That was my experience Nick. We rarely patched tubes. I did do many tubular patches and resew’s though. I’ll never do that again..
The retail cost of tubes is enough to have me fixing them, and speaking from experience, nearly all my spare tubes have a patch on them. No probs to date with the patches lifting off when rolled up. I could totally imagine this happening with a pre-glued patch tho. Thats a cool hack with the TPU tubes @Jonathan_Lau
If it isn’t already clear from the discussion… let the glue dry! I rode 12 Great Victorian Bike Rides as a travelling basic mechanic/support, and repaired up to a dozen punctures a day (think 3000+ riders, including 1000 school kids, on country roads, over 9 days). The only failures I had was when I was impatient, or it was pouring rain and the glue wouldn’t dry.
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Has anyone had difficulties finding the leaks in TPU tubes? I flatted one the other day. Went to patch it today, but when I pumped it up and held it under water to find the leak, I couldn’t see any bubbles. The tube stayed inflated. Reinserted the tube into a tire and pumped it up to full pressure, 55 psi, and it lost pressure within minutes.
Valve to tube problem that shows with higher pressure?
Yep - agree - Rema is ‘tip top!’
Yes, it can be quite difficult, since you can’t add too much pressure when they’re out of the tire.
If you have good ears, patience, a quiet room and a bit of luck you may be able to hear the leak when it’s pumped up in the tire, then mark the spot and try to get the patch on it.
Thanks. I pumped up both TPU tires that had been flatted. The one that had been patched went flat with minutes of installation. Could not find the leak on the other one, so I reused it as is. Held air for a while, but by the next morning it had gone flat. I guess I’m going to have to accept that TPU tubes are single-use.
If it’s a thorn or glass the hole will form a bubble very slowly in water. Those holes can be patched. Anything around the valve and it’s a new tube…
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