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review

MilKit Road & Gravel Tubeless Sealant

8
£24.78

VERDICT:

8
10
Works with higher pressures and offers good life expectancy regardless of conditions
Works at higher pressures
Can be added through the valve
Should last a long time
Weight: 
500g
Contact: 

At road.cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Our reviewers are experienced cyclists that we trust to be objective. While we strive to ensure that opinions expressed are backed up by facts, reviews are by their nature an informed opinion, not a definitive verdict. We don't intentionally try to break anything (except locks) but we do try to look for weak points in any design. The overall score is not just an average of the other scores: it reflects both a product's function and value – with value determined by how a product compares with items of similar spec, quality, and price.

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The new milKit Road and Gravel sealant is a great choice for those of us who like to run higher pressures. It seals holes and cuts quickly in a range of tyres, and is well priced too.

As the name suggests milKit's Road & Gravel Sealant is designed to work across a range of tyre sizes, and more importantly, a range of pressures.

A lot of tubeless sealants work okay with road tyres, but just can't keep cuts closed about 50psi or so. This means you'll lose a lot of pressure as the air escapes to start with, and if you try to pump it up the hole will just reopen once you get above 50psi. That's enough to get you home, of course, but ideally you'd be able to ride on at your chosen pressure.

Like many other brands, milKit keeps the exact nature of its ingredients secret, but this mix is designed to work properly at the higher pressures found in road tyres. In fact, most of the ingredients it does mention are not in here at all; it's a synthetic latex and avoids ammonia or anything else chemically aggressive.

After two months with it in my tyres, I still hadn't picked up a puncture in the natural way, so I had to bring out the drawing pin and the scalpel to make small holes and slits; the type you pick up from thorns, sharp stones and small fragments of glass.

The milKit works really well, sealing my 28mm road tyre quickly and dropping only 10psi from the 85psi I started with when punctured with the pin. On larger cuts and holes the performance is good too. On 5mm long by 1mm wide slits from the knife it sealed quickly, and larger holes up to about 2mm in diameter were dealt with impressively too.

Anything bigger than that it would take a little longer to seal, and I'd say it could cope with anything up to 3mm in diameter, realistically.

On a 40mm gravel tyre it could cope with slightly bigger holes (around 4mm,) due to the lower pressures allowing it to set easier. Anything above these sizes I'd recommend using a tyre bung anyway.

Its consistency means that it can be applied through your valves, which means you don't have to wrestle one side of your tyre of the rim. Ideal if you need to top it up mid-ride. You don't even need to shake the bottle.

milKit says this will last up to five years in the bottle, even when it's been opened. That's a lot longer than our test, though... as you might hope, it has not degraded even slightly yet. Over the two-month review period the sealant has seen conditions ranging from around 10°C to just over 30°C, and when taking the tyre off to switch wheels it still looked and felt just as liquid as on day one. The recommended working temperature range is -20°C to 50°C.

It's obviously early days though, so if it dries out prematurely, I'll be back to update the review.

Value

At £24.78 for the 500ml container (75ml, 250ml and 1L bottles are also available), the value is good. The Challenge Smart Tubeless Sealant I recently reviewed works out at £30 per 500ml, while the Pirelli Cinturato Sealant is much more expensive at £40 per 500ml while giving the same results.

Overall

This is a good choice if you are running high pressure tyres on either road or gravel bikes, it works quickly and it's reasonably priced. It's very good stuff.

Verdict

Works with higher pressures and offers good life expectancy regardless of conditions

If you're thinking of buying this product using a cashback deal why not use the road.cc Top Cashback page and get some top cashback while helping to support your favourite independent cycling website

road.cc test report

Make and model: milKit Road and Gravel Tubeless Sealant

Size tested: 500ml

Tell us what the product is for and who it's aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?

Milkit says, "The milKit road and gravel sealant ensures longer-lasting function and better sealing results at high pressures."

Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?

Seals tears and holes up to 6mm

Stays homogenous – no need to shake it up

Lasts for years in the bottle

Synthetic latex means no ammonia or chemically aggressive ingredients, so no horrible smell or damage to rims and tires.

Non-allergenic, non-hazardous & washable

Works from -20 to +50° C / -4 – 122° F

CO2 compatible

Works well at high pressure so is suitable for gravel and road tires and well as MTB

Rate the product for quality of construction:
 
8/10
Rate the product for performance:
 
8/10
Rate the product for durability:
 
8/10
Rate the product for value:
 
6/10

Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose

It works on a range of tyre types and pressures.

Tell us what you particularly liked about the product

Works at higher pressures.

Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product

Nothing really.

How does the price compare to that of similar products in the market, including ones recently tested on road.cc?

It is cheaper than both the Challenge and Pirelli sealants I've reviewed recently.

Did you enjoy using the product? Yes

Would you consider buying the product? Yes

Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes

Use this box to explain your overall score

Does what it says on the tin... well, plastic bottle. And if it lasts as long as Milkit says, then it's good value for money too.

Overall rating: 8/10

About the tester

Age: 44  Height: 180cm  Weight: 76kg

I usually ride: This month's test bike  My best bike is: B'Twin Ultra CF draped in the latest bling test components

I've been riding for: Over 20 years  I ride: Every day  I would class myself as: Expert

I regularly do the following types of riding: time trialling, commuting, club rides, sportives, fixed/singlespeed,

As part of the Tech Hub here at F-At Digital, our senior product reviewer Stu uses the knowledge gained from putting well over a 1,000 products through their paces (including hundreds of bikes) to write in-depth reviews of a huge range of kit. After first throwing his leg over a race bike back in 2000, Stu's ridden more than 160,000 miles on road, time-trial, track, and gravel bikes, and while he's put his racing days behind him he still likes to smash the pedals rather than take things easy. Although, as he spends a fair bit of his time reviewing ebikes these days he's becoming an expert in letting the motor take the strain. He's also waiting for 23mm race tyres to make a comeback!

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1 comments

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SimoninSpalding | 3 months ago
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If I promise to only use it for road tyres do I get it 30% cheaper?

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