smd4

If I were to consider patching my tubes, I'd go with Cyccommute's recommendation.

Trakhak

Hmmm.

This thread has included a number of people who reported great success with non-Rema kits. It has also included a number who reported lesser success with non-Rema kits. I agree that the combined total might approach statistical significance and therefore might tell us something about the reliability of non-Rema kits.

beng1

I invented my own tire-patch method. I just clean the puncture with rubbing alcohol, let it dry, then put a drop of super-glue on it, done. I have ridden tubes with more than a few punctures patched with this method and have never had a super-glue fix fail. Just another example of my brilliant independent thinking ability.

urbanknight

ok now I’m curious exactly how long you have been able to ride on each of these super glue repairs. I would have expected it to become brittle and crack over time, but I am aware that a good dollop of CA glue can stick to rubber quite well. It’s how RC car enthusiasts put tires on their rims.

Milton Keynes

Yes, I patch tubes. I just can't see tossing a tube in the trash because it has one tiny hole in it. But I don't like the stick on glueless patches, I like the ones where you buff the rubber, put the vulcanizing cement on, then apply the patch once it's dry. I've never had very good luck with the glueless ones. Maybe it's just me, but I get the feeling that the glueless patches don't work well at high pressure. I don't feel like they bond as well as the glued patches.

I'll patch a tube as many times as necessary, however if it develops a leak from an old patch coming loose, I'll toss the tube. Just did that this morning. It's very hard to repatch a tube like that and have confidence that it will seal up.

Maelochs

Send me the tubes and I will patch them for a very minimal fee.

urbanknight

The irony: I was cleaning out my bike shelves in the garage and came across an old Rema patch kit container (fluid was gone, but a couple of patches were left). Obviously I have experienced the Rema joy and didn't even notice any difference over the other brands I never cared to check when I bought whatever was on the shelf at the LBS. I'm sure there's still some difference in the formula, but functionally I did not notice anything different and did not have any failures from any of the tubes with any (or probably even a combination) of the patches. YMMV

Cdubs

I patch my tubes but I typically will not patch them any more than two times. I've never had a problem but tubes are so cheap I would rather not chance it.

LesterOfPuppets

I patch tubes and keep riding them. There really is no limit but I don't think I've ever gone past 10 or maybe a dozen on one tube.

Rema is my favorite. Park and Rustines are OK too. I'd probably only buy some other brand in an emergency.

LesterOfPuppets

Damn, I thought I had it bad here in AZ, sometimes the sealant will dry up on me in 8 weeks, but never 3. I'm thinking about putting a humidifier in the bike room to see if I can get 6 months out of a sealant fill.

bikelif3

I have a very large container of rubber cement if anyone needs it...let me know...

prj71

Tubes are cheap. That's why I toss them after patching them to finish my ride.

Maelochs

Tubes are cheap ... and cheaper if they last through a dozen flats and patches.

Wait until you get old and your income shrinks, rather than grows, every year. Suddenly five tubes at $5 each seems like an expense worth avoiding when 25 minutes can obviate it.

I am far from poor, but inflation generally only goes one way, and I don't want to be poor later.

pdlamb

To be clear, your 25 minutes can patch 5 tubes. A dollar a minute? $60 per hour? That's good pay in my book. Or payback, if you're keeping the money in your pocket.

OK, before somebody whines about $3 in materials, $57 per hour is pretty good too.

cyccommute 

They aren’t that cheap. As an example, let’s go with REI’s price of $4.10 per tube. I have gone through multiple boxes of 100 Rema patches and tubes of vulcanizing fluid. A box of 100 patches costs around $20. A can of vulcanizing fluid (which will do about 200 patches) costs about $20. So for 100 flats, I’ve got about $34 in materials invested, including the tube. One hundred tubes is going to cost me $410. There’s a slight difference in time between replacing a tube and patching it but there is also a disposal cost of 100 tubes so it’s something of a wash.

I’m not hurting for money but I can’t see the point of wasting $376, either.

rumrunn6

patches are good, even after several years

rsbob 

Not to mention keeping them out of the landfill.

cyccommute 

Yea, there’s that.

VegasJen

That's kind of where I'm coming from. I guess it all depends on how much you ride and how often you get flats. Simply because of where I ride (what is available to me) I'm at a pretty high risk for a flat any time I take the bike out. Living in a smaller, rural community, we don't have dedicated MUPs so I often have to share the same road as vehicles and whatever flotsam ends up on the pavement.

prj71

I value my time more than money. Which is another reason I use the Park Tool glue on patches or trying to save a tube that has been compromised.

