Can you not be a proper Mountain Biker and like tubes at the same time
@Pale Rider ?
What do you think?
My reference to proper mountain biking was simply to illustrate the greater benefit of tubeless is for those who like to run lower pressures and give it some welly over difficult terrain.
Of course, you could ride the same trails in the same way with tubes, solid tyres or even on a ruddy penny farthing if you could stay upright.
Not than pinch flats are the sole province of mountain bikers, proper or otherwise.
Roadies/hybrid riders can get them from a pothole or bumping off a kerb, especially if they like to run lower pressures for a bit of comfort.
Which is why Schwalbe is aiming some products, sorry, marketing blurb, at tubeless for more general cycling, as well as mountain biking.
Cyclists are notoriously conservative and suspicious of anything new, so any innovation takes a very long time before it is adopted.
But in 10 or 20 years' time, I predict tubeless will be common on all sorts of bikes.
http://www.schwalbe.com/gb/tubeless-technology.html