# Air travel with tubeless tires



## Rob_E (Nov 22, 2010)

Don't know where it makes sense to ask this question, but here seems as good a place as any.

Planning to pack up the World Troller in the near future and put it on a plane so we can go riding and camping down the GAP/C&O. I finally went tubeless, and I don't know what, if any, special precautions I need to take to travel with tubeless tires. With tubes I just lower the pressure and pump them back up at the other end. But now my tires have a few ounces of fluid in them. Should that be removed and put back in at the other end? I'm a little worried about pumping these up at the other end of the trip and finding that they can't be inflated with my hand pump. On the other hand, these particular tires+rims inflated enough to seat the tire using just a floor pump before I even put sealant in, so maybe that part will be fine. And of course I'll have tubes, just in case. So really I'm mostly wondering what to do with ounces of fluid sloshing around in my tires right now. It'd be nice if I could leave it in, but I don't want to arrive to find it has leaked all over, or maybe out of, my bag, and I'm sure the airline wouldn't care for that, either.


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## micah356 (Dec 21, 2010)

Check your airline, many of them don't require you to air down your tires anymore. If they do, just reduce the pressure to the point where they will stay seated and leave it at that.


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## Legbacon (Jan 20, 2004)

I just partially deflated mine and pumped em up again when I put my bike together at destination.


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## Harold (Dec 23, 2003)

I also did the partial deflate thing on my last flight with bikes to give a little wiggle room, but left enough pressure to ensure the tires stayed on. Sealant sloshing around inside the tires and all. No problems. Two bikes with carbon hookless rims. One a regular 26er and the other a fatbike which definitely takes an air compressor to seat the bead.


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## root (Jan 24, 2006)

Past trips with tubeless didnt bother airing down. Decades ago trips with tubes didnt bother airing down either. Unless you run your pressure at the ragged edge, there isnt enough difference to be a problem. With good quality and condition equipment there is a pretty big margin of safety.


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## bakerjw (Oct 8, 2014)

1 atmosphere of pressure is 14PSI or thereabouts. If you expose a tire with 10psi of pressure to a total vacuum, the internal pressure would be 24PSI. Take your maximum recommended air pressure, subtract 14 and that would be the limit if you were going to be going into a vacuum. A normal flight will not even be close to a vacuum so your safe with just keeping 7 or so below the recommended maximum.


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## Rob_E (Nov 22, 2010)

bakerjw said:


> 1 atmosphere of pressure is 14PSI or thereabouts. If you expose a tire with 10psi of pressure to a total vacuum, the internal pressure would be 24PSI. Take your maximum recommended air pressure, subtract 14 and that would be the limit if you were going to be going into a vacuum. A normal flight will not even be close to a vacuum so your safe with just keeping 7 or so below the recommended maximum.


I always like answers that come with math.

I guess if the plane gets to 0 atmospheres, my bike tires will be the least of my worries.


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