Bike inner tubes, need recomendations

[Willabe]

My wife and I have a couple of bikes and the tires keep going flat over time. And last week my wife got a flat.

I'd like to put some new decent inner tubes in them as they are Wal-Mart bikes (21 speed) and I'm betting the inner tubes that came with them are cheap. The bikes are in good shape nothing fancy.

We don't go just far just stay in the neighborhood, well so far anyway.

I've read that latex inner tubes are porous and leak air much faster then butyl rubber. We don't care about the butyl being heaver, were not going long distances, ridding hills or keeping time.

Are those supposed self healing Slime inner tubes any good?

What should I buy?


                  Thanks,     Brad       

[sluckey]

The tubes sold at WalMart are decent low end tubes. Probably better than the originals. That's what I'd get.

Or you could go to a real bike shop, ask these same questions and get a decent low end tube for only 2X or 3X the WalMart price.   

Seriously though, don't put a $25 tube in a $5 tire. Buy a $10 hand pump and mount it on a rail if you are gonna be too far from the house to push it back.

[EL34]

The only reasons a tube leaks is because it has a pin hole or a big hole?
Or the valve itself leaks?


Seriously, Any old tube works fine as long as it does not have a hole
Tubes are cheap, less than $5 and you are good to go

I went tubeless a while back
You seal the rim with some strapping tape and get special valves that let you insert Stan's latex tire sealant
The tire has a few ounces of a latex sealant
That system works great and I abuse the heck out of wheels off road

You mentioned Slime
I think that stuff may work for you

[G._Hoffman]

How old are the tires?  I'm running fairly high end touring tires, and the ONLY times I get flats is if I let them get too old.  If you want to try the slime tubes, feel free, but I've not heard anything good about them, though.

The real truth, though, is that the bikes at all the big box stores are junk.  I can't tell you how much my bike mechanic friends complain about them.  You can get a much better bike for a pretty similar cost from a good bike shop.


Gabriel

[Willabe]

All right, thanks guys.

I think I'll try new plain inner tubes and see how that goes.


             Brad   

[EL34]

For what you do, just around the neighborhood, your bikes are just fine
Plain old black rubber tubes are fine Brad

You should not have that much of a problem with air leaks
If you get a flat, make sure you feel around the inside of the tire and inspect for small sharp things poking through the tire casing

A common mistake is to get a flat and just throw in another tube without feeling the inside of the tire casing

Patch kits work fine also
There's no need to keep buying tubes if all you have is a small pin hole sized leak

Take the leaky tube and the put some air in it
Then submerse part of the tube in a sink or big bucket of water
Move around the whole tube until you find the air bubbles and there is your leak

Patch the hole and re-use the tube
You are running low pressures and so a patch will be just fine

If you are running schrader valves, make sure the valve stem is screwed in tight
They make small valve extractor tools for schrader valves (like you have on a car tire)

[Willabe]

I bought the bikes for my wife and her son 6, 7 (?) years ago and from day 1 they slowly leaked and went flat. Every spring they were total flat. I didn't know, we weren't married yet and they just kept filling them up with air.

My dad taught me how to patch an inner tube when I was a kid, just like you described and I always fixed my flats my self after he showed me. It's easy enough.

I'll look/feel around for anything poking through the tire, I remember.    

I was just thinking maybe these are really cheap inner tubes (cause they never held air very well it seems) and thought I'd get some decent 1s and after that when we get a flat I'd just patch them.

Wal-Mart and a big box type sports store by us has regular inner tubes for ~$3.5 and the Slime brand tubes for ~$10.

I was looking on line and guys were talking about certain brands as being nothing but trouble and were naming other brands as being much better, but I don't know 1 from the other, so I thought I'd ask you guys.   

            Thanks,     Brad            

[EL34]

Tubes do slow leak over time, so you do have to add air once in a while

If they go flat in a weeks time, that's not good
I would look for the leak with the water method and patch them

I got rid of the tubes on my bikes several months ago
The rotational weight goes way down and you don't have to worry about pinch flats when you hit something really hard

That's more of an advanced system using Stan's No Tubes latex sealant


Not really something you would do on cruisin around neighbor hood type bikes

[Willabe]

If you are running schrader valves, make sure the valve stem is screwed in tight
They make small valve extractor tools for schrader valves (like you have on a car tire)

So that's what schrader valves are. I saw that on a few boxes. I thought it was some kind of newer design of valve. When I was a kid I had inner tube valve caps that were metal that had the valve extractor on the but end of the cap.

I'll get 1 when I buy the patch kit and new tubes.


                    Brad   

[tubenit]

I always have used Teflon tire liners with my bikes.  I put over 14,000 miles on a road bike in Texas & road over all kinds of stuff (that you'd want to avoid) with that bike.  I found the tire liners quite useful to me.

