Stan's no tubes

Innovation is what we do

who we are

It all started in 2001, when a rider named Stan Koziatek had an idea. Frustrated with punctured inner tubes and believing mountain bike tires could perform better without them, Stan developed a way to replace inner tubes with a liquid sealant. Stan’s system created a tire that sealed itself almost instantly when punctured, but that was only the beginning.

With no inner tube, tires treated with Stan’s sealant offered more traction, more control, and more comfort. They also rolled faster. The performance advantages were tremendous, and soon racers at the highest levels of the sport were asking Stan to help them go tubeless.

Today, riders and racers around the world rely on the tubeless technology Stan developed, and our sealant has been honoured as one of the most important innovations in the history of cycling. “The First Name in Tubeless” is more than just marketing to us. It’s who we are. And we’re still leading the way. For over a decade, our products have set entirely new standards for performance, created completely new categories, and redefined what others thought was possible.

But we’re just getting started.

Innovation will always be the driving force behind Stan’s NoTubes. Why?

Because we ride bikes.

We ride bikes to test our designs, refine them, and then test some more. But mostly we ride bikes for the ideas. Every innovative product we’ve created has started out as an idea we had while out on a ride. There’s something about riding a bike that makes you want to go even further the next time, even faster. There’s something about riding a bike that makes you push the limits. That’s our inspiration. Constantly looking forward, beyond those limits, that’s how we continue to build truly revolutionary products, products that aren’t just slightly better in one or two categories, but that raise the bar in every way. Our wheelsets and tubeless systems are lighter while being more reliable. They grip better for more control while rolling faster to help you push your own limits. To us, true innovation means always looking beyond limitations. That’s how we develop our products, and that’s why we ride.

what is tubeless, and why do people use it?

Your first bicycle probably had inner tubes. Most of us start off life bouncing around happily on tires filled with black rubber balloons. Mom or Dad have to inflate them every spring and patch or replace them any time we ride over a nail or thorn, but for the most part, they get the job done for trips around the neighborhood.

Start riding some more, though, on trails or longer road rides, and the limitations of inner tubes become obvious. Sooner or later, anyone who spends time a bicycle, has some revelations:

Whether you race or not, once you start thinking about tires and air pressure, you’re officially what marketing types refer to as an “enthusiast.” That means you’re pretty into this whole bike riding thing, and it’s time to search for something better than an inner tube.

the best there is

Here’s Stan himself doing some “stick a big nail in it” marketing back in the day. To test sealant, he’d buy these gigantic awls and create diabolical-looking devices like the classic “Path of Death”.

Attempts to get rid of inner tubes have been around for a long time. The classic cycling “tubular” (sometimes referred to as a “sew-up” or “tub”) combines the tire and tube into a single piece that must be slowly and carefully glued onto a rim. While simple and light, tubulars are still prone to punctures, and yes, gluing your tires to your rims is about as fun as it sounds, requiring the kind of attention normally paid to packing parachutes.

That’s where we come in.

Using a liquid sealant and special tape to make rims and tires airtight, our founder, Stan Koziatek, developed a system capable of sealing most tires to most rims without inner tubes. The big deal about the tubeless system Stan developed was that it worked with a wide variety of tires and rims, and that it sealed punctures automatically. Almost instantly. While you ride.

Seriously. If you’ve never seen it before, it’s pretty cool.

The best tire manufacturers supported and refined our method into something that today is called “Tubeless Ready.” It’s become the standard for mountain bikes and is starting to show up more and more on road bikes.

Tubeless-ready–lightweight tires combined with Stan’s liquid sealant and our special tape–seals most punctures up to a quarter inch in size, weighs less than a tube, and allows lower pressure for more traction, more comfort, and more control.

Developing Further

Taking everything we learned about tubeless tires, Stan developed an entirely new rim design. Our patented Bead Socket Technology rims created a better interface between tire and rim sidewall for easy tubeless inflation. Stan found most rims constrict a tire’s shape. By lowering the sidewall of the rim and creating an inner shape that helps position a tire more securely, our lighter and stronger BST mountain rims, and our higher-pressure reinforced BST-R road rims allow tires to expand to their full volume.

The result is even better traction and control, and one other major advantage. Without an inner tube and offering higher tire volume and lower pressure, our BST rims and tubeless system creates a more supple and responsive tire. The result is less rolling resistance. In other words: our wheels go faster.

Our tubeless system and BST and BST-R wheelsets are the choice of top racers around the world not just because they’re more more reliable and offer more traction, but because they offer a genuine advantage over lesser designs. Stronger, lighter, self-sealing, more comfortable, better handling, and even faster, Stan’s tubeless designs have become the standard by which all other wheels are judged.

When it comes to tubeless performance, Stan’s proves we’ve all come a long way from the days of inner tubes, and every day we’re working on new ideas to ride even further, and faster than ever.

Crest CB7 Wheelset

All carbon rims are not created equal. If your carbon rim is too stiff, you’re losing speed and risking tire pinch flats. The Crest CB7 rim with RiACT absorbs radial vibrations and damps impacts. It’s a difference you can feel in the ride of the bike almost instantly.

Sentry MK3 Wheelset

Designed for today’s wider tires, the Sentry MK3’s patented low-profile sidewall and lightweight 6069 alloy construction delivers width without the weight. The patented BST rim design allows a tire to expand to its full volume without distorting its shape, and the 32mm internal width of the Sentry MK3 is more stable with 2.50”-3.00” tires. The result is less rolling resistance, more traction, and incredible handling.