Buyer's guide to tubeless tyres — find out all about new technology rubber

Want to go tubeless? Here are all your options in tyres.

Tubeless tyres are gradually gaining popularity as more riders become convinced that their improved ride and increased resistance to punctures are worth the cost of new wheels and tyres and the sometimes problematic fitting process. If you’re about to make the switch, here’s a look at your tyre options.

When tubeless tyres for road wheels first appeared you had very few choices. Hutchinson made tyres, Shimano and Stan’s NoTubes made wheels and conversion kits and, er, that was it. Now almost all tyre makers offer tubeless options, and even long-time hold-outs Michelin and Continental are on board.

Read more: How to fit a tubeless tyre
Read more: Road tubeless: everything you need to know — including how to convert

​Tubeless tyre manufacturers

• Bontrager
• Continental
• Challenge
• Donnelly
• Ere Research
• Giant
• Goodyear
• Hutchinson
• IRC
• Kenda
• Maxxis
• Mavic
• Michelin
• Panaracer
• Pirelli
• Rene Herse
• Ritchey
• Schwalbe
• Specialized
• Teravail
• Veloflex
• Vittoria
• WTB
• Zipp

​Bontrager

Bontrager R3

Bontrager offers a range of three tyres badged Tubeless Ready, which means what you need to get them working is sealant and either Bontrager’s special rim strips if you have Bontrager wheels, or other tubeless compatible wheels and valves. In ascending order of raciness, they’re the AW2, R2 and R3. We’ve tested and liked the latter as part of the Bontrager Road TLR Upgrade Kit.

Find a Bontrager dealer

​​Continental

Continental GP5000 Tubeless

Conti was one of the last two major tyre makers to hold out against tubeless, but late in 2018 announced a new tyre, the Grand Prix 5000, to succeed the much-loved Grand Prix 4000S II, and as well as regular clinchers there are tubeless versions too.

And they were worth the wait. The Grand Prix 5000 tubeless tyre takes everything that is improved with this latest generation tyre and adds tubeless compatibility for improved puncture resistance. They're relatively painless to set up and provide excellent performance in all conditions with low rolling resistance, good grip and durability.

​Challenge

Challenge Strada Pro HTLR

Renowned for their fast, supple hand-made road tyres, Challenge has added tubeless tyres to its range. HTLR tyres are handmade, while VTLR are a more conventional vulcanised construction.

​Donnelly

Donnelly X'Plor MSO

Donnelly is the new name for the tyres formerly known as Clement, after Clement brand owner Pirelli decided to return to the tyre sector. Donnelly specialises in cyclocross tyres—all the 33mm tyres in the range are for cyclocross—but has a decent selection of fat rubber for gravel and bad roads too.

Check out importer 2Pure's eBay outlet for Donnelly bargains.

​Ere Research

Ere Research Genus

Ere Research CEO Piet van der Velde has almost three decades in the bike industry, most recently as product director of saddle maker Selle Italia before founding Ere Research in 2017. The company launched with an extensive range of tyres, with tubeless versions of almost all models, and some — the Tempus tyres for time trials — only available in a tubeless format.

​Giant

Giant Gavia SLR 1

The world's biggest bike manufacturer has switched to tubeless tyres and wheels on large swathe of its recent models. Giant has come up with a range that covers a full range of applications from racing to messing about in the dirt.

Giant's high-end component brand, Cadex, also offers two models of tubeless tyres, though the endurance-focused Classics aren't yet available in the UK.

Find a Giant dealer

​​Goodyear

Goodyear Eagle All-season

Goodyear announced a return to bicycle tyres in 2018 with a range that includes what the company describes as 'Tubeless Complete' tyres, which have "tubeless specific bead and casings, allowing for easy installation and superior air retention". With a tyre carcass that's impenetrable to sealant but not airtight, Tubeless Complete is a sort of halfway house between Road Tubeless, which has an air-retaining coat of butyl rubber on the inside of the tyre and Tubeless Ready, which has a standard tyre carcass. Goodyear recommends the use of sealant to make sure the bead properly seals against the rim, and says sealant won't seep through the Tubeless Complete carcass so it will still all be there when you need it to fix a puncture.

