TallRider

I meant PM so you weren't making it personal in a thread that's about the efficacy of glueless patches.
Also, note that when I brought up "knowledgeable people" it was talking about, generally, some of the people who'd also responded to this thread saying that they'd not had good luck with glueless patches being a durable solution.

I'm also interested in getting a recipe for success from those who have it, and finding that glueless patches haven't worked for me despite
1. buffing up the tube with the included sandpaper
2. cleaning the tube with rubbing alcohol sometimes (not mentioned by Park, but reasonable and should have similar effect to the wipes mentioned by previous poster)
3. sticking the patch on at the center and pressing outward from there, being careful to eliminate air bubbles
4. holding for a bit to make sure it sticks tight

Point being, in my experience with glueless patches I've done all the things that have been mentioned in this thread, and have still not found them to hold. Moreover, some other people here find that glueless haven't worked for them (and while these posters didn't say how carefully they apply glueless patches, some of them are the sort of people who'd do it right). Other people find glueless patches work very well, including on high-pressure road tires. Hence my trying to think of other variables which may be at play, beyond just application technique.

operator

You probably forgot the part where I said I was riding high pressure road tubes/tires.

Tim, you may actually want to try this - instead of trying to carefully place the patch on while taking out all the air bubbles.

Inflate the tube a bit (you have to do this fast) so that you can put the patch on with one quick motion and without wrinkling or worrying too much about pressing out air bubbles, then quickly slap the patch on. When I use the glueless patches I only do your #1 step. Skip 2,3,4 and it works fine.

It is easier on MTB tubes because of the increased area you have to work with vs 700x23c tubes. But once it's inflated a little bit, they're about the same.

cascade168

Just to illustrate why I'm railing against you ...

Once again, you say what seems good to support your argument but you don't even do the basic homework to solve your own problems (like finding the STI directions, readily available to anyone with a computer and google).

Here is a direct quote from the Park Tool repair site (quoted by many people every day on this forum):

"To Patch an Inner Tube Using the GP-2 Super Patch

1. Locate hole marked during inspection. Using fine emery cloth or sandpaper, clean the tube by lightly abrading area around hole. Excessive sanding or heavy pressure can cause grooves in the rubber, which may lead to patch failure.
2. If available, wipe the area with clean rag and alcohol. Allow it to dry completely.
3. Peel patch from patch backing. Handle patch as little as possible and by edges only.
4. Center patch to hole and lay patch on tube.
5. Apply pressure to patch to assure seal. Roll patch and tube between thumbs and forefingers."

from this page:

https://www.parktool.com/repair/readhowto.asp?id=149



So, you say "not mentioned by Park". But, in fact, it's specifically recommended by Park. Again, you assume it's the way you think it is without actually checking the simplest of resources. As the man says, RTFM. If you insist on continuing to shoot yourself in the foot, I'll keep pointing it out.

operator

No need to get snappy guys...
We all like bicycles, and we like to help each other here

TallRider

Thanks man - I will try this (I still carry glueless patches in my seatbag toolkit, although I usually have a spare tube as well). I think I've tried this at some point in the past but not consistently. Now I'm wondering what variants of how-to-apply-glueless-patches work.
Do the rest of you who have had consistent success with glueless patches (especially with high-pressure road tires) also always inflate the tire somewhat to give it its shape?

Looks like Park offers more specific directions on their repair-website than they do on the patch kit itself. The patch kit itself does include directions, in three places actually.
1) on back of label: simply rough area, peel off backing, then evenly press onto tube
2) on inside of label: important - remove talc and dirt from tube before application; a clean and dry surface is of utmost importance
3) on back of patches themselves: clean and lightly rough tube, peal off backing, press patch on tube

Anyway, it's kinda weird that Park offers better directions on their site than on the kit itself, and it's good to know that they do recommend the rubbing alcohol as final prepping of the surface, if not in the instructions that I and most others are going to read.

bellweatherman

OK, seriously now. I have asked some racer friends of mine & a couple mechanics to have a look at this thread. And they were like WTF are these people talking about. Yes, ALL of them. The only place where I've heard about how awesome glueless patches are on the internet. I kid you not. I have tried many, many different patches. Even recently as a few months ago. Pro mechanics who I know, swear to me that some of you are delusional with this glueless patch bizness. Whatever, if you think they are so awesome then use them. You might as well use some duct tape.

TallRider

Look, I've had the same experience as you. I agree with you that most people have not found glueless patches to be effective, but I trust the stories and experiences of some of the people in this thread who've reported success with glueless, and I don't think it's fair to call them delusional.
Part of the issue may be the fault of convoluted or poor instructions - I think operator is the only person who's specifically said he's had good success with road tires, and he partially inflates the tube first (Park doesn't mention this, on their website or with the instructions that came with the patches). Also, as I noted above, Park offers more specific directions (recommends cleaning the tube with alcohol) on their website than they do on the instructions that come with the patch kit itself.

