Originally Posted by
fullergarrett
So not all of my experiments are impractical. But I've also wanted to see how long riding on a tube (with no tire casing) would last... I'm guessing not too far.
It would depend on the setup.
A regular tube can't hold the pressure to offset your weight, unless you go with a truck tube (large size).
On the other hand, I've found the thornproof tubes to be odd beasts.
A few years ago I had a blowout (blown off bead) with my 16x3 trailer tires.
I was stuck with whatever I could scrounge at Walmart. I was able to get the tire to hold by using a 16x(1.75?) thornproof tube blown up to about 30 PSI, and holding about 3" of blown bead in place.
Now, trying to hold say a 26" thornproof tube on a 26" rim could be problematic.
One option might be to downsize one size, so try a 24" thornproof tube on a 26" rim, or similar. But, there still would be a risk of rolling the tube.
You could also try gluing the tube onto a sewup/tubular rim. If you haven't used those, they have a concave surface where the tire is glued to. One still as to deal with stretch. I'd probably again try an undersized tube such as 26" or 650B on 700c.