In August 2020 Goodyear announced an expansion of the range of road tyres with the Eagle F1 Supersport and Vector 4 Seasons bike tyres. To keep things nice and confusing, the names are shared with Goodyear's car tyre range, so that's what Google finds when you go searching for them. A report has been lodged with the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Bicycle Product Journalists.

​​Hutchinson

Hutchinson Sector 28

Hutchinson launched tubeless tyres for road bikes back in 2006, so it’s no surprise the French tyre maker has a fairly big range. While most tyre makers have gone down the Tubeless Ready route with lightweight tyres that need sealant to keep the air in, Hutchinson also makes tyres to the original Road Tubeless spec, sealed with a coating of rubber inside the tyre.

Hutchinson's flagship tubeless tyre is the Fusion 5, which is available in a number of variants. There are Tubeless Ready versions that need sealant, and Road Tubeless versions that, on paper, don't need sealant, but that everyone uses sealant with anyway just to be safe. Both Road Tubeless and Tubeless Ready versions are available in Galactik, Performance and All Season variants.

Galactik is the lightest version, intended for racing; Performance is the all-rounder with a slightly thicker tread and All Season is more durable, with a thicker tread and grooves to allegedly disperse water in wet conditions. Road Tubeless Fusion 5s come in 23mm and 25mm widths, Tubeless Ready in 25mm, plus 28mm in Performance and All Season.

All Fusion 5s use Hutchinson's ElevenStorm rubber which provides very low rolling resistance and buckets of grip. Tubeless Ready versions have Hutchinson's Hardskin bead-to-bead protection to reduce cuts and punctures. Galactik Road Tubeless tyres have a light reinforcement under the tread, while Performance and All Season Road Tubeless tyres get extra protection in the form of a Kevlar band.

​IRC

IRC Formula Pro Tubeless

IRC makes several tubeless or tubeless ready tyres, but they’re very rare in the UK; we’ve only been able to find one source. That’s a pity as IRC has been pushing road tubeless technology to make tyres lighter and faster. The Pro Tubeless tyres have internal coating based on latex rubber rather than synthetic butyl. That makes for lower rolling resistance, just as a regular clincher tyre is faster with a latex inner tube than a butyl one.

​Kenda

Kenda Kommando X Pro

Kenda's line of tubeless-ready tyres focuses on gravel and cyclocross tyres, with just one road tyre, the Valkyrie. They're designated KSCT, for Kenda Sealant-Compatible Tyre. Some models seem to be quite hard to find in the UK, but we've been broadly impressed by the Kenda gravel tyres we've tested.

Find a Kenda dealer

​Maxxis

Maxxis Re-Fuse

Maxxis is known for mountain bike tyres, but also offers tubeless-ready road tyres in a wide range of sizes and applications, plus a tubeless tyre that doesn't need sealant.

Find a Maxxis dealer

​Mavic

Mavic Yksion Pro UST

Mavic jumped into the road tubeless sector with both boots in summer 2017, announcing a new standard — Road UST — and a big range of wheels. The accompanying tyre offerings are a bit thin at the moment — the Yksion Pro UST in 25mm and 28mm widths — but Mavic clearly anticipates other manufacturers adopting the standard when it's been ratified by the relevant international bodies.

Mavic still offers its all-purpose/gravel tyre in the old Road Tubeless standard, the 30mm Yksion Elite Allroad.

Find a Mavic dealer

​​Michelin

Michelin Power Road

Michelin briefly partnered with Mavic to develop tubeless road tyres back in the mid-2000s, but both companies abandoned the project shortly afterwards. Having decided not to be the first maker of tubeless road tyres, Michelin has come in as the tubeless lanterne rouge, announcing a tubeless version of the new Power Road tyre in October 2019.

​Panaracer

Panaracer Race A Evo 4

Panaracer joined the tubeless fray with the Race A Evo 3 Tubeless, and has just replaced it with the Race A Evo 4 Tubeless. The Japanese tyre maker has developed a brand new bead which it claims allows the tyre to be inflated using just a hand pump and claims this tyre increases puncture resistance by 24% compared to the previous Evo 2 tyre, thanks to a new Protite puncture proof material. The tread compound is also claimed to improve cornering performance.