My bikes now have WalMart tubes in them. 

Jeff 

[Willabe]

Tubes do slow leak over time, so you do have to add air once in a while

If they go flat in a weeks time, that's not good
I would look for the leak with the water method and patch them

Ok, I got ya.

 
            Thanks,   Brad   

[Willabe]

I always have used Teflon tire liners with my bikes.  I put over 14,000 miles on a road bike in Texas & road over all kinds of stuff (that you'd want to avoid) with that bike.  I found the tire liners quite useful to me.

My bikes now have WalMart tubes in them. 

I read about those when I was looking on line for info and reviews of inner tubes. Seemed again some raved about them others didn't like them.

Sounds like a very good idea to me, nice insurance.


                    Thanks,    Brad     

[EL34]

Jeff,
You would get a kick out of the current system of converting off road tires to tubeless

Not really something I would do on a road bike

They make tubeless tires and rims but it's way lighter and easier to convert regular tube rims and tube tires
Plus you don't have to buy a new set of wheels like you would if you went with tubeless wheels

You have to seal off the spoke holes on the rim with very strong filament tape or a special rubber strip they sell to do that with
You need Stan's special presta valves so you can remove the core and add Stan's No Tube latex sealant
You add just a few ounces

Put your tire back on and hit it with a big blast of air to seat the tire bead against the rim
Spin the wheel around, shaking it to spread the latex
The latex sealant then seals all the exit points and puts a very thin layer of latex on the inside of the tire and rim
 
There is still some liquid latex left over after that so if you do run over something sharp, the hole seals in a matter of seconds

If you rip a big gash in the sidewall on something sharp, you are screwed and you have to carry a backup tube for emergencies like that

Anywho, thought you would enjoy that info

[EL34]

I read about those when I was looking on line for info and reviews of inner tubes. Seemed again some raved about them others didn't like them.
Sounds like a very good idea to me, nice insurance.
                    Thanks,    Brad     

You can get very thin Kevlar strips that go between the tube and the outer wall
I would not do that unless you have a huge amount of thorns in your area
Goat head thorns out west are a huge problem
I don't think the kevlar strips are cheap


It's easier just to patch the tubes, get new tubes or get the slime tubes

[EL34]

schrader valve pic
The center valve core unscrews, make sure yours are screwed in tight



presta valve pic

[Willabe]

Got X, no pics.


            Brad   

[EL34]

hmm, weird, I can see the pics


hit the refresh button on your browser and see what happens

I uploaded them

[Willabe]

Ok, now I see 2 pics separate below the original X's.

I then hit refresh no change.


             Brad     

[EL34]

weird, I see 4 pictures


The two up above are direct links to the web page where I found the pics
The two below are attachments

[Willabe]

That's OK, I can see them, thanks for posting them.


                   Brad   
     

[Willabe]

As a side note, grap a pair of pantyhose on run on the inside of the tire.  If there is any thing to snag, you'll find it, and it might save you a couple of patch jobs.

That sounds like a good idea.

     
                  Brad     

[PRR]

I Slime tractor tires. Not bike tires. Too light.

Once-a-year is not wrong for leak-down. Your car tires go down in a few years, and they start with MUCH more air. (A 6-inch section has 36 times as much air as a 1-inch section.)

Every-month flat, do what they said. Make sure the valve-cores are tight in the stems. If you have the valve out, work some spit onto the rubber. Fill the kiddie-pool with water and look for bubbles.

I can accept that WalMart's replacement tubes are the next-up quality from what comes in the bikes. And possibly from the same mold as the Bike Store's non-sexy tubes.

Cactus IS different but you would have mentioned that. I had very little trouble from glass; when I did get glass through the tube it was very obvious (leak in an hour, cut hands when I went inside to find the leak).

Affordable bikes use the *same* valve cores as all car tires have used since the 1920s. If you have old wheels hanging around, take the valve cores from them.

[Willabe]

Ok, more good info and conformation, thanks PRR.


               Brad   

[Ritchie200]

Doug,


I'm not a big fan of the presta valves.  We got my two girls some really nice road/trail (I call them enduro bikes - but that goes back to my old motorcycle days!) for them to take to college.  They both have presta valves and kept going flat.  Both leaked at the valve.  PLUS having to keep an adapter handy just to pump them up is a royal pita.


What happens when you wear out the tire after it has been sealed to the rim with the latex system?  Can you just change the tire and add more latex?


Jim

[EL34]

All the valves on higher end stuff are presta
No big deal, my floor pump is presta and the CO2 inflator I carry on the bike is presta

On the tubeless system, if you have to change a tire it can be a bit messy if there is still some liquid latex inside


The rim itself usually has a just a very thin layer of latex and it rubs off easily


Just clean up the rim a bit, mount the new tire, add more latex and inflate