33g Inner Tube - Ridenow TPU

[CapitalSinger]

i haven’t used rim tape or tubeless tape in years because my rims have not had spoke holes. Never needed it with butyl. but is it recommended to put tape on the rim bed for TPU tubes?

I have rims without spoke holes, no rim tape but I fit the anti rattle sticker (that comes with all ridenow TPU's) on the inside of the rim around the valve hole, the edges don't look sharp but that might be a weak spot

I think TPU's are great, I buy them in packs of 6 and from my experience 1/6 are duds and leak somewhere, and they cannot be patched if you get a puncture, well I've never had any success they stay on for a few weeks and then peel off and leak again.
spring this year got another 6 x 24g, I still have 4 of them in boxes and 2 have been in my summer bike since April and covered 2500km and they only loose 5psi/week

[Steve Curtis]

[/quote]

and they cannot be patched if you get a puncture, well I've never had any success they stay on for a few weeks and then peel off and leak again.
[/quote]

I've written about this so many times now. Use alcohol to clean the area, not those alcohol wipes. Then use a park tool self adhesive patch.

These will not fail,as the bond is stronger than the TPU itself

[EtoDemerzel]

and they cannot be patched if you get a puncture, well I've never had any success they stay on for a few weeks and then peel off and leak again.
[/quote]

I've written about this so many times now. Use alcohol to clean the area, not those alcohol wipes. Then use a park tool self adhesive patch.

These will not fail,as the bond is stronger than the TPU itself
[/quote]

agree. It's easier and faster to patch tpu than anything else.

[naavt]

I'm off to start replacing my go to inner tubes, which has been the Conti Race Supersonic for a while now, mainly due to successive failures from almost any tube I buy lately.

They will start leaking from the valve rubber base joint for no reason. Most of the times I arrive home with everything ok just to awake the next day with a flat tire due to, what it seems to me, a really bad manufacturer QC issue.

The reason I've started to use Supersonics was that they ticked all boxes: lightweight, very fast, cheap and butyl, which meant that they were relatevely safe to use with my rim brake climbing bike with carbon wheels.

In the past, what did put me off from TPU was reading that they were not suitable for rimbrakes, but now I've seen that Schwalbe stands behind their Aerothan's for rim brakes also. Anyway... They are really expensive tubes, what lead me to this thread.

I've seen that these are sold at AliExpress (which kinda puts me on alert regarinf safety items such as a inner tube), and that many using them are riding disc brakes, which will not account for a major convern of mine.

Can someone chime in and share the experience on these tubes, or recommend any other that will fit my needs?

Thanks

[Steve Curtis]

Can someone chime in and share the experience on these tubes, or recommend any other that will fit my needs?

Thanks

You could start by reading some of the previous 33 pages. It covers everything you'll need.

[FishNo6]

Can someone chime in and share the experience on these tubes, or recommend any other that will fit my needs?

Thanks

I've been using the 33g and then the 24g RideNow tpu's for about a year. My experience is mixed. tldr: They're high maintenance, but they're improving and I'm still using them.

• Love the weight reduction from two fitted tpu's + two in the saddle bag vs Conti Race Lights.
  They're cheap.
  I find them marginally simpler to fit than butyl - the bright colour makes it very easy to check that you haven't pinched/trapped the tube between tyre and rim.
  I ride rim-brake in a moderately hilly area, though with no long descents, and I've had no problems as yet with overheating*.

But they can be intensely frustrating.

Air Loss.

• The design has gone through at least three iterations/refinements over the last 12 months or so, changing from a black plastic stem to a pink metallic and now an off-white opaque plastic. They are improving, but at least for me, the problems with air-loss are not yet solved. Most tubes have started around 5-10ps loss per day and then deteriorated over a matter of weeks or months, but their performance is very variable. I've had one or two good tubes stay at or under 5psi per day, 3 or 4 around 10psi per day and another 4 or 5 quickly deteriorate to 15-25psi loss per day. Obviously this means checking pressures before every ride; I'm also now slightly over-inflating to mitigate air-loss on all-day rides. Before I wised up to this I had a couple of snake-bite punctures from very mild stone/pot hole strikes.

Puncture repair is a pain.

• They Wrinkle: A used tpu is difficult to hold entirely flat to ensure good patch adhesion; this is because the used tpu tends to wrinkle*, so without a couple of clamps to gently pull the tube section tight I run out of hands to hold the damn thing properly flat while applying the patch. Sometimes it's good enough, sometimes it's not.
  
