Anybody knows the difference between Schwalbe SV 6 and SV 6A?

https://www.schwalbetires.com/bike_t...ta_valve-40_mm

Is it a weight vs. reliability choice?

Thanks,

Kam

The 6 seems to weigh more than the 6A and it's almost 1/2 the price, and it's made in France, I guess (but with inch sizing?). I'd take the 6, but I'd call up first just to be sure.

But they all must be French. It says that at the top. $13.55 for a tube - the 6A? That's expensive.

well its the ultralite version ( 6 A) its double as expensvie and 50 grams or so ligther. I dont think that there is a lack of reliability as they are all tested before they pack them up in the box . Durability should be also the same as they use a little better rubber for the tubes. I think they use the same quality tube rubber as for their tubeless tires ...

Of course its a bicycle tube , meaning there are 100 ways to mess it up and have a flat after 3 hours or 3 weeks. Not counting the things on the road which you might have missed the last 3 years and now with the expensive tubes are magically drawn into ...
I dont sell them at this time as they are too expensive for my taste. But I always open to suggestions

Thor

Thor - I just went to your website. I'll put in in my Bookmarks for when I need parts. He's got those tubes at a better price than Schwalbe, Kamtsa, plus he's a bikeforum man.

Good move. I've only purchased one item from Thor (a Dahon suspension seatpost), but it was a very pleasant experience.

I'm not using the SV 6 / 6A in particular, i've got AV 7C's on my Pocket Llama.

The difference is weight, really. Yes, the tubes are twice the price and very expensive for a tube.

But really, think about it. You save 100 grams by spending an extra $15 on 2 tubes. That's a pretty damn good amount of weight saved for the money spent,

People will spend $100+ to save 100 grams, easily, on things like carbon fibre seatposts and bars, ultralight racing saddles and the like. This is a pretty easy way to kill 100 grams.

I've had no troubles using light tubes, ever.

I use those light ones on my Swift and only have good words for them. They are really so much better in air retention - with cheapies I would pump once a week; with Schwalbe, months go by between pumps. Literally. Mostly I only pump when repairing a puncture! I only use Schwalbe on all my bikes.

Worth the money, and I patch these many times over before thinking about chucking them in the bin. In fact I have yet to throw one away.

I can save 5lb and $50 by eating less of those burgers ;-)

Thanks Jur. I will give them a try. I also patch my tubes over and over and treat every patch as a badge of honor ;-)

Same here, on multiple occasions.

Kam

Thanks, jur. Good to know. I pump up my tires at least once a week. Looks like I'll be switching to Schwalbe AV 4s for my Tikit.

Schwalbe tires need Schwalbe tubes

FWIW I run Scwalbe tubes on many of my bikes and think they are well worth the money.

I also patch tubes on the rare occasion they need it.

Aaron

Are all these good things only referring to the expensive Schwalbe lightweight tubes or to all Schwalbe tubes?

All of them.

I recently had a very bad experience with a Schwalbe tube. It was in the 16" Schwalbe marathon rear wheel on my Downtube Mini. On two occasions I developed holes right through patches, which at the time I thought was bizarre bad luck, and I failed to find any cause for a puncture. You would think I left something stuck in the tire; but this was not the case. It's not that hard to do a thorough examination of a 16" tire, and anyway, I have a slime liner in there, and it's even easier to do a thorough examination of a slime liner. One of the initial holes was a staple that I found and removed; the cause of the other initial hole I never found. For both the second holes, through the patches, I never found the cause. Then last week I got another flat, this time in the inner edge of the tube, where you'd expect the problem was a spoke. So I examined the rim strip, and rim, and again: no problem, no evident cause for the hole. Patched it, put it together, pumped it up, put the bike back together. Minutes later, PWHOOSH and it's flat again. Now there's a hole on the inner side of the tube, a centimeter from the valve; patch it, pump it up, put the wheel back in the bike, adjust the brake again, and PWHOOOSH and it's flat again! Took it apart, and now there's a long gash on the inner side of the tube, starting near the valve, opposite the one I'd just patched. The gash was 10 - 15 cm long, no hope for a patch this time. This tube was about 7 months old, and had about eight patches in it, including the two new ones. I put in a new tube, a cheap Kenda one, pumped it up, put the bike back together, fully expecting something to go wrong again. But it didn't.

Still I waited, curious, so while waiting I ripped the ruined Schwalbe tube open to see what the patches looked like from the inside. Tearing it proved surprisingly easy; the butyl had a directional grain and pulled apart with very little tension. And it turned out that every patch in the tube had not a puncture under it, but a tear or, should I say, a crack. The patches were all adhering properly, but the hole under each patch had turned into a gash 10 - 15 mm long, reaching almost to the edges of the patch; and the evidently the new holes had formed in the patch inside this gash/crack/tear.

User error? Perhaps, of course. I've been patching tubes for over 30 years, and don't have a 100% success rate, but still... I have enough experience to know what to expect of the tire, the patch, and the tube. And this tube, it seemed to me, was an especially bad one.

I have never seen this before, and I assume Schwalbe uses a different kind of butyl than other tube manufacturers. It may hold air better, but it doesn't stretch as well, or something like that.

Oh, as for the tires, I should remark... Since November 2008 I have gone through four tires on this wheel, averaging around 1000 miles each. Two Primo Comets and two Schwalbe Marathons. I was shocked how fast the Comets wore out, but the Marathons did not fare much better. Now I'm on a Maxxis Hookworm.

I put Schwalbe tubes on my bike a couple years ago, and am still amazed at how well they hold air. In my opinion, better than any tube I have used in 55+ years of riding.

