Tubeless tyres: good for offroading?

[COUGAR]

How suitable are tubeless tyres when taken off road? They are certainly easier to fix after a puncture. But do they handle better than a normal tube based tyre?

I am running the stock 205 on the new gypsy. Do you recommend upgrading to a tubeless in the same size or perhaps a 215? I saw a Bridgestone 215 (Dueller??) which i quite liked! Has anyne here fitted the 215 to their gypsy? Hows the handling with those?

[tsk1979]

Tube/tubeless does not have anything to do with offroading. You get Offroad tires in both tube type and tubeless versions. As for using normal tires in off road conditions, the only problem is that if a sharp rock cuts your sidewall you are without a tire, but with a tube type, you just have a little gash.
I doubt you will find many nails etc., in an off road environment. so from sidewall cut point of view get a dedicated off road tire if you are going tubeless.

[headers]

Hey,

I have used a 215/70 R15 Pirelli Tubeless on my Gypsy King and it does perform well Off the Road..[Ex670C] Arka has witnessed the same during one of our off road meets..

So Tubeless is the way to go!!

[tsk1979]

Our GYPSY had Tubeless tires. Real big goodyear ones. Did quite a lot of off-roading in that, including River bed driving upstream, against the current with water kissing the bumper.
Got one puncture, which would retain as long as we were on road, but as soon as we did such aqua offroading the plug would start leaking.
This was about 5-6 years back, I guess now we have much better tubeless puncture repair kits.

[COUGAR]

tsk1979: That would suck! On a road like Manali-Leh there are atleast 4 river crossings andmany mroe smaller water crossings. If i have had a punctured tyre fixed with a plug, it would start leaking?

[tsk1979]

Its was 5 years back what I am talking about. Don't know about the state of affairs now.
In a tube tire when you fix a puncture on the tube its more or less isolated from the environment, as the glue is sticking the tape to the hole in the tube, so non glue part gets the environment part.
In a patch fix on a tubeless tire, its the other way round.
Don't know about the simple glueless plug though, that could work just fine, as it a plug, but can't be sure.

[COUGAR]

Got a quote for tubeless tyres yesterday. I checked out Bridgestone Duelers HT68 and a Goodyear model 3700 per piece and he is willing to pay 200 bucks for 205R which are currently mounted on my gypsy. The dealer recomended one brand called Harddycock (spelling?).

According to him it is lighter and will give much better mileage.

I am looking for someting with a decent tread and capable of doing a fair bit of offroading without too much of loss of ride quality/milage on-road.

Also what is your thought with regards to 205 vs 215? Do you recomend upsizing? (this is a gypsy!).

Your recomendation?

[tsk1979]

Gypsy has no power steering. So keep that in mind. IF you have good muscles or want to build then go for 215. Remember that in 215 is advantageous over 205 only in looks, if you are looking for offroading, 205s will do as well.
Upsize is good for looks but sucks otherwise(again, personal experience)

[COUGAR]

would a 215 affect pickup and mileage negatively?

[hydrashok]

Originally Posted by COUGAR

... The dealer recomended one brand called Harddycock (spelling?). ...

Did he mean Hankook?

[tsk1979]

Originally Posted by COUGAR

would a 215 affect pickup and mileage negatively?

Slightly, and Its not for mileage reasons I say do not put such big size.
Slight upsizing is okay, anything larger is just for looks and will make it very very difficult. We had around 200 width goodyears on our gypsy and it really really made parking very very hard.
Go for some nice allows and 195 tyres and you should be good.
Since you plan to do some serious offroading, look at functionality first. A dirt covered gypsy has more impact than a gleaming one with the widest tires in market.