubber plug on the 8mm hole as well. Also the bead hole wouldn’t seal until I tipped the bike horizontal to make sure the sealant could get to it.
Back to the lab. Once I had the Caffé in and aired up I quickly did a lap round the fuel pumps. The 8mm hole tried unsuccessfully to block so I quickly dismounted and jammed the Zot nozzle in, gave it a quick squeeze, spun the wheel and BINGO! An instant seal. Then I remembered the bead hole and had a look and yes, the foaming action must have done its job and got the Caffé all around the tyre sidewall and sealed that baby up. Job done. So YES, it works. Another plus is that the sealant has much smaller particles than its competition, so valve cloggage is very unlikely and when it’s time to take that tyre off and clean up the dried latex, it’s a lot easier to do. My one niggle is that the 30ml Zot bottle has a fat plastic nozzle and is a bit of a struggle to get it into the cut, whereas the 10ml bottle has a 1mm hollow steel needle like a football needle, so I think that’s a much better option. In fact I think I’ll jam my football needle in my 30ml bottle now, as I’m pretty sure my footy days are over.
There’s a pro trick of adding talcum powder to sealant to get it to clog quicker, and Caffé Latex have already added a similar product. Be aware though that it also has ethylene glycol added which is used in antifreeze and is mildly toxic so don’t leave it lying around in your coffee mug unless your mother-in-law has left you a decent inheritance and she likes a whopping 500ml latte in the mornings.
before someone gets all uppity and mentions that the old holes were already sealed by the old stans?…Rest assured i am a highly qualfied technical muppet and did indeed remember to scrape all the old plugs and latex out of the holes before i attempted this high quality experiment..
Did you ride it again after it had sealed? Is It a get you home fix or a keep riding and shredding fix?
i havent ridden it yet, but as the latex forms a plug, it should last forever. If it leaks it will instantly seal up again.
So do you rate this better than Stan’s? I actually have a bottle of it, but have been waiting for my Stan’s to finish before I try it.
I think Stans may be a better product for larger cuts near the tread (3-6mm) and have a better seal at tyre bead to rim lock( so would be better for non-yubeless tyres and rim conversions), BUT i reckon Caffe Latex is easier to use, much better on sidewall cuts and easier to clean off tyres and rims when its dry.
Cool, sounds promising.
I had no issues with sealing it worked as it claims to do, but damn gawd is it nasty when you take your tire off. I’m not semi-retired, so I don’t have time to wait for it to dry, so my experiment with it faltered at this step.
i’ll need to get you a sample of ‘beast juice sealant’ for you to test….they have been fully inflated for over three months now, 6 weeks riding thru sharp rocky cactus strewn deserts in the states with many a dodgy line and 2″ cactus spikes doing their worst, deflated to travel back to nz and then simply pumped back up to normal and still going strong….
I can’t wait to use your juice Beast. Sounds like it may have a touch of mescal in it?
For what’s it’s worth, the Effetto is also kinder on alloy nipples, which is another plus. Generally our sealant of choice for CX and roadie applications (sorry Caleb).