Inner tube repairs - is it just me ?

[Tim+]

Doomed like all other non-pneumatic bicycle tyres.

Tim

[Harry Bloomfield]

Brian Reay has brought this to us :

You can buy solid and pneumatic types. The pneumatic types are more expensive, but they roll over soft ground and gravel better than solid ones.

[Brian Reay]

Makes sense. We rarely, if even, move the trailer when loaded by hand and, when unloaded, it is (relatively) light.

[news]

I really do use an angle grinder, a battery one, to scuff the rubber, failing that I use buffing solution but I have never made my own patches and I have repaired lots of inner tubes from 26 by 1 and 3/8 up to 14 by 34

AJH

[Thomas Prufer]

If it's just the bent tube, either "Metal Tire Valve Stem Adaptor 45, 90, 135 Degree Bent Tubeless Valve Extension Adapter Converter Motorcycle Valve Extender", or "car tyre valve adapter" from Aliexpress. Or get a pump with the bit of hose that screws on, had one somewhere... frame pump with a bit of tube in the handle.

Thomas Prufer

[Tim+]

I think you need to improve your tube swapping skills then as fitting a new tube on a quick release wheel is a piece of piss. On a wheelchair I would have thought even easier as you don?t even need to remove the wheel to remove the tyre or tube.

Tim

[T i m]

As a general thought on all this ... ignoring the issues of getting a decent pre-puncture sealant through a Presta valve, I guess you would have to experience a good one to realise just how trouble free (and transparent) the whole thing is.

I can't think of a scenario that used inflatable tyres where I wouldn't use Punctureseal (because that is the one I have used for many years and even 'fixed', not just prevented many punctures with). If it was a cycle and Presta valves then maybe a thinner slime might be easier to apply but may not work as well. Mind you, this looks like a Presta valve?:

One of our ladies took herself around the world on her old BMW motorbike. She used Punctureseal (well, it was actually Ultraseal then) and didn't suffer a single puncture throughout the entire trip (that she knew of and I'm not saying she didn't damage a tyre beyond any form of repair etc). When she got home the rear tyre at the time was pretty worn and when she changed the tyre she noticed the signs of what would have been several punctures by the little purple dots.

Mate who was regularly getting punctures in the low-pressure, balloon tyred rider-on-mower was regularly suffering thorn punctures (berberis, hawthorn and pyrocantha etc) but after installing Punctureseal, didn't suffer another puncture again.

Given they were 'balloon, 'tubed' and the regularity he was seeing the punctures before, we were both very surprised how effective it was.

There are very few things in life I have encountered that actually do what they say on the tin, but this stuff (and like likes of my Leatherman PST II) is one of them. ;-)

When I was IT training, one of the delegates came in late on the second morning because when he went to come in to the course he found a nail sticking out of the middle of the tread in the fairly new (and expensive) flat rear tyre (so had to get the train). The next morning I brought in the half bottle of Punctureseal for him to try (sufficient for his tyre size) and he applied it when he got home that evening. The next morning he was back in on the bike and I asked him to email me to let me know how it went, if it lasted etc. Some months later he emailed me to say he had just replaced the tyre because it was worn out and it hadn't lost any real pressure (less than 'typically') in the whole period.

As an aside (and where people may not compare apples with apples). I also gave some to a neighbour for his motorbike (it worked) and he replaced it for me. Except, it wasn't the same stuff but something that looked like the same (from the very similar name and the packaging etc). I didn't think anything of it but again, I helped someone with a rear puncture on a motorbike with it but even after we had applied it over a couple of goes and using more that we should, it still never worked properly (the tyre was pretty worn and so we fitted a new one anyway). It especially surprised us because it was an 'easy' fix being a fairly small self tapping screw in one of the tread blocks near the middle of the tread.

Cheers, T i m

[Mark]

As long as you have a stock of spare inner tubes ;-)

[Andrew Gabriel]

This is the sort of thing I'm instantly going to regret saying, but in 20 years of cycling (some years 5,000 miles), I've only ever had 2 punctures, both on my hybrid bike, and none on my mountain bike with knobbly tyres (which I use almost exclusively on roads).

The first puncture was in the first year. By the time I stopped, the nail had made one hole through the outside of the inner tube and about 50 holes through the inside of the inner tube, so I pushed the bike home, and didn't bother repairing the tube.

Second time, the tyre was worn out, and I was cycling to the bike shop to buy another. I didn't quite make it before the inner tube was exposed and burst. Got the shop to replace both tyres and inner tubes, as they were 15 years old at that point, although only had about 5 years worth of use.

So although I do have a couple of tube repair kits around, I've never tried using one.

Friends with slicks seemed to be getting punctures all the time.