Tire liners for flat preventions
 

What do you think about these? Do they work? Do you use it on your commuter or mtn bikes? Which one do you prefer? Is this better than puncture resistant tubes? I'm thinking about the using one of these for my ebike commuter. Just curious about people's experiences.

https://tannusamerica.com/

Product Line

Pretty pricey. If I felt the need for a tire liner I would probably try a Mr. Tuffy first at a much lower cost.

Instead of a tireliner, just buy tires with better flat protection.
There are dozens on the market.
I've been impressed with Schwalbe so far.
https://www.schwalbe.com/en/start

I've never tried tire liners, and it might be worth noting that I've never known anyone else who has used them, either. They're sold at the shop I sometimes work at, but the only people who inquire about them are beginning riders. As CAT7RDR says, everyone else just buys tires with good flat protection and foregoes the trouble, weight, and complication of stuffing more things in their wheels. The perhaps obvious (but potentially more expensive) answer is to convert to tubeless, but that's not necessarily practical for everyone or every bike.

I like tire liners especially so i can run light, supple tires and still not have to stop frequently for flats. Sure, I could buy Gatorskins, or Tannus' solid tires, or carve tires out of wood. Lots of ways to make it all work.

Tubeless is not a panacea. When a tubeless tire develops a leak which will not seal, yet you find the tire completely glued to the rim by dried sealant, the thought of a half-hour wrestling the tire off to stick in the emergency tube .... I opted to just pump up repeatedly since I was only a couple miles out. had I been mid-ride, i would have had no choice but to fight the thing ... and I have spent 45 minutes fighting a recalcitrant tire. Not my idea of a good time.

Tubeless has its benefits .... but I am not sure that they are sufficiently beneficial to overcome the drawbacks. Offroad, where low pressure and hard impacts go hand-in-hand, sure. On pavement, not so sure.

I cannot say a tire liner has ever prevented what would otherwise have been a puncture. i can say I seem to notice fewer flats since I installed them in all my bikes .... but I would need to go back through five or seven years of spread-sheets to verify, and I simply don't care that much.

That's what's wrong with the world---people just don't care any more. I have met the enemy and I am me.

If you ever had to remove the liner (mine was Vittoria air liner) to put a tube in on the trail, geeez C…. lol. What a damn pain. And they all say you can ride it flat. I don’t know about that. Was pretty sketchy not damaging the wheel. I didn’t chance it. I walked back to my vehicle.

Wouldn't waste money on Mr. Tuffys if I was getting flats I would look at getting a high quality tire with good puncture protection like what Schwalbe makes and maybe consider tubeless and if not Tannus armour isn't so bad just a pain to get on and off but it doesn't provide more encompassing protection.

Honestly on my Schwalbe Super-MotoXs I have gotten 2 flats and one was a huge nail that surprisingly didn't go through the rim it was quite long and I only noticed it when I got the bike inside so it didn't end my ride and I am still using that same tire I believe and just a new tube. I have a ton of spare tubes just in case but honestly I haven't had an issue and I do ride the bike nearly every day and it is a very heavy bike and truthfully I don't pump the tires that often because they hold quite well. Typically I pump most of my tires every two weeks or so in normal usage but this one I check it frequently but they don't loose a ton of air.

It's a personal decision, based on how good you are at repairing punctures on the road or trail. I've patched so many tires, including in the rain and in the dark, it's a five-minute job and doesn't really phase me. And I habitually leave ten minutes extra on every ride that has a time constraint for that reason. Since I've learned about the flat protection in some expensive tires like Gatorskins, and now that I can afford them, I use them happily and often get through a season without a single flat.

I used Tuffy liners for quite a few years and they worked well enough, except after a year or so the liners themselves would wear through a tube and actually cause a flat.

It depends on what kind of flats you are getting. A daily commuter in Colorado i had been getting goat head thorn punctures at the rate of 2 to three a month. Since I began using tire liners 20 years ago it is now more like 1 to 2 a year. I've tried more robust tires, and summer very grippy, but they are not supple. They have been a judge to ride Tire liners allow me to use soft sidewald tires and have that extra puncture protection.

I will say that the tire liners are not a panacea. Glass shards, Metal slippers and other road debris can work their way into the tire and eventually through or around the tire liner. But for my type of writing that is rare. I have had Machine screws and refers nails go right through my tire, And I don't know if a more robust tire would have stopped that.

The question is what do you hope to achieve and what are you willing to sacrifice to achieve it. For my type of commuting in my area I have been very happy with tire liners in supple tires.

I used Tuffy liners on my old mountain bike years ago to ward off flats from large thorns. I used to get flats every time I rode in the woods behind my house, from inch long thorns. The liners stopped that.

Now though, there are better tires on the market, and for the road especially, I do not see the need for liners. As long as you buy a good quality tire, and keep them aired up properly for the weight of you and the bike combined, flats shouldn't be much of a problem. I had only one flat on my touring bike, and that was near the end of the tire's life, it had over 3,000 miles on it.

Have you ever rode back home on a flat with these liners installed.

I use Vittoria airliners (tire liners for road bikes) in my gravel bike, which I also commute on so I like being able to ride it even if it goes flat. Used it on a road bike but the better tubeless tires with puncture protection like the GP5000s are mostly so good that I don't bother anymore. The tire liners absolutely work and are ridable; a flat front tire is a bit sketchy. Vittoria claims they work as run-flats up to 50km and that's exactly what I got on a torn sidewall once before the tire liner disintegrated inside the tire and I had to get on a bus (I wasn't nursing it, was doing a constant 200W).

When the tire still holds a little air, it's pretty OK to ride on them. Rode a few times back home 20-30km on them when I was experimenting with TT tires without any flat protection on a road bike (doesn't quite work well) where the tire would hold a bit of air. They make removing tires harder, though.

On a commuter, I went from tire liners and slime to Marathon Plus and never looked back and never had a flat.

Not sure about the tannus solid tire.
I'd try a set out for free but I'm not paying for an experiment.

I agree, thicker tires with flat protection run harsh, it is much more fun riding supple smooth fast running lighter tires with liners instead. I live and ride in Goat head country and I have been getting maybe less than a flat a year while been riding at least 15 miles everyday but some of my rides are tubeless, more fun riding those with less air in tires