Forte Tubes!!!!
 

As someone who has just started cycling, I have been having an extremely bad luck.

I don't know whether this is a user error, but I have had two out of two Forte tubes fail on me in two days. Day 1: I put on the tube on my bike in the evening, pump it to 120PSI, and let it stay overnight. When I get up in the AM and have to mount the bike on my car rack, I notice it is completely flat. I couldn't believe that, so I pump it up to like 90 and place on the rack - after about 10 minutes it was flat again and I luckily noticed it before my bike got damaged during the 80 mile drive. When I got a chance too look at the tube, it had an X shaped failure around the valve. WTF? and I know I did not damage it with the levers because I do not use levers around the valve when I put on the tube. I could've overtightened the valve on the rim, but still, a failure like that? So that tube was likely trash, but I patched it anyway since it was my last spare.

Today the weather was finally good to ride. I had a new Forte tube in the rear and went riding. Three miles into the ride I go over this unevenness in the road. The friggin rear brand new tube immediately ruptures again!! I took it out and the rupture is again X shaped - and get this, no damage on the tire itself! Anyway, I had to replace this tube with the one I had patched before and by the time I was done I realized my finger was bleeding and it was getting dark - I had no lights or reflectors and have never ridden in the dark. I avoid getting run over by two cars and one truck and make it home. The reason I am making this post is that as I was sitting and doing some work here I heard this very loud noise. Sure enough, the rear tube has ruptured by just sitting around (only 90 PSI). I have no tubes left. Is there something I am doing wrong or is it that Forte tubes are POS? I was almost considering getting my money back. An utter waste of almost $10 dollars.

I don't know if anyone can top my bad luck here. To top it off, rains start tomorrow again and I am not going to be able to ride until next week. And this in SoCal, where for years we barely saw any rain. That is, until I got my bike.:twitchy:

Sounds like defective tubes.

Check your rim tape and the inside of the rim. Also, make sure that you are not twisting the tubes as you put them in. A twisted tube will often pinch flat itself. Check to ensure the tire is seated on the rim also before you pump it up or you could be pinching the tube between the tire and the rim.

Could be a bad production run.

I would switch brands and wait awhile before buying forte tubes again to make sure you get the next product run.

i use Forte lunar light tubes and they are great! i have had no problems like you are having and they are light (50g) so i couldnt be happier. my guess is it has to do with the installation. do as the above post stated and also make sure you do not tighten the nutt on the valve to much. you might also want to check your rim where the valve hole is drilled and make sure it doesnt have any sharp edges. if so sand them down.

I use these with no problems.

http://www.pricepoint.com/detail/174...--Set-of-5.htm

I am trying to make sure. What I do is partially inflate the tube, place it inside the tire, and then mount the tire on the rim starting at the valve. Sometimes I have to deflate the tube when I am putting on the last portion of the tire on the tube, but once it's on, I don't think I can check for twists. I don't think I will have any major twists that would not realign themselves as I am inflating the tube. And yes, the tire sits perfectly on the rim (clinchers are utilized).

My rim tape is fine along with the rim. The failure occurred on the outside of the tube anyway. I'll check everything yet again when my new tubes and tires arrive.

I have placed an order for Nashbar tubes for now, which were also inexpensive. But those tubes are pretty low priced and since you have used them without issues, maybe my next order will be from them. Since I'm in CA, I always have to pay tax (~10%), be it computer parts or bike parts. Sucks royally.

I have used nothing but Forte tubes since I started riding 5 years ago. I usually buy 5 at at time when they go on sale. I have one or two fail on me but the tubes I have on the bike now have probably been in use for two years.

You can go back to Performance Bike and they will replace the tubes with new ones.

Repeating tube failures are extremely easy to diagnose. Extremely easy when there in person. Based on what you described so far - and you weren't specific in your first post ...so much so I like others believed that you had a rim strip problem until you clarify later that it is on the outside of the tube. If the failures are int eh same general position with relation to the stem and are the same rough shape then you have something embedded in your tire casing.