  I've never got the repair patches that RideNow bundles (at least with the 24g tubes) to work reliably. Originally RideNow included what they called 'Rubber Cement' along with tpu offcuts as patches. I'm pretty sure it was actually a PU adhesive rather than traditional rubber cement. Kind of worked, but messy and error-prone. They then changed to overly stiff instant patches - comically useless. Interestingly, my latest batch of tubes bundle a futher revised instant patch which I haven't tried yet. The repair kits from Cyclami are significantly better but I can't attest to their long-term effectiveness because none of my tpu's has survived more than 6 months. I haven't yet tried the Park Tool instant patches or Rema Tip Top Camplast cement and patches - these seem to have the best reviews.

Leak detection.

• Finally, and this one is fundamental: it's very difficult, verging on impossible to find small leaks. The tubes mustn't be over-inflated outside a tyre, else they deform permanently. Done that. At the low safe pressures you can inflate to, minor leaks simply don't show up, even under water. I pump up all repaired tubes to the allowable 8psi and leave them inflated for a couple of days. Then putting them on the bike, inflating properly and they can be flat (sub 20 psi) over night. I now throw away tubes once they lose more than 25psi per day and I can't detect a leak. Even so, there's a trust deficit; a patched tpu will probably get me home on a short ride, but it's a gamble on an all-dayer.

* Hmm.

[Steve Curtis]

Most of your issues were user error. I remember when you were messing with valve cores.

The metalic pink valves are the latest version. The white/ clear versions are the previous gen.

TPU will deform to fill the space. If you use one in a 32mm tyre, it will be difficult to fit in a 25mm tyre afterwards.
However if you keep it in a 32mm it will not wrinkle to any significant degree.

Air loss. You're probably pinching them and causing holes during installation.
I'd expect a maximum of 2-3psi loss per day.

Repair is a breeze with Park glueless patches.


The reason I chose not to import this product to my country is the high level of user error, not a defective product.
I've given these to friends to try and the only people who had issues are the one I thought would have issues. Ie, the ones with little mechanical sympathy, and or just don't follow instructions.

Everyone else happily use them to this day


Edit. The very early ones were a bit failure prone, but those issues were solved many months ago.

[naavt]

Can someone chime in and share the experience on these tubes, or recommend any other that will fit my needs?

Thanks

I've been using the 33g and then the 24g RideNow tpu's for about a year. My experience is mixed. tldr: They're high maintenance, but they're improving and I'm still using them.

• Love the weight reduction from two fitted tpu's + two in the saddle bag vs Conti Race Lights.
  They're cheap.
  I find them marginally simpler to fit than butyl - the bright colour makes it very easy to check that you haven't pinched/trapped the tube between tyre and rim.
  I ride rim-brake in a moderately hilly area, though with no long descents, and I've had no problems as yet with overheating*.

But they can be intensely frustrating.

Air Loss.

• The design has gone through at least three iterations/refinements over the last 12 months or so, changing from a black plastic stem to a pink metallic and now an off-white opaque plastic. They are improving, but at least for me, the problems with air-loss are not yet solved. Most tubes have started around 5-10ps loss per day and then deteriorated over a matter of weeks or months, but their performance is very variable. I've had one or two good tubes stay at or under 5psi per day, 3 or 4 around 10psi per day and another 4 or 5 quickly deteriorate to 15-25psi loss per day. Obviously this means checking pressures before every ride; I'm also now slightly over-inflating to mitigate air-loss on all-day rides. Before I wised up to this I had a couple of snake-bite punctures from very mild stone/pot hole strikes.

Puncture repair is a pain.

• They Wrinkle: A used tpu is difficult to hold entirely flat to ensure good patch adhesion; this is because the used tpu tends to wrinkle*, so without a couple of clamps to gently pull the tube section tight I run out of hands to hold the damn thing properly flat while applying the patch. Sometimes it's good enough, sometimes it's not.
  
  I've never got the repair patches that RideNow bundles (at least with the 24g tubes) to work reliably. Originally RideNow included what they called 'Rubber Cement' along with tpu offcuts as patches. I'm pretty sure it was actually a PU adhesive rather than traditional rubber cement. Kind of worked, but messy and error-prone. They then changed to overly stiff instant patches - comically useless. Interestingly, my latest batch of tubes bundle a futher revised instant patch which I haven't tried yet. The repair kits from Cyclami are significantly better but I can't attest to their long-term effectiveness because none of my tpu's has survived more than 6 months. I haven't yet tried the Park Tool instant patches or Rema Tip Top Camplast cement and patches - these seem to have the best reviews.

Leak detection.

