14R 

Just an idea: wallet

CliftonGK1

I saw a messenger bag made of old inner tubes when I was at Whole Foods last week.

I use old tubes for tie-downs in the back of my Jeep.
My dad uses them for tree supports for young (under 2" trunks) trees.

Tapeworm21

Strangle defenseless baby animals with them.

AlucardZero

Cut the valve off, make a hole in a bottle cap( soda preferably), blow up to 70-90 PSI, make sure it's not leaking fast. Buy a BB gun, shoot and enjoy the bang. I found that a week ago out of boredom thinking, if mythbusters can make that, so can I.

lil brown bat

Kids today, I swear. Slingshots!

bradchandler

You can cut them into strips, maybe 1 inch wide, and use them to tie things to your rack. They work better than a bungie cord since they seem to stretch more and conform to the shape of your cargo.

ItsJustMe

Make patches out of them for the next tube. Cut them diagonally to make rubber bands to hold your spare tube rolled up.

At the rate I'm getting holes and going through tubes, I may be generating as much as one old tube every 10 years! Actually the valve stem will probably die before then. But my current 3 tubes (2 on the bike, one in the bag) have been going for 2 years now, and there's only 2 patches between them.

My current patches are made from a tube that I bought as a spare, and it was on the shelf so long (3 years) that it degraded and cracked long the side exposed to sunlight.

Mauriceloridans

I rewove a canoe seat with old bike tubes. More comfortable than nylon,poly or cane.

twobikes

I have cut them up to use as protective cushion layers between my frame and a homemade attachment for something I wanted on the bike.

ItsJustMe--Do you use regular patch adhesive when using a tube for patch material?

CliftonGK1--I like the idea of using them as tie downs. I just made a bike carrier to go on top of my wife's Subaru Forester and need some tie downs, but do not like bungee cords for the job. Thanks.

recursive

Wow... I'm going through maybe 1/month, even with patches.

Valve malfunctions/large gashes/slow leaks/etc

same time

Makes great handlebar tape for a city/beater bike. Top tube protection, too, for locking up to posts.

JohnBrooking

Small sections of them (1" x 3", etc.) make great shims for bracket mounts that are too big for your handlebars, seat tube, etc. Of course you won't use them up very quickly this way, so there is plenty left over for other uses too!

I know a guy who makes bike art primarily out of wheels tied together with tubes. You can see some pictures here. That's him in the green shirt holding one of his pieces in the section labelled "Sunday, July 9, 2006". BTW, you can see me in line for food in the row just above that, in the left-most picture. I'm the one on the right with the brown beard, glasses, and blue and white shirt. I'm also shown getting an award further up, in the "Awards Ceremony" section.

geo8rge

The guys at the Canondale exhibit cut them into cross sections to use as rubber bands.

ItsJustMe

Weird. I'm just using cheapo schrader valve tubes from Nashbar, and I don't think I've ever seen a valve malfunction, on my bike or any of the rest of the family's. I've never seen a gash either. I do carry some boot material, but never had to use it. The biggest thing I've ever gotten in a tire has been a small staple.

But to put it in perspective, I've seen a grand total of one broken bottle along my 11 mile commute this year, and no other broken glass at all. I know I've heard people here say they see broken glass all the time because cars are always getting broken into where they live. Just doesn't happen here.

ItsJustMe

Yeah, just vulcanizing cement.

KnhoJ

My Randonee had screechy Avid cantilever brakes. I tried all of the standard remedies, made up a couple of new remedies, and they still sang like Joan Rivers with a bullhorn.
I finally had to assume I was up against Hell's own tuning forks. As a last resort, I bundled the brake arms up with long strips of inner tube. Ah, silence at last.

Other than that, I've used them for some of the already-mentioned applications. Inner tube protects the Randonee's frame from being scratched by the rear-triangle-mounted kickstand, and the bars on my pack-mule bike are wrapped in inner tube underneath cork wrap for maximum cushiness.

ken cummings

I use them as stretch cords to the corners of the pipe rack in my truck. They can hold several bikes upright in the truck bed. Beautiful that trick of using them as patches. I'm going to cut up some old tubes right now.

Eggplant Jeff

I don't see car window glass much (which isn't very sharp anyway, its designed to be somewhat dull when broken as a safety feature) but I see glass from broken bottles every day (to be fair, it's more because they don't sweep the streets often than because people are breaking new bottles every day).

M_S

Chainstay guard,