SILCA Ultimate Tubeless

I’ve tried pretty much every tubeless sealant out there; Stan’s, Orange Seal, Muc-Off, you name it. But SILCA Ultimate Tubeless Sealant? This stuff is on another level. It’s basically liquid armor for your tires. I ride about 200 miles a week on my Specialized S-Works Venge, and I’ve yet to have a single ride-ending flat since switching to this. You can feel the difference in how fast it seals and how well it holds up over time. It’s thicker than most, which means it actually fills punctures instead of just spraying them all over your downtube like some caffeinated sprinkler system. Just a heads-up, it’s not the friendliest with injectors, but that’s only because it’s loaded with those little carbon fibers that actually make it work. Translation: it clogs cheap injectors because it’s doing its job too well. Do not waste your time or sealant trying to inject it through the valve stem, it just needs to be poured directly into the tire. If you’re serious about your rides and don’t want to pull over to patch flats every other weekend, stop experimenting and get SILCA. It’s slightly more expensive than its competitor brands, but so is losing watts to bad luck.

I am comparing this with muck off. This sealant coats the inside of your tire and creates an inner tube. A very thin inner tube. As a result, when you get a puncture it seals very fast. I used it to seal holes that muck off wouldn’t seal. This is very effective. My experience is that for road tires you don’t need the version with the carbon fiber gunk, as it clumps and results in wheel balance issues. But for a mountain bike or gravel bike you do need the carbon fiber because most likely you will get bigger holes. Let’s face it. If you get a large enough hole that the sealant will not fix on a road bike, just use a tube. I don’t trust plugs on a road bike. The tires are too small for them and if you het such a large hole that you need a plug, you probably need a boot. It’s great for thorns, nails, screws, clips. I used 40 ml for road tires and it lasts 6 months. It does tend to clog my valves, and I have to replace them every couple of months. I use 50-60 ml for gravel and mountain tires.

This stuff is insane. As soon as it hits air it dries. Because of that, it does need to be replenished relatively regularly. With Stan's, my tire would need to be replaced well before the sealant dried out. With the Silca, I've already had 2 tires dry out completely between replenishing. Would be great if the replenisher was cheaper than the 1st stage since it doesn't have any carbon in it.

made sure my rim tape was bubble free, secured my valve just finger tight, so as not to hurt my carbon rim, sealant took care of the rest! pumped up 40mm Maxxis Re-Fuse tires with a standard floor pump, no compression tools. second time I set up tubeless with Silca sealant; always works first try. Highly recommended!

It’s difficult to find any fault with any Silca product, this one has a fault, but they resolved the fault with their new blend. Since I have quite a bit of this on hand, I won’t be trying the new version anytime soon. The long fibers in this blend makes it impossible to fill through the valve stem, but the new blend fixes that. As far as puncture protection, I have over 8,000 miles without a flat running tubeless on Pirelli 30mm tires.

I got out my syringe that I've used before with Stan's tubeless latex with no trouble. I tried to suck the fluid into the syringe from the bottle, but the carbon fibers immediately clogged the hose. So I back flushed the fluid back into the bottle until the syringe was empty. Since I couldn't suck it in, I opened the syringe and poured the liquid into it. When I started pushing the liquid into the tube the fibers again quickly accumulated at the outlet of the syringe and clogged it. I found that by repeatedly pulling the plunger out to clear the clog and then beginning to push again, I was able to get the fluid in over the course of about 10 minutes. (this should have taken about. a minute) Boy is it a pain in the butt to put in. But it's difficult because it seems to be effectively sealing a hole that is probably 3 mm across. (huge). I have no doubt that those pain in the butt carbon fibers will make this stuff seal very very well.

At first the claims seem great. It has strips of fiber that will seal larger punctures. It pours in fine. Then your tire starts leaking air and you are wondering what is the deal. This is what happened to me. I set up DT Swiss wheels with this stuff on a factory tape job that was immaculate. About four weeks later the spokes were leaking air. At first I just thought it was the tape job. When I popped the tire off it was terrible. All the sealant was a solid mass and left behind a ton of residue that I had to use alcohol to get off the rim. It took tons of alcohol and elbow grease. The tires are trash since I cannot get the seal needed for tubeless anymore even though I cleaned them with alcohol also. I have to run tubes now. TL:DR - If you want to change the sealant after a few weeks and love to clean up hunky messes, this is the sealant for you. This stuff is the worst.

As usual, Silca has put forward a high quality product. The fibers in the sealant are very sticky (and difficult to clean up after a spill). Though I have fortunately not had a flat yet, I fully seal a puncture.