HillRider

A little history here. Park's original GP-1 gluless patches were very unreliable (my own experience confirms this) due to the patch material having far different stretch characteristics than the tube itself. The tube would stretch and "work" as it flexed within the tire but the patch couldn't follow it and the bond gradually let go. I believe even Park admitted these were a problem and wouldn't effect a lasting repair. Park improved these patches with their GP-2 version and these may work better but I was so disappointed with their first try that I've never given them a try.

One problem with on-the-road tube repair, no matter what patches are used, is locating the hole in the tube. A very small slow leak is almost impossible to find without a bucket of water and a hole large enough to leak quickly will keep you from inflating the tube enough to find it if all you have is a frame or mini-pump. A large hole is obvious but most flats aren't caused by one big enough to see easily.

My "technique" is to carry a spare tube or two and repair flats by installing a new tube. I repair the damaged tube at home in the comfort of my workshop using Rema patches and rubber cement. There is absolutely no debate about the effectiveness of this procedure.

robo

I have definitely had glueless patches work well (including the old GP-1's), however this was always with MTB tubes, and i tend to run my tires at quite low pressure. This may be why they've worked for me.

aroundoz

Timcupery, I thought what you said was just your experience which mirrored many others including myself. You were completely reasonable and open to opinion. Cascades responses were not justified.

The fact of the matter is there is still a lot of disagreement as to the reliability of glueless. I ride w/ a lot of experienced cyclists who still consider it a patch to only get them home. Maybe Park and others need to expand on their simple instructions becuase a lot of people have followed their instructions w/ negative results. Maybe manufacturers need to add a few more steps, as described by some of you above, for their patches to be more consistently effective. The fact this thread has gone on this long is a pretty good indicator that glueless isn't as simple as the instructions would indicate.

I would like to throw out that I have experienced some tubes where nothing would stick to it. Even after sanding and using alcohol to clean the area. Some tubes might work better w/ glueless than others. Again, just throwing it out there.

TallRider

Yeah, it's certainly murky, and people's experience differs, and we don't yet have sufficient variables to account for people's different experience, on the basis of this thread.

Interesting possible variable here. I know that there are different types of tubes (latex - lightweight and rare) and perhaps diff types of rubber (butyl - not sure if this is standard or a specific subset of tubes). Does anyone know about tube manufacturing or rubber chemistry who could enlighten us on how diff tubes might matter here?

humble_biker

Add me to the for side in this typically over debated forum. I have never had a problem with glue-less probably because I put them on the right way and expect the tire to hold the patch in place like it is supposed to do. If you put (alot) air in the tube and the tube IS NOT in the tire it will "flip off".
Vulcanizing patches are great too they're just different creatures. Having a flat, pulling out that little tube of fluid, giving it a squeeze only to discover that it evaporated 6 months ago only has to happen once.
So here is a solution that works for almost everyone (even the most cantankerous of us): Use both, carry the glue-less on your ride and save the patched tubes until you have enough to use a good portion of a vulcanizing patch kit. Sit at home and do it in the comfort of an easy-chair in the air conditioning instead of dripping sweat all over on a 100* day in the middle of nowhere.

Portis

Personally I use glue. It doesn't take 5 minutes for glue to dry. In fact i have fixed a lot of flats in temps below freezing and it didn't take that long to dry. At least with glue, you know that the repair is made and you won't have to fuss with it again.

froze

You didn't read my post correctly...maybe thats related to your inability to apply glueless patches? Anyway I've used glueless patches on both road and mtb's. If you read my posts you would have discovered an example I cited, and I quote myself: "I had a road tube with 8 glueless patches on it, and those were put on during the first month of the tubes life. I then switched to Armadillo tires and my flats stopped, but that tube was used as a main tube and none of the patches gave up even after 5 years of use."

Then you failed to read about the test I did, let me quote myself again: "...tested a MTB tube by puncturing a 1/4 inch hole into the tube, and then patched with a Park GP2 Glueless patch and put the tire back onto the rim. I then placed the tire and rim into a trashcan and attached a long air hose with a remote trigger so I could fill the tire from behind a car for protection because I put 200 PSI into the tire!! The rim and tire sat like that in the trash can for 2 weeks at this pressure! I topped off the pressure about every other day. After 2 weeks I let the pressure out and rode the bike for about month everyday with no problems. But here's the crazy part (as if 200psi in a MTB tire isn't?), That tube with that patch IS STILL BEING USED on that MTB and STILL HOLDING AIR after 5 YEARS!!!"

