Most of the bikes I’m looking at seem to have tubed tyres, T100, Enfield 650, speedmaster etc. Now I have a real phobia about tubed tyres, when I last had them I got punctures at the worst times, example:
On the way to the porstmouth ferry for a holiday, I got a puncture while riding on the M25 in roadworks. The ‘free’ recovery arrived and took me off the M25 and dumped me down a side road. They pointed me to a hut down a grass bank where I could use the work phone to call my AA recovery. They arrived in a small van, yep agreed with me it was a puncture(!), but had to call out the ‘big’ recovery wagon. This arrived, by now it was past midnight, no shops were open so my holiday insurance covered a hotel for the night. Tyre fixed next morning, off I went to portsmouth, they couldn’t fit me on until 7:00pm ferry, spent a wet day wandering portsmouth. Got back to ferry port, 1st in queue for check in. Bloke opened the window to start processing us, another fella came out of an office block shouted across to him, he closed the window packed up and walked off… I got hold of an employee. They’d just gone on strike… Holiday cancelled.
Heading overland to Greece, I was in the mountains of switzerland, going downhill enjoying the hairpins, got a front wheel puncture, bit of a tankslapper, stopped on the gravel edge. Luckily had a friend with me who rode down and came back with a bloke in an open backed pickup. Loaded the bike in and had to sit on the bike to keep it upright as we wound down the mountains. It was a sunday, nothing open, so hotel again and fixed the next day…
Ok this was a tubeless tyre but I’d not packed my puncture repair kit. Needed recovery, the gorilla strapped the bike down so well it blew a fork seal. (OK the early trophys were renowned for that).
I’ve had a puncture on a tubeless tyres and have repaired it and been back on the road within 30mins. Hopefully this explains why I have a phobia of tubed tyres.
So I’ve stayed away from tubed bike since those days, but… So after that, if you’re still with me, what do you do to deal with punctures in tubed tyres?
I’ve looked at outex tubeless conversions https://www.ebay.co.uk/str/outex, additives to the tube such as slime, carrying tyre levers, rim protectors and spare tubes but these bikes don’t have a lot of space to carry things. One of the youtube channels I watch nathan millward (nathanthepostman) has had success with those cans full of repair gunk in tubed tyres and says he always carries one (i.e tyreweld https://www.holtsauto.com/holts/products/tyreweld/). Just trying to see if I’ve missed anything or something I’ve mentioned you’ve used and it does/doesn’t work.
Yes a real dilemma @wattie . Must admit I don’t think I would tour on my Thruxton for the very same reason. Spoked wheels and tubes making road side repairs difficult.
In my distant youth, when all tyres were tubed, I fixed several punctures at the roadside. It wasn’t much fun, but it could be done. Bikes were easier to work on in those days, and tyres were probably a bit more flexible and easier to remove. And it was normal to carry a set of tools, and bikes had toolboxes for the purpose. Mobile phones hadn’t been invented, so calling up a recovery truck usually wasn’t an option.
It’s why l bought the SE Bonneville. Quite happy to sacrifice a bit of authenticity for a bit easier life in the event of a puncture. Otherwise l guess it’s levers and patches-and ideally a centre stand
Thanks for the response, it’s funny but I’ve also been drawn to the 865 SE and the Street twin for the very same reasons. Seems like I’m not alone with my phobia.
It is a pain, but as dave says it is do-able, centre stand helps and as long as you can locate the actual puncture you only need to pop the area of the tube that requires patching out, heavy duty tubes help as they’re less likely to get pinched on the tim when you push the tube back in. The other option is to tape & seal the rim to effectively make it tubeless (I’m not a fan) but it is an option.
Tubes put me off big time too for the same reason! And I’m buying a bonnie. So I haven’t decided what route to go yet. The slime route seems the easy option but I don’t have confidence (or experience) in it. Pre fill the tubes type seems the sensible way but I don’t like the thought of riding on a puncture unknowingly. What ever caused the puncture is still going to be in there, is that going to cause it to leak again?
I deal with punctures by phoning the accident recovery company I’m with that year, or by getting lucky and rolling down a hill into a garage that can help me. Thought about ‘gloop’ and the like in inner tubes, but very dubious that would actually work. For several years when on tour I’ve carried a spare inner tube so have right size for other people to fit, but only time I’ve had to get it fixed on the road was that lucky roll-into-garage day, and didn’t have it then and they got tube patched. Now I’ve stopped carrying spare tube to leave space for other stuff.
If you change your own tyres slime is fine, if you take it to a shop for tyre fitting with slime in they’ll charge you extra as it’s an absolute bastard of a job to clean a rim that has had slime in it, we used to charge 1/2 hr labour per rim.
One of the positives I heard about prefilled tubes is, if the tube deflates it tends to be slower, like a tubeless. Unless the tube rips of course. I know that my tubed punctures went down very quickly and left me in no doubt that I had a puncture. Both the tubeless punctures happened a lot slower, to the point I thought something was wrong and stopped to check rather than knowing straight away.
When I used gloop and went to change the tyre I always found it had become semi solid along the outer most diameter or middle of the tyre. It never leaked out during tyre changes just sat in a 40mm band, semi set. I dont know anything about the science, but it didnt instill confidence. Also that the amounts instructed to use didnt seem to me to be enough when you saw it in the old tyre
Let us know how you get on with the goop stuff. It goes in before there’s a puncture so was thinking about putting it in all the builds.
I’d renew tyre and tube after a puncture so not worried about mess just getting home wothout having to call the “well, if you give us another £300 we’ll try to send a van out by tomorrow to pick you up” robbers.
