Originally Posted by
Symox
Partly because my butyl tubes work great.
It depends on your criteria. Butyl tubes are inexpensive, hold air moderately well (better than latex but reportedly not as well as TPU), and tend to be less efficient than other tube types by 5+ watt per tire in a road bike sized tire. I know this is touring, but 10+ free watts is not something I am inclined to sneeze at and I would imagine it is more in a larger tire size, but I am guessing on that. They also offer a less supple road feel. Apparently that last is lost on many, but it is important to some.
Durability is better by some measures, but I have found them actually more prone to snake bite flats than latex for off raod MTB usage. Weight and bulk when carrying multiple spares becomes a bigger deal too.
Personally I actually like latex better for most usage, but got away from them mostly due to lack of easy availability and price. I wound up kind of hitting a middle ground by using butyl, but choosing the light weight ones and sizing them as amall as possible, sometimes under the recommended size range (width). That did mean topping off daily or at least very frequently depending on the tire size. The thin undersized butyl tubes were almost as bad as latex for bleeding down without being as supple.
I'd still consider consider latex, but since I have a bunch of butyl in stock and TPU is now an option I am unlikely to buy latex. I just might consider TPU, but have to say that I really have found tubeless to be a god send on my mountain bike so if buying or building up a new wheel set I'd consider going tubeless.