I'll never use anything else...... and - considering their performance, they are cheap on the Schwalbe website... delivered in a few days.

if you dont mind it would be interesting what schwalbe will say to that.. Did you email them ? They might want to take a good look at your tube... not that I am saying they are 100 % all the time, mistakes happen ( even I make some ) but they always have been very responsive and took care of any problem I shoot them their way.

thor
do you know what patch and what glue you used ? I had bad experience with park tool stuff couple years back...

What patch and what glue? No, and it's a good question. I have several patch kits, including an ancient Victoria Vulcofux shop kit I've had since the early 80's, Rema/Tiptop, Park and another kit that's a lot like those, sold in bike shops. I'd guess there are at least three different types of patches on that tube, and I'm not sure I could identify them if I tried.

I threw it out, but it's still in the trash can outside my house. If you think Schwalbe would want to see it, I can dig it out. In fact, Thor, I think I bought the tube from you, so if you want to treat it as a possible warranty issue, I can go dig for it. Your call (I know you didn't manufacture the tube, so I'm not blaming you, you understand).

"Tearing it proved surprisingly easy; the butyl had a directional grain and pulled apart with very little tension. "

That sure sounds like a bad tube, rhm. I wonder if maybe it was exposed to a lot of sunshine or heat somewhere along the line.

money wise its not worth it of course...
but if you can mail it to me I will get it to Canada ( Schwalbe is in Can) and they can take a look at it..
If I get some kind of refund I will pass it on of course .



all my tubes are brandspanking new from Schwalbe and kept away from anything electric and kept in boxes inside their shipping boxes ...

if you keep a tube next to a electric motor ..like blower from a furnace for example than it will age fast, same as if you keep it in sunlight

Thor

I know what this is - I have also had it! Annoyed the heck out of me but i didn't end up blaming the tube. I am fairly sure I have had it on others besides Schwalbe as well. Here's my analysis:

The patch has a thick middle that gets thin to the edges. You get a pucture, typically a piece of glass that puts a tiny gash in the tube. So you put a patch on, while the tube is in fairly flat state, thinking well that's OK and ride away.

Now the problem begins. As the tyre flexes each revolution, the patch needs to flex. But the problem is, the patch is thick - it is hard to smoothly flex. Plus, it was put on while the tube was down, so when inflated, the piece of tube under the patch is stretched less than the rest. That excacerbates the problem, because what now happens when the patch tries to flex, it actually bends, down the middle, inwards, as it gets pushed inwards by the tyre when it rolls on the road. This action stretches and bends the tube right through the tiny gash.

Now fast forward a couple thousand wheel revolutions forward. The gash in the tube slowly grows towards the edge of the patch. When it reaches the region that is stretched normally because the patch is very thin there, it suddenly tears and opens up a new hole at the side of the patch - whoosh.

How to combat this problem? I stopped using commercial patches and now make my own from old inner tubes. Cut a circular piece, wash very thoroughly with soap and water and stick in the patch kit. When used, apply rubber cement to both home-made patch and tube.

This has worked perfectly for me - never had another patch failure.

I agree with your analysis, and I agree that, annoying as it is, it's not the tube's fault if the patch develops a leak in this way. In no case did the crack extend all the way to the edge of the patch, so these cracks did not actually become leaks --except for the two holes through patches.

But fast forward to the end of the story, where the tube ruptured when I pumped it up. The tire didn't come off the rim; the tube ruptured inside the tire. I think the rubber of the inner tube should have enough elasticity to prevent that from happening. That's what I'm blaming the tube for.

There is yet another mechanism for tubes to fail near the valve; this has also happened to me early in my new 'riding career.'

What happens is this: With cheap rims, the well is quite deep and with Schrader valves, these easily become stuck in the valve hole, preventing the tube from seating properly into the well at the valve. So when you pump the tube, there is this section of tube at the valve which sits proud of the well, and the tube wall is quite thick in that area. Now the tube transitions to normal thickness and here, the pressure forces the tube into the well. This causes a huge stretching of the small section of tube between the valve reinforcement and and the rest of the tube; not only does the tube stretch vertically, but it actually gets stretched under the reinforcement until it butts up against the valve stem. Few tubes (even Schwalbe) can stand this sort of stretching.

So to prevent this sort of thing happening, pull the valve stem very firmly through the hole in the rim to ensure the reinforced section of tube around the valve seats properly against the well.

Yes, I am fairly sure the problem is along the lines you describe. My rim -Alex X-rim 1000- does indeed have a deep 'well'. This was actually my reason for wanting the Schwalbe tube, which is the only one I can find* that has the schraeder valve stem threaded all the way down.

Years of experience leads to confidence more surely than to competence, so user error is always a possibility. I suppose on my third reassembly of the tire I may have neglected to pull the valve stem all the way through the rim; if so, this could have caused the catastrophic damage described. Alternately, I think the reinforcement of the tube around the valve may have prevented the tube from seating properly even when pulled through as far as possible.

I wonder if there's a way to fill the 'well' up to the surrounding level -- a rim strip 4 mm thick? What could I use for that: some sort of foam, perhaps?

*except for old ones, such as Dunlop and Michelin. Those were good tubes.

I got the 6A tube. The marking on the box is the same as the 6 except that it says 'extra light' and the box has red background instead of green.

The folded tube is significantly more compact (see picture) and is thinner (2.6mm vs 3.8mm for a x4 fold). The material feels just the same though I don't know for sure. If the weight and folded size is the only difference between the two models, I think I prefer the thicker (and standard) one.

IMG_0214.JPG

Kam

The thicker one might be slightly more resilient against the smaller type of intrusions that cause punctures but I would expect the overall performance to be very similar.