Just got a note from the owner of the company that...

2009-06-02T14:56:35.697-07:00

Just got a note from the owner of the company that owns CaffeLatex. He has some good points, so I thought I'd post 'em here. I'm going to try out his ideas and see if that does the trick. I hope so! Great to see that they are following their reviews on line and are trying to make sure the product works for all of their customers.

----

Hello David,
my name is Alberto and I'm the owner of Effetto Mariposa. I read with interest the post where you report how Caffélatex failed to repair a hole in your tyre. Although we're clearly happier to read positive feed-back, any comment can help us to improve our products and enlarge our knowledge base on the product.
The behaviour of a tyre sealant in case of a flat is not an exact science, as there're so many variables and side conditions that could be the reason of success or failure. That's why I'm writing you, in order to better understand what happened.

The positive elements I got from the analysis of your experience with Caffélatex were that:
- Caffélatex does a better job than Stan's initially sealing the tyres;
- wheels sealed with CL would loose less air pressure than those sealed with Stan's;
- during the flat you had, CL was spraying out of the hole, so it was where it had to be (it's a start!).

You write you punctured (at a pressure around 28 psi), but you just discovered it when your riding buddies signaled it to you, as CL was spraying out of the hole. The fact you didn't "feel" it, means that the pressure hadn't dropped very much, so the puncture hadn't occurred since long... and I guess the sealant hadn't had much time to work. Instead of letting CL 'take care of the business', you reduced the pressure. Although a lower pressure makes it marginally easier for a sealant to coagulate, going to 15 psi doesn't leave much time to the sealant to 'work' before the tyre is too soft (and unridable).
In our experience, the best thing to do in a similar case is exactly the opposite: inflating the tyre will make sure it's still with a rideable pressure when the puncture is repaired.
Caffélatex has been tested also in high-pressure applications (RoadTubeless) and it has behaved very well repairing punctures with pressure much higher than mtb's ones.

Another thing we learned during the extensive field-test that led to the definition of CL formula, is that 'holes' are not simple 2-dimensional entities (often reduced to a 'single-dimensional' size, 1mm, 2mm etc.), they're rather complex items: a small hole from the outside might hide a bigger damage on the inner side, or vice-versa. That's why sometimes a sealant seems to have 'paranormal' powers and repair what looks like a big 'scar'... that is reducing to a small cut on the inner side of the casing. Some nasty little holes, on the other hand, take ages to seal, because the damage is not as small as it seems.

Beside major damages, we always managed to have Caffélatex repair punctures up to 3mm. Most of the times it was fast, sometimes we had to inflate the tyre once after it went almost flat (and got our share of syntethic latex sprayed around...), but during the tests we never had to put inner-tubes inside tyres treated with Caffélatex.

If you still didn't repair that Weirwolf, I'd like you to have a look at the puncture from the inside, to see how it looks like. It would also be interested to see what happens if you don't repair that tyre and simply let CL work, after taking the pressure up to 35 psi: I wouldn't be surprised if the hole is sealed for good before the pressure drops below 20 psi.

Do not hesitate to contact me for further questions, thanks for your comments and best regards.
Alberto

--
Alberto De Gioannini

Comments on Leisure Pro Tour: MTB Tire Sealant

Just got a note from the owner of the company that...