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Orange Seal, does it live up to it's fame?25.08.2019

Orange seal, great logo and name, but not at all what I expected.

Endurance tubeless sealant

While roaming the booths at Velofollies, the best consumer trade show in the BeNeLux area, I stumbled across a booth with Parlee, Chris King and Orange Seal. Parlee and King pulled me into that booth, but i left with a giant question mark about the sealant. A lot of people on here rave about it, on the other hand, a lot of people rave about brand x lube as well. 

A little back story

after mixing and using my own sealant to great succes in the days that riding tubeless on mountain bikes became a thing, I moved over to the dark side and left my mountainbikes in the garage for a great moment of time before selling them off. By that time 23mm tires were still a thing on road bikes and a couple of years later the 25s made themselves known. When Schwalbe introduced the One Tubeless I was quick to recognise the advantages of tubeless for the road market. 

So I managed to get my hands on a bottle of this orange stuff and set out to test it for you guys. (and myself of course.) The wheels I tested it in were my old and trusty DT Swiss P1800 disc wheels. The tires Panaracer Gravel king SK tubeless in 32mm.

The sealant completely dried out within two months of use. That’s why I don’t really get the marketing from Orange seal.

Both the tire and sealant were new to me so I did a dry run with the tires first. They were installed with out any sealant and the beads popped easily into place. The tires even held air for a couple of hours without sealant in them. Then the sealant was added through the valve and distributed in the tire by spinning the wheel and shaking it sideways. This made sure the small air leaks that were there, were closed. 

After that was done, several rides were made, I cannot tell if there was a flat, at least, i didn’t find them in the thread. The sealant completely dried out within two months of use. That’s why I don’t really get the marketing from Orange seal. they state: “Endurance tire sealant, it's formulated to maximize longevity; enabling riders to go longer between top-offs. All while offering the same quick sealing properties you’ve come to expect.” In contrast, in my tires you can almost always find Joes No Flats Eco sealant. And that stays liquid for about half a year in our climate zone.

So, I felt a bit let down by their promise to go “longer between top-offs”. Now the sales pitch is to shake your wheel every week to hear if it still sloshes around inside the tire, and if you don’t hear anything you should add more sealant. The dried sealant inside your tire should start acting as a barrier to prevent the sealant drying out. 

Overall the sealant probably performs like it should, but it dried out fast, way to fast fo my liking. after two months of use I took the tires off and was surprised to find a big puddle of semi dry sealant inside. Off course this can happen to any sealant out there, but after asking around I have found that this often happens with Orange seal. I’m looking forward to your replies here with your experience. Please see my photos for reference. 

A super positive note with Orange Seal is that it is cleaned out of the tire easily. a little rubbing with a scotch bright pad, or your fingertips and it wil stop adhering to the inside of your tires. Since I love to do chores like this in the bath tub, as you will always have enough running water at hand and a huge surface too easily clean to boot, The only thing that needed cleaning after the tires was the bath tub.

All in all this is a great sealant that does very well what it advertises to do, but with a catch. It will end up in puddles of thick semi dry sealant. If you don’t care about that, go use it! If you prefer a more free flowing sealant, please look elsewhere. 

Comments

  1. Rafs Rafs says:

    It’s important to consider the temperature and the type of side-wall when picking the sealant you are going to use.

  2. Werner says:

    I’m in Belgium and have been using the same product. Past summer I had to retop after 10 weeks but then we had some real scorching days, no idea if that should really infuence what in essence is a closed system. I can live with that. It’s been 12 weeks since then and things are still going strong. I know for a fact that it successfully sealed one largeish puncture however when I punctured I lost too much pressure to simply continue, had to use my pump. But things held after that (good thing too, I wasnt’ carrying a tube).

    The only product that I tested that outperforms it is Stans race sealant (not the regular Stans) but -and for me that’s a big ‘but’- there’s simply no way to spritz that in via the valve.

  3. Carl says:

    It works great for me over 20k on road and 2k On MTB. I just rode a Schwalbe 28C 3.7k. It was puncturing bc it was totally worn out for it’s last 3 rides and it sealed every time, but did leave a somewhat messy seat tube. FYI, Stans never sealed a puncture for me, which is why I went orange.

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