Tire liners
 

I am looking for feedback on tire liners.

I recently had a flat that had two holes made by small slivers of
glass.

I use Continental City Ride tires at about 45 p.s.i. on an old Raleigh
3-speed.

I read some reviews on tire liners, but got conflicting experiences
with the same tire liner.

What has been your experience?

Do thicker inner tubes help?

Andy

My one experience with green Slime-brand liners is that they actually caused a flat. The sharp edge of the liner dug into the tube.

I have been using them with no problems. I have the odd tire wire that makes it through, but no flats other than that. Some say the liner will rub through the tube, just has not happened to me yet. I have about 2000 miles with them.

I have Kevlar liners on my city hybrids, no flats in 2 years since putting them in. Nothing on my road bikes, lucky so far. Andy

On our 26 by 1.95 tires I run Tuffy liners on both our bikes. I have had no problems with the liners cutting into tubes. When I place the liners in the tires before mounting them on the rims I run a piece of Gorilla tape over the joints.

With our 700 by 32c tires on both hybrids I use liners. Again. Tape over the joints.
I had run Conti tires on the hybrids but still had a few flats with the puncture resistant tires.

We have had no puncture related flats as long as we use the liners.

I've been running Mr. Tuffys since 1993. In all my MTB and clincher road tires.

For MTBs I keep 'em uncut. On road tires I can feel the lump in the overlap, so I install, ride a few miles, cut along the indent left by the overlap. Feather the cut edge with sandpaper or just on a rough sidewalk and reinstall.

I was tempted to keep riding on this tire with a Mr. Tuffy, but wimped out and got a new tire.

Oh, you can see a hunk of glass in there to the left. You need to inspect tires and dig those out from time to time as they'll eventually make it through the liner.

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3422/...05b74c38_z.jpg

Data is not the plural of anecdotes, but here's my $0.02. I think the tire itself plays a bigger role in flat resistance than the presence/absence of a liner. I rode 1400 miles on my Bontrager Satellite Plus 26-inch tires without a flat:

https://a248.e.akamai.net/f/248/9086...0,0&iccEmbed=0

I rode over a lot of glass with impunity. I used a Mr. Tuffy liner inside the tires the whole time. I switched the tires on the bike to Kenda K-Rads, and reinstalled the liners. The first time I was out riding on the K-Rads, I rolled over some glass and flatted. The glass went through the liner like it wasn't even there.

http://www.kendausa.com/media/570779/k905.jpg

Now I have about 2500 miles on Continental Gatorskins, with no liners. No flats, knock on wood.

They're great. Inexpensive, reusable, easy to install, and very effective.
Downsides are they're heavy, need a little scissor work and a bit of duct tape to install, and increase rolling resistance. The only issue I've heard of was with running tires at a very low pressure, they may chafe the tube.

Be sure to trim the edge to a nice curve, and stick a layer or two of duct-tape over the end.

If you have your LBS install the liners, be sure they put in the right size. My LBS once installed some for me. They put some in at were for wider tires than mine. The liners would work their way around the inner tube to the side. It was quite frustrating.

Just an added expen$e that did nothing for us.
Tireliners: just as many flats as before; some caused where the liner overlapped/joined.
Goop inside tires: when you do get a flat, it's not fixable. You need to clean the goop off the tube and inside of tire. Messy!
Solid tires: Tough to install/remove. OK on supersmooth roads. LOUSY riding on bumpier roads and like riding an earthquake when crossing cattleguards or RR trax.
We use tires with Kevlar. Maxxis Re-Fuse 700x25s are out favorite.
The occasional flat is not an issue. That's why they invented spare tubes/patchkits!

Oooh, yeah. Slime in road tires has to be bad news. It's great for sealing goats heads holes in 40psi MTB tires, though. I did get a couple of big gashes in MTB tires that wouldn't seal. I was able to patch, but took some extra time to "toothpaste tube" all the slime away from cut. Soap and water cleaned up the rim and rimtape after I got home.

Always cut liners to fit in road tires (I actually cut mine 1-2 mm short). Feather the cut edge very well.
I carry spare tubes and run Mr. Tuffys. I take two tubes, 1 spare tire and a patch kit on some solo centuries.

That was my experience with the Slime-brand liners. They cut through the tubes very quickly. Mr. Tuffys, however, have been hassle free for years and years in all kinds of tires.

Thick tubes don't realy help. It just takes longer for the glass or wire stuck in the tire to wear its way through the tube. If you're getting frequent flats or just hate the idea of changing tubes on the road then either tire liners or tires with flat resistant kevlar belting in them help a lot. Contrary to what some here have found I only installed one set of liners one time and found them to be a proper PITA. But once the liners take a set to the tire I don't doubt that they are easier. A shop owner hates liners. He says he sees more flats from the edges cutting into the tube than flats from stuff that goes through the liner. So apparently careful placement of the liner and careful handling to ensure that the tube is not caught under the edge of the liner is needed. This means having lots of educated fingers when installing the tube and liner to ensure that all the stuff is in place. If you don't change out flat tubes a lot then you may find it's awkward to do all this at the same time. In that case either just live with the need to swap out the tubes from the occasional flat or look at buying kevlar belted flat resistant tires.

Schwalbe Marathon +, .. the tire liner is put under the tread. part of the tire.

