Puncture repairs

[rictus01]

from a purely practical stand point and near a million and ahalf road mile by bike, I'll add the following.

puncture repair at the roadside, sticky string kits are the best and will get you home in circumstances where a bung kit wouldn't, be award of the limitations of use (speed/distance) but there are far more robust than are stated.

Liquid fillers, they are fine for certain uses (off road days being one of the times I've used them) but I wouldn't use or recommend them for normal road bikes, they are effective to a point, in fact so effective you could well have multiple objects in the tyre and not even know, right up to the point of catastrophic failure, this is avoided of course by regular visual checks of your tyres (which you should be doing anyway), I like to know I have a screw or something else in the tyre when it happens for two main reasons, the first it I can address it immediately and limit the work the tyre will do until permanently repaired, the second is I don't leave an object in there which could (and I've actually seen this) cause a sawing action through use and make a fixable puncture into a non-fixable one.

permanent repair (internal mushroom type). I've used these many times and never had a problem as long as they are in the prescribed area, the steel belt/wire doesn't come undone, it's not loose but captured by the moulding of the rubber so doesn't act like one strand and retains it's integrity.

Of course there are always the odd balls and exceptions, but then that happens with everything anyway.

Cheers Mark.

Originally Posted by rictus01

from a purely practical stand point and near a million and ahalf road mile by bike, I'll add the following.

Liquid fillers, they are fine for certain uses (off road days being one of the times I've used them) but I wouldn't use or recommend them for normal road bikes they are effective to a point, in fact so effective you could well have multiple objects in the tyre and not even know, right up to the point of catastrophic failure, this is avoided of course by regular visual checks

i have to disagree in part with the above statement,and products like "puncture safe" are a permanent repair for most small punctures,this isnt a road side repair product,it can be put in a new tyre or after a puncture is found and then reinflated,i understand what you are saying about not knowing about multiple objects in tyres but this really doesn't hold water as you can get multiple objects in a tubless tyre anyway with only a slow loss of air,and on the plus side you shouldn't get a sudden deflation when useing said product if you get a mayor puncture at speed,and puncture safe is safe for (cant tell you the exact speck)over 150 mph,i know i havent done 1.5million miles but i have run 3 tyres with punctures with never a problem after useing puncture safe,these were all nearly new tyres as thats the only tyres that i normally get a nail or thorn in,and my local motorcycle shop used to put this product in new tyre fitments (at a cost to the owner) but they did recomend having it put in,and i have also heard it said that the likes of the post office use this product to save on road side repairs,

[rictus01]

Originally Posted by suzukigt380paul

i have to disagree in part with the above statement,and products like "puncture safe" are a permanent repair for most small punctures and exactly how would you know it's a small or otherwise puncture ?,this isnt a road side repair product,it can be put in a new tyre or after a puncture is found and then reinflated,i understand what you are saying about not knowing about multiple objects in tyres but this really doesn't hold water as you can get multiple objects in a tubless tyre anyway with only a slow loss of air but you would still know it had happened so the tyre would get inspected ,and on the plus side you shouldn't get a sudden deflation when useing said product if you get a mayor puncture at speed,and puncture safe is safe for (cant tell you the exact speck)over 150 mph I've had two "sudden deflation" both long split type cuts, neither would have been avoided with any self sealing fluid,i know i havent done 1.5million miles but i have run 3 tyres with punctures with never a problem after useing puncture safe,these were all nearly new tyres as thats the only tyres that i normally get a nail or thorn in,and my local motorcycle shop used to put this product in new tyre fitments (at a cost to the owner) but they did recomend having it put in,and i have also heard it said that the likes of the post office use this product to save on road side repairs yeah my old company used a similar product in there fleet, but it was developed for car/van type vehicles (and we know tyres work far differently on those) and that was mainly because the drivers weren't qualified to fix punctures and the cost of recovery.

Cheers Mark.

Originally Posted by rictus01

Cheers Mark.

never had a tyre split car or bike,have run a bike on a flat tyre while loaded with camping gear following a slower bike,and thinking it handled odd,that left me stranded on a layby on th A14 while a can off get me home foam was found,this would have been avoided if the tyre had been protected with a product,its swings and round abouts,if you run over a sharp object and cause a large wound then nothing will stop it,if on the other hand you run over/pick up a small nail on a motorway miles from home then a untreated tyre will leave you on the side of the road and the treated one will keep you going,dont get me wrong i normally only use said product after ive found a puncture as its a permanent repair and saves time and gets you back on the road,but if i did alot of miles on one bike i would most like put it in as a preventer

[rictus01]

as I said in my first post, sticky string repairs have worked everytime I've used them, and more importantly have let me know to get the tyre inspected (from the inside) when the mushroom type permanent repair was done, over the years I've used many of the bike tyre places across London and not found one that likes the stuff, I do about 40,000 miles a year now (a lot less than I used to, but still a fair amount) and even though part of my weekly service/bike check is a visual inspection of both tyres; I still wouldn't have that in mine, I'd rather find the tyre flat when I come to the bike (which is what normally happens on a slow one) and spend the 3 minutes to fix it, than not know I had something stuck in it.

But I guess it's a case of what makes you happy, these liquid fillers have been around for sometime, but never really caught on, be it the handling issue (you get your tyres balanced for minimal construction weight deviations, then add a bulk of sloshing liquid...), or the lack of tyre care than normally replaces regular inspections, or even the fact it's used up every tyre change whether it was needed or not so a constant outlay (I've no idea the cost, but 4-5 times a years has got to be significantly more than a puncture kit), I could possibly see a point to it if I was on a long touring holiday I suppose and would be in a region where I couldn't get a proper fix done for sometime (tour of africa or something), and as I said earlier I have used it trails bikes off road before, but the downsides outweight the up.

Cheers Mark.