Tire Liners
 

I have had a few flats lately. It only takes me 5-10 minutes to replace a tube, and I carry spares, but it is irritating. I'm wondering, therefore, about tire liners. What are the pros and cons? I ride 700-25 Paselas.

i use them on all my bikes. ride about 7-8000 mi per year. still get flats from time to time. some of them may even be CAUSED by the liners. it doesn't make any differerence because i get about twice as many without them. i use Tuffy Ultra lites. i wouldn't be surprised if the regular Tuffys provided more protection.

i can run the tires down to the casings without worry and without compromising protection. or so it seems. i run really thin and light tires, like 160-200 gram light.

there's a learning curve when replacing the liners after fixing a flat, but you'll learn...

Con : the end of the liner strip abrades the inner tube each time the wheel rotates ,

and will wear a Hole in the tube , by itself.

I've seen a few threads go on for quite awhile about liners......I think maybe in the Mechanics forum. Try a search there.

They are like tire and helmet threads. You spend a lot of time and end up reaching in your pocket for a coin.

I love my pasela tour guards, try a beefier tire.

There are a few hundred posts about tire liners as I remember. I'll summarize:

Half love them, ride 1000s of miles flat free, and move them from wheel to wheel.

Half hate them, accuse them of giving flats due to their sharp edges, and advise getting a modern tire with flat protection.

You're welcome.

I use Mr. Tuffy liners on my wide low-pressure mountain bike tires. I just make sure to sand down the edges of the liners, and use Duct Tape on the seams. I never get flats anymore.

I've never tried liners on high pressure tires. They might cause more problems than they prevent.

What about the alternative of running Stan's Sealant or similar in the tubes?

My flats are almost never big catastrophic punctures, but rather small pinholes that take the tire down over a couple of hours.

I've also thought about carrying a can of Vittoria Pitstop. I have used that product successfully for tubulars.

I've been using Mr Tuffy for a couple years now, and I guess I'm in the half that has never had any problem with the ends abrading the tube. They work great, they're cheap (a lot cheaper than the price bump for a quality flat-resistant tire, and you can move them from tire to tire indefinitely). In theory (in actuality) they add a weight penalty, and at the worst-possible place, the outer edge of wheel rotation. But in practice, only weight weenies would really care.

As for Stan's etc, I was wondering the other day why the mech forum hardly ever gets questions about stan's or homebrew tubeless conversions. I think maybe there's a practical upper limit to the PSI that stan's is good for, so you'd want to be running pretty wide tires (40-45 and up?) at relatively low pressures (40-45 and down?)

if your talking about things like "slime" I don't like that stuff anymore. Its messy and when you get a flat that it does not seal it is even a bigger mess.
For instance, to put air in a tire that has slime in it, you need to have the valve at the upper half of the rim, like between 9 and 3 or else when you hook up a pump, you get slimed.
after a while you will find slime in your pump or in your compressors air chuck
I have even had the slime not allow a shrader valve to close correctly after putting air in, letting the iar back out, then me having to fiddle with it only to pump it up again
I used to have slime in my main commuter but got tired of the mess
I then switched to Kevlar tires and even put in liners, only to get a puncture in the sidewall where the liners and Kevlar do not cover.
I now just run airstop ( thick tubes) and tires that have either Kevlar or the similar and don't ride my main commuter with half worn tires.

Con: it can deaden the feel of a nice supple tire and adds a few grams of rotating weight.

I read in the mechanics forum that if you get a small leak in a high pressure tire that the air pressure just pushes the slime out of the tube and makes a mess. So, I have never used in in a bike tire. It works great in my riding mower.

I had a better experience with slime tubes, but it could be coincidental. I will agree with above, though - when it goes, it GOES.

As for liners, I think the only ones I've seen with more yeys than neys are the ones where it's built into the tread, vs the ones that you manually place inside the tyre.

M.

Caffe latex, not slime.

Sometimes there are situations where tire liners are the only solution in beefing up a flat prone tire.

I've recently changed to Maxxis Detonator tires which are a perfect fit for my type of riding and commute, but are notorious for flats because of the very soft compound. Since I'm overweight, I have to run these tires at maximum pressure (100 psi) which means that any type of slime solution is out of the question, so I'm looking at installing tire liners.

Would this type of setup work, or would I end up having more flat's because of the edges of the liners?


I was Googling Caffelatex and found this nice article which has the pros/con on all tire sealants.

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/T...ants_2765.html

I'm sure it would work. If you're worried about the liner edges, you can try sanding or cutting them to a taper (you have a good 3-4-inch overlap to work with), or use a sacrificial hunk of rubber from an old inner tube to protect your real tube from the liner. But I've been using tuffys for years and have never seen any hint of abrasion. And I weigh 250 myself.

article is seriously amiss without mention of Orange Seal. Orange Seal is leaps and bounds ahead of the other sealant compounds and is rim safe as well.

I've been running it in my tubeless setup and am very pleased; it's already sealed up what would have been 2 significant flats in my tires. Excellent stuff with the right tire/wheel combo.

how much do you weigh? I'm at 205# and am running 28mm 700c @ 70/90 psi front/rear.

thanks for the above link, I went further after going to that site and found this article, cant wait for part 2 ( not yet published) part 1 was only done yesterday (1/25)

http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/T...rt_1_4147.html

when part 2 comes out, I might rethink my opinion on sealants

Funny test...using sealants with the tube/clincher is counterintuitive. Sealant is best, and meant, for a tubeless configuration.

Front tire, Schwalbe Marathon.... never a flat. Rear tire Botranger with tire liner...never a flat.. good 1000 miles on them now

Clearly half the posters around here have their heads on straight.

ok
part 2 of the sealant test
http://www.slowtwitch.com/Products/T...rt_2_4155.html

They work
But you do have to round the right angle edges(scissors)-and tape the edges and ends
I use duck tape
and you have to get the hang of reinstalling tubes-and pushing the liners to re-center them.

For those who say they don't work-gotta ask WHY?
If the answer is the sharp edge and ends- DUH- no kidding!!
Tape them-fabric rim tape-old fashion 1st aid tape-or duck tape or even package tape -gotta take the edge off them-and tape them

I wonder if you could sandwich in some steel mesh in the tyre somewhere, if that would help anything.

Eh, probably not. If that was a good idea it would already be a thing.

M.

Thanks all.

My conclusion is that I will order some tubes w/ removable cores and try using some sealant, to see if that works.