I told you the first time Excelsius... http://www.bikeforums.net/showthread...!!!?highlight=

The sooner you listen to me, the less frustrated you'll be.
Trying to save the cost of a Big Mac on tubes is senseless.
Get good quality tubes like I did and watch how much happier you'll be.
Again, The Big Mac will be gone in 5 minutes, but great tubes will last you for miles.

I got a lot of great advice here from people (some on this thread)
and I jumped through all the hoops but as expected,
the culprit in my case was "cheap tubes".

I'm all about quality.
It might take me a little longer to put my bike together,
but once it's completed, I know I'll have a great bike.
And I won't have to worry about it.

Do yourself a favor...buy good tubes and be done with it and spend
more time riding instead of replacing tubes and being frustrated! :thumb:

How much are those Forte (fuggetaboutit) Tubes? $3.? $4?

Spend $1-2. more and get the best...

http://images.productserve.com/previ.../104368257.jpg

Nice tubes are nice and they don't cost much more but figure out why you're getting the failures first - otherwise you're wasting your time and money.

Agreed. As shown in my link to my own experiences in my thread, I checked every possible problem
(installation technique, rim, tire for debris, tires themselves, where/how I rode, etc...)
and reduced everything to cheap tubes.

Once I decided to go "quality", I never had another flat hundreds of miles later on the same roads/rims.
I don't think anyone has ever regretted using really good equipment.

OP...Hand wringing over a dollar or two is a waste of time IMO.

:)

I had problems with valves on the those. ^^^^

Maybe the tubes are presta valve and rims have a schrader hole. With that setup, what you described will happen every time no matter what the tubes are.

http://www.bikepartsusa.com/bikepart...item=01-123873

Those tubes are worthless, but they should do better than that, you're doing it wrong. Still threaded valve stem = fail.

Have your shop fix both your tires/wheels, watch how their tech does it, go for a ride.

I use the REI branded Kenda tubes. Cheap, often on sale, smooth valve stem, I've got well over 1,000 miles on my current ones flat-free with gp4000's. *knock on wood*

I've had bad runs of tubes for short stretches. Worth trying to figure out why if it's recurrent.

Short of that -
- Good tubes help. I love the Bontragers which are typically $7 but have solid stems and are much more rip-resistant than Nashbar ones in my experience. Those nashbar ones often rib when you're tire levering off the tire, but the Bontys never do.
- A patch kit is super-helpful for these stretches (sounds like you've got one already - good for you!) Nothing more annoying than putting on a tube and having it go flat seconds later due to an unseen thorn/etc. With a patch, that tube is still good to go. (Don't use the glueless patches, though.)

I've also been using mosly Forte (or whatever Performance branded them as before) tubes since at least 2004. I think that I've had, at most, 2 valve failures and those have always happened after the tube had been in use for several months. So you either got a bad batch, or as Psimet said you've got something embedded in your tire, or the rim tape is not fully covering the valve hole (if the rim valve hole has some roughness, this might rub against the base of the tube valve and mess it up). Again, I've had nothing but good luck with Forte tubes and many other Performance house brand stuff (I've got a red Ascent branded floor pump that just refuses to die...I've had to return Topeak and Park pumps in the past but my cheapo red Performance pump still works like a charm!)

Forte Tubes suck. Don't waste your money.

Get some basic Kenda or QBP-branded tubes and you'll be fine. They work well and are a lot cheaper than Conti tubes.

:) - they are all from the same manufacturer. Q's and Performance's are the same tubes - Chen-Shen or some such factory.

That many tubes can't be faulty no matter how cheap they are. Same thing happened to me long time ago when I switched from schrader to presta without realizing it doesn't work that way without the adopter.

What is it about threaded stems that you don't like?

The fact that then newbs will actually use the nut that comes with them and then they will over tighten it and cause the tube to fail at the valve.

...but agreed - many more important things to get panties in bunch over - like dork discs.

Newbs like the OP can't erroneously use the nut, overtighten, and mess up the tube at the base of the stem, like he keeps complaining of. Dunno if that's his problem, but seen it before.

With a silica pump, smooth stem seals WAY more reliably and easier. Also removes smoother and doesn't chew the seals of the pump head.

In the OP's defense he specifically states in a later post that the failure is on the "outside" of the tube - meaning opposite of the valve or directly under/in contact with the tire.