And technically a high pressure road tire would actually have an advantage over a low pressure mtb tire because the high pressure of the tube would be pressing against the tire harder thus holding the patch firmly against the tube. I don't know if that science is right or not but it sounds good! Regardless the road tire was deflated and inflated numerious times and never during those cycles did a glueless patch fail. I threw the tube away because it had too many patches on it and it was too old.

From judging how you read posts and how your not sure on how to loosen STI clamps, I would safely assume that your not on top of things. I think if you read the instructions that Park GP2 patches provide and practiced it for awhile you would change your mind. Glueless patches are faster simply because you don't have to wait 5 minutes or so for the glue to dry, and you never have to worry about finding a dried glue tube at the wrong time.

Only problem I have had with glueless patches is twofold; First, if they get wet or dirty their useless, but so are glue patches; Second, I'm not sure how long the adhesive last on the patch when in storage, so I tossed out 2 glueless patches that were 2 years old and bought fresh ones...better safe then sorry.

Raiyn

I've used duct tape out on the trail before. Works great as long as you get a complete wrap around the area of the puncture. It's not something that I recommend, but in a pinch man it works

froze

Especially the industrial grade duct tape.

HillRider

Where did you get this?

TallRider

froze: I'd mainly agreed with you (that people who are generally knowledgeable can still mess up on something with which they're unfamiliar). In the following statement, I'd thought you were talking about why I gave up glueless patches, since you'd quoted my post in the beginning of your post. As I read your post again:

you could also be interpreted as making a general statement about why most people diss glueless. Sorry.
That said, there's enough people in this thread who have followed the instructions and still not had glueless work, and others (like operator) who do things differently than the instructions and have had good success. So your caricature of people "just all doing it wrong" isn't the story here.

Look above to see where I talk about the exact instructions that come with Park GP-2 patches.

Finally:

I understand your argument here, you're saying that the higher pressure will pinch the patch more tightly between tire and tube, as well as increasing pressure of air trying to bubble up out of the tube from the hole in the tire. And you may be right on this. This is basically a limit-question (as X increases, does Y increase at the same level, smaller or greater). I'd guess that the air trying to bubble up under the glueless patch would win out as pressure increased, but I'm not sure.

wrongdave

Seeing that some on the forum seem to have had glueless patches work for them, I may consider trying them again, but I tried a couple of different brands years ago (like 5 or 10 years ago) and was very dissapointed. Maybe they've improved since then, but I'd be sure to bring a standard patch kit as backup.

Raiyn

Better yet, have a spare tube.........

wrongdave

Actually that's kind of funny because I've carried a spare tube with me on all of my bikes for the last 15 years and have never used them (I may have used one). Sure, I've had many a flat but I always patch them preferring to keep my spare tube as a backup plan plus there's something rewarding about successfully patching a tube. I should also note that after a a few years of bouncing around in my seat bag with a multi-tool, the tubes tend to be in worse shape than the one I'm patching anyway.

I guess also have to admit I've also carried CO2 inflators on 2 of my bikes for the past dozen or so years and I think I only used one once, once again I prefer to keep it as my backup plan and end up using my pump instead. Maybe I have some issues I need to work out.

bellweatherman

I'm not going to diplomatically discuss that 2+2=3, when it clearly is not. You can scream all you want about following the directions, cleaning the tube real good, etc. etc. etc. till the cows come home. Been there. Done that. It ain't happenin' again. Say no to glueless sucky patches. I mean come on! There is some serious crack smoking going on with some of these foolish glueless advocates.

TallRider

Look, your having bad experiences with glueless (and me, and HillRider, and the majority of other users, knowledgeable or not, yes) does not mean that it's impossible some people could have had good success with them. Yes, we've established a pattern. No, we don't understand that pattern enough to apply it to all cases and conclude that pattern-breakers are smoking serious crack.

HillRider

I think we can add glueless patches (actually a misnomer but we all know what it means) to the list of contentious topics we will NEVER all agree about.

Like "The best chain lubricant", "Shimano vs Campy", "Do I remove factory chain lube or not?" and a few others. Various contributors have various experiences and can't understand why everbody hasn't had the same ones.

You can always tell these topics by the rapidity with which they reach two or three pages on this forum.

well biked

+1.....It actually kind of reminds me of a minor "debate" regarding the disconnection of SRAM Powerlinks. I can disconnect a Powerlink, by hand, every time within seconds, no problem. And yet there are a good number of people who resort to buying special tools to disconnect them, others curse at them, etc., etc. It's difficult for me to understand the problems, and I get a bit frustrated in seeing these reports (because from my experience they don't make sense). But at the same time, I don't doubt that Powerlinks do indeed give others problems when they try and disconnect them by hand, and in the end I think I should just consider myself (and others who don't have problems with them) fortunate with that particular item-