Find a Panaracer dealer

​​

​​Pirelli

Pirelli Cinturato

After returning to bicycle tyres with the P Zero clincher series, Pirelli has recently added tubeless-ready rubber to the range. Our Stu Kerton was impressed, calling the Cinturato "a very good tyre, especially during these winter months, offering plenty of cold and wet weather grip while also providing loads of puncture proofing. The small cost to the rolling resistance is worth it for the durability too."

Read our review of the Pirelli Cinturato

​Rene Herse

Rene Herse Barlow Pass TC

Previously known as Compass Cycles, Rene Herse grew out of the magazine Bicycle Quarterly, founded in 2002 by Jan Heine, a Seattle-based long-distance cyclist and journalist. Heine contends that wide, supple tyres perform better in every respect than skinny tyres, and perform better than would be expected from rolling resistance tests performed on smooth steel drums. And he's put his money on it with a line of tyres that includes tubeless models.

Read our review of Compass Cycles Barlow Pass tyres

​Ritchey

Ritchey Alpine JB

Ritchey has just one model of tubeless tyre, the 35mm version of the Alpine JB. We liked the non-tubeless 30mm equivalent, so for dirt road riding, the Alpine JB is well worth a look.

Find a Ritchey dealer

Find a Ritchey dealer

​Schwalbe

Schwalbe ProOne

Schwalbe says “The future will be tubeless” in its blurb for the Schwalbe Pro One tyre, which it claims is its best tubeless tyre ever. We tested the slightly less advanced One Tubeless recently and found it rode brilliantly and, unlike many tubeless tyres, it was easy to get on the rim and to then pop into place on the bead seat.

Schwalbe offers a total of seven ‘Tubeless Easy’ tyres, from the Pro One, which is being reliably reported as having a super-low rolling resistance, to the aptly named Big One, a 60mm tyre intended for mountain bike beach racing but which we’ve included in case anyone’s thinking of building up a ‘monster-cross’ bike.

Read our review of the Schwalbe One Tubeless
Read our review of the Schwalbe Pro One Tubeless
Read our review of the Schwalbe S-One Tubeless

Find a Schwalbe dealer

​Specialized

Specialized Roubaix Road Tubeless

Until recently, Specialized has focused on endurance and cyclo-cross riding with its Tubeless Ready tyres, which it spells 2Bliss because — well, who knows. Californians, eh? While the range is still  gravelwards, Specialized offers a couple of standout road tyres in the S-Works Turbo RapidAir 2Bliss Ready and Roubaix Pro 2Bliss Ready.

Find a Specialized dealer

​Teravail

Teravail Rutland

US brand Teravail specialises in off-road tyres, both for traditional flat-bar mountain bikes and for gravel bikes.

​Veloflex

Known for their high-end Italian-made tubulars and 'open tubular' clinchers, Veloflex have recently added a couple of models of tubeless tyres to their range.

​Vittoria

Vittoria Corsa Speed Open TLR

Vittoria makes the big claim that its Corsa Speed graphene technology tyre is the fastest ever independently measured, and the lightest tubeless-ready tyre too. A dirt tyre, the Terreno Zero TNT G2.0 has recently joined the range.

Read our review of the Vittoria Corsa Speed G+ Isotech
Read our review of the Vittoria Terreno Zero TNT G2.0

Find a Vittoria dealer

​​WTB

WTB Horizon

WTB are known for mountain bike tyres so it's no surprise that they specialise in fat 650B rubber for mixed-surface antics or, as they more prosaically call it Road Plus. The range also includes cyclo-cross and road tyres.

Find a WTB dealer

​Zipp

Zipp Tangente Speed RT28

Wheel maker Zipp — part of the SRAM group — offers the Tangente Speed tubeless tyre in two sizes, 25mm and 28mm. We found them easy to install and fast-rolling, but they're expensive. When you can find them at all, that is. There don't seem to be any in stock anywhere at the moment

Zipp recently added a gravel bike tyre to the range, the Tangente Course G40 PR. They're excellent in dry conditions, but also not cheap.

Find a Zipp dealer

Explore the complete archive of reviews of tyres on road.cc