Latex tubes experience

[Ted Durant]

New thread jumping off my not-so-happy experience with TPU. For fun and science I ordered a few Vittoria latex tubes in the 622 x 30-38 size, which I put in the 622-32 Rene Herse extra light tires on my Rivendell Road. The tires are new this year, with 500 miles on them when I installed the tubes. The rims are narrow, so the tires measure around 30mm on them. The tubes fit okay, but I wouldn't try to stuff them into any smaller tires. At ~105 grams, they weigh exactly the same as the Schwalbe light tubes they replaced. They come well-talc'd and feel pretty substantial - not fragile at all, especially compared to TPU. Installation was quick and easy. I inflated the tires to 60psi, then didn't ride the bike for a few days. At that point, on a pinch test, the tires were still overinflated. A few days later they were down enough that I brought them back up to 40psi, where I normally ride those tires. The rate of air loss is no big deal to me. 

So, how's the ride? I try to be skeptical about squishy things like "road feel", but the difference these tubes make is on a par with the difference that the tires themselves made. In other words, I am utterly charmed. I've done about 100 miles on them over a variety of roads, but no gravel. Bouncing over rough road surfaces and standing to accelerate, there is a sense of energy being returned that I've never felt before, even on Paris-Roubaix tubulars back in the day. (Of course, I probably pumped those to 100psi...) A few times I thought "oh no, I'm losing air", and my riding buddy thought so, too, but nope, they're just that supple. I'm going to increase the pressure to 45 and see how that feels.

No real test of durability so far, but given how many flats I've had so far this year, 100 miles without a flat is pretty good. And, no experience with patching, yet.

I'm happy enough that I've ordered a bunch more. Jenson USA had the 622-30-38 ones for $15.99, which seems like a steal compared to TPU. I also ordered directly from Vittoria some 26x1.7-2.3 tubes for my 584-48 tires.

Ted Durant

Milwaukee WI USA

[Bernard Duhon]

 

 

My experience with latex tubes mirror Ted's.

 

I have been riding them on the Rene Herse extra endurance barlow pass and bond Jovie pass

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[Jim Bronson]

Ted,

Sorry to be the person to ask this, but what is TPU, and were are you so unhappy with it?

The latex tubes sound nice, when I first changed for Jan's tire recommendations/designs back in 2008ish, it was transformational, so if this is further that much transformational, I might have to try it.

Jim

Austin suburbs, TX

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[Bill Lindsay]

Jim

Just Google "TPU inner tubes" and you'll see lots of them.  They are "the new thing" on the market in the way of very light weight and very compact tubes.  They span a bewildering price range.  People claim they can get them on Ali Express for under $1, and they go all the way up to >$30 each, but all claim to use the same TPU material which is a poly-urethane.  

One use case for TPU tubes is for mountain bikers running tubeless.  If they have a puncture that doesn't seal, they need a tube, which means packing a tube you'll "never" use.  TPU tubes being the lightest and smallest packing makes them desirable.  That use-case means you limp home and then throw away the tire and the tube and install a new tire, tubeless again.   In that use case, the TPU tube only needs to work for a few hours, and some people report their budget TPU tubes stop holding air after a couple rides.  

Ted did a long thread documenting his experience with Rene Herse TPU tubes, and in a word it was terrible.  He had either exactly a 50% success rate, or maybe it was even worse than that.  I think he's installed 8 or them and at least 4 did not hold air: almost immediate failure.  He got at least some warranty consideration from Rene Herse, but I believe Ted was utterly soured to TPU tubes broadly.  Many people responding to the thread used Ted's bad experience to convince them to never try TPU tubes.  

For what it's worth, I also participated in that thread and have had ~perfect experience with Rene Herse TPU tubes.  They are light, they pack small, and they hold air in my experience, and they ride well, but I'm just one data point.  

Assuming both TPU tubes and latex tubes perform their basic function of holding air, the things that are supposed to be preferable about TPU tubes are:

1. a little lighter than latex

2. packs smaller than latex

3. holds air longer than latex

That's the general idea.  In Ted's documented experience, TPU tubes fail to perform their basic function too often, and that's part of why he's returning to latex, which people have used for decades.  I use all three interchangeably: butyl, latex, and TPU.  FWIW.  

BL in EC