Plus I rarely get a flat. Tubes are cheap enough for me (amazon or ebay) that I don't bother with glue patches.

cyccommute 

Repairing a flat doesn’t take much more time than changing the tube, especially if the tubes are repaired in batches. Knowing how to patch on the road is a good skill to have as well. Tubes aren’t “compromised” because they have one hole in them. Tubes are compromised because they have 30 holes in them. If the valve stem rips off, the tube is compromised but that can take a very long time, indeed.

There is also the waste issue as noted above. If I have one tube with 30 holes in it, that’s 30 tubes that haven’t gone to the landfill. If I have two tubes with 30 patches that’s 60 tubes that haven’t gone to the landfill. If I have 15 bikes in my garage with 30 holes in them that’s 900 tubes that haven’t gone to the landfill prematurely. That’s roughly 100 kg of tubes. That’s also $3600 that hasn’t flown from my wallet.

prj71

I can replace a tube and be rolling in 10 minutes or less. With the Park Tool patch I can patch a tube and be rolling in 10 minutes or less. With a glue patch that process will take a bit longer.

If I'm on the road and I get a flat I put in a brand new back up tube right away. If my backup tube fails on the road then I will use the park tool patch to get me through the ride Once I get home, I will remove the patched tube and discard it along with discarding the original tube that failed and put in a new tube.

I understand that patching is cheaper and better for the environment than replacing the tube, but I rarely flat so your example is a little extreme. I have 7 bikes in my garage. Only the 2 road bikes in my garage have tubes. The rest of my bikes...mountain bikes and fat bikes are tubeless.

One of the road bikes I recently switched over to the Schwalbe Aerothan TPU tube (paid about $30) so we'll see how that goes. Previous to those tubes I only had 2 flats in 7 years.

cyccommute 

I’m on the road in a similar time frame since I try not to patch on the side of the road. If I have to patch, add 5 minutes or less to the task.

Well if time is an issue, I don’t have to remove the patched tube when I get home. I don’t have to remove it until I get another flat and, after patching at my leisure, I have another spare tube to use when I do get a flat.

I live in the land of pokey stuff and visit the land of even pokier stuff further south often. My example isn’t all that extreme for where I live (and within about an 1000 mile diameter) even for just road riding. I have my reasons why I don’t use tubeless on anything which I won’t really go into.

That’s a whole other kettle of fish. I’ve recently tried TPU tubes and I’m much less than impressed. The weight is great but they are extremely delicate and don’t repair. I had a tire that was old and had a couple of tiny pokey things in them. One was a small piece of glass that nicked the TPU tube. I found the glass, which had been in contact with the butyl tube and hadn’t punctured it, and replaced the tube with another TPU tube. I patched the TPU tube with the contact patches according to directions…cleaned tube with alcohol swabs, applied provided pressure adhesive patch and clamped it to make sure it stuck to the tube.

Meanwhile the newly installed tube flatted. I felt around on the inside of the tire and found a barely noticeable wire in the tire. I discarded the tire, got a new one, and installed the first patched tube. I patched the other tube.

Next morning, the tire was flat. I installed the other patched tube and took the first one with me to check it at the shop. It was leaking like a sieve around the patch. The patch was completely ineffective. Maybe I did something wrong, so I peeled off the patch, washed it throughly with alcohol, installed a new patch. Meanwhile, the other tube when flat in the 4 hours I was at the shop. I changed it…again…installed the other tube, patched it…again!… and headed home. Less than 3 miles on, the patch failed yet again. By my count that 2 flats from minor punctures that didn’t puncture the butyl tube and 5 flats from patch failures.

Perhaps there are better ways to fix the TPU tube but, at this point, I’m not impressed enough with their supposed puncture superiority to figure that out. They may be faster and they may roll easier but if they are flat all the time, they aren’t.

Again, not impressed.

Chandne

I never did though the last time I used a tube in a mountain bike was 2005/6. I did use tubes on the road bike till 2-3 years ago and I only got one flat but I simply replaced it. Patching it would be more sensible but I had crashed and was pretty far from home so just did what was quick.

spelger

right, why would anyone ever replace a patched tube that is already installed (unless the patch is already failing which implies a crappy patch or a crappy job).