I too have had tireliners cause abrasion leaks where they overlap.

It Moves a little with every rotation.

My experience with Slime tire liners is an absolute win. They tell you not to cut them, but I measured carefully and cut so no overlap or shortage. Paying for thicker rubber which may or may not help makes less sense to me than the small amount of cash spent for liners. Of course, we're talking about protecting a tube here - any glass cuts you get will compromise the tire, making it necessary to get a new one anyway (in some cases). I guess you could say six of one, half a dozen of the other.

It probably depends
 

Based on my own experience there are probably more factors involved than that. Liners have never given me an issue, but I wouldn't recommend installing them in tires that are going to be run at low pressures. that means IMO that your 45PSI is marginal and if the pressure drops just with regular air loss you'll run the risk of the tire and liner rotating on the rim under heavy braking. Personally that's my opinion of the circumstances that can cause issues with liners and was probably a factor in people that had cuts from liners. Likewise, without a liner, low pressures will give the tire AND tube an opportunity to rotate and occasionally rip the valve stem out of the tube.

I've routinely installed thick-walled tubes (some come with a sealant already installed) on electric bikes where its a real nuisance to change a rear flat. They work well, but glass slivers are hard to stop. As some other posters have already mentioned - a Kevlar belted tire is probably the best solution to that kind of issue, but they're not cheap and unless its a consistent problem, I personally couldn't justify the additional expense. High performance tires like Schwalbes can give a lot of mileage, but most people I've seen have had to change the tires while the tread depth was still good simply because they stored the bike outside and UV damage after a number of years resulted in the rubber crazing and literally coming off the tire in chunks. I'm using VeeRubber City Wolves ($15) on my own hybrid during the summer. I'll probably get about three years out of them, but my bikes get stored inside..

A glass sliver doesn't usually scrap a tire and a new tube is probably only $5. In my own area, I ride with a kit that includes a spare tire, tube, tire leavers and CO2 cartridge and have never needed any of them on the road in 10 years. No liners in any wheels, but I'm also pretty much on bike paths almost continuously. Your neighborhood may be completely different.

Which brand/model??? I was not aware that there are kevlar liners. Just hard plastic ones?

There are Spinskins Duro or Panaracer FlatAway. I've never tried those. Wonder if they're worth the extra dough.

I once tried Mr. Tuffys on 26" mtb tires. Even with careful installation the liners wore and caused bulges on the tread. Granted, I put them into low-priced Kenda tires. But after trying various things I am sold on reinforced tires like the Marathon Pluses that I have on my hybrid or the Conti Gatorskins that I have on the road bike. They cost a bit more but they sure do last a long time, and I rarely have to fix flats. The only time I would use liners would be if I was constantly exposing my tires to sand burrs (goatheads).

Therein is the reason I use them. Goat heads (different from sand burrs around here) are every where in Colorado. Mr. Tuffy ...and a modicum of knowledge on how to avoid the goathead fields...goes a long ways towards not having to fix flats all the time.

Case in point, I took 3 other people (8 tires total) down to see the dinosaur tracks in the Picketwire Canyon area one fall. We had 27 flats. One person...whose avoidance knowledge was zero...managed to get 20 goatheads caused flats. The other 7 flats were distributed between the remaining 3 bikes (6 tires). One bike had tubeless tires and he picked up 6 flats. One bike had Mr. Tuffys in one tire only...sorry Dear:o...and it got the last flat in the non-Tuffy equipped tire.

My Mr Tuffy equipped bike was the only one of the 4 that made it out of the canyon with full tires. To be honest, I did end up with a flat the next day...it's impossible to miss all of the damned things:twitchy: But they worked for me and they worked better than the tubeless tire.

Pressure? I run 40 psi on the rear tire of my mountain bike. I seldom have abrasion issues.

My opinion:
-Kevlar/Aramid belted tires stop large objects, nails etc.
-Urethane tire liners stop glass slivers, nail points, etc.
-Using both stops everything.

Tire liners need to be installed carefully: feather the edge with heat or sand paper and use plenty of talc to prevent the liner from vulcanizing to the tube. Get the right width for your tire and be mindful of installation and you're golden.

Oh, and thicker inner tubes do not protect against flats. They do, however, slow down leaks, both due to punctures and general air loss through the tube wall.

A couple years ago I did the Southern Tier, just a bit over 3,200 miles. On one of the last days of my ride I met 6 cyclists who were also finishing the crossing of the U.S. They all were using Schwalbe Marathon + tires, and between all 6 of them, they experienced 2 flats. Next time, you can be sure I'll be on Marathon +.

My co-worker had the same experence with the liners (3 flats in 4 months) he removed them when I told him I thought the liners were doing it because of the lines on the tubes and actually has not had a flat in the last year.

Thanks for all the replies and good info.

When I had the glass induced flat, I was riding through an "industrial zone."

With a posted speed limit of 45, I chose to ride on the sidewalk.

Half the sidewalks were sunken in and peppered with broken beer bottles.

It was fixing to rain and I was in a hurry.

I am thankful that the air did not leak out fully til I got to my destination. :-)

Andy

Just to add, it pays to inspect your tires regularly. A big enough chunk of glass or wire may be stopped initially, but you don't want to leave it in the tire to get worked in and possibly through the liner.