• Finally, and this one is fundamental: it's very difficult, verging on impossible to find small leaks. The tubes mustn't be over-inflated outside a tyre, else they deform permanently. Done that. At the low safe pressures you can inflate to, minor leaks simply don't show up, even under water. I pump up all repaired tubes to the allowable 8psi and leave them inflated for a couple of days. Then putting them on the bike, inflating properly and they can be flat (sub 20 psi) over night. I now throw away tubes once they lose more than 25psi per day and I can't detect a leak. Even so, there's a trust deficit; a patched tpu will probably get me home on a short ride, but it's a gamble on an all-dayer.

* Hmm.

I've started doing what the other fellow member suggested and I'm passing my eyes trough all posts from the begining, but thank so much for your detailed review and opinion. Very appreciated.

[FishNo6]

Most of your issues were user error. I remember when you were messing with valve cores.

The metalic pink valves are the latest version. The white/ clear versions are the previous gen.

TPU will deform to fill the space. If you use one in a 32mm tyre, it will be difficult to fit in a 25mm tyre afterwards.
However if you keep it in a 32mm it will not wrinkle to any significant degree.

Air loss. You're probably pinching them and causing holes during installation.
I'd expect a maximum of 2-3psi loss per day.

Repair is a breeze with Park glueless patches.


The reason I chose not to import this product to my country is the high level of user error, not a defective product.
I've given these to friends to try and the only people who had issues are the one I thought would have issues. Ie, the ones with little mechanical sympathy, and or just don't follow instructions.

Everyone else happily use them to this day


Edit. The very early ones were a bit failure prone, but those issues were solved many months ago.

Thanks for the reply Steve; food for thought.

Certainly, some of my issues were user error. There've been plenty of those. It's possible that I'm pinching/damaging tubes while fitting or removing them but it seems unlikely, because this is the easy bit. Mount one side/bead of the tyre, partially inflate tube and insert, check it's not twisted, refit second tyre bead by hand (no tyre levers), check the tpu around the valve base isn't trapped by pushing in then pulling back the valve, ensure that the tpu isn't trapped under the tyre beads by gently massaging the beads off the shoulders, put in a few more psi, check again and fully inflate to seat the beads. It's pretty straightforward. Your comment about people not reading instructions did make me laugh; Ridenow's instructions have changed and improved, except for the ludicrously tiny font, in each of the three versions I've bought.

The wrinkling: I've only used these tpu's in 28mm tyres, so haven't fallen into the "use in a 32 and then wonder why they fail with a 28" trap. It's definitely possible, as I hinted in my post, and this could well be a me issue, that the wrinkling could be from overheating, but I don't know this for a fact. Ridenow have danced around this issue by marketing and labelling the 24g tubes as appropriate for rim brakes. Only in the tiniest of small-print in the installation instructions do they then observe "Under certain special braking conditions using rim brakes excessive heat accumulation may occur, which may lead to air leakage and permanent damage to the inner tube." Now I'm not a brake-dragger and I don't do long descents because there aren't any handy, but I do brake frequently (not continuously) on technical and/or poorly surfaced and/or poor visibility descents (have plenty of these to hand). Yeah, this does sound plausible.

I'm sure you're right about metallic pink being the latest product; however the 24g tubes I bought approximately 6 months ago were metallic pink while the two sets I've subsequently bought 3 months and 2 weeks ago from three different vendors, are the off-white/opaque. Now I go back and look again, my pink-stemmed Ridenows are a different design from those I see on AliExpress - mine don't have a dark/black valve base. Looks like there've been at least 4 different stem versions: black plastic 33g -> all pink metallic 24g -> off-white opaque plastic 24g -> pink metallic with black base 24g.

The general point of my post was that the RideNows were really not a mature product when they first came out. They've gone through (at least) four iterations/evolutions since, as have the accompanying patches, and they're improving. Improving enough for me to continue using them. And, now that you've pointed it out, dammit, I've just bought 6 examples of a probably obsolete version. And double dammit, 24g may just be a little too thin for my usage; the 36g road versions should be a little more heat-resistant.

[Steve Curtis]

After re-reading my apologies if I came across snarky. I was writing quickly, and trying to get my point across.
The early ones were pretty poor but I think they're now on version 6/7 - I like the version with white/clear valve cores as all issues with the materials had been addressed, and I don't see the value in the pink threaded metal cores.
That might help some people but

Ultimately I think it's a good product, but they need to be installed with care. Once installed they should be fit and forget until a puncture occurs. In my experience if I get a pinch flag I swap the tube, but a single hole is easily fixed with a park patch.
The free ride now patches are poor as are other TPU patches I've tested.

I

[naavt]

After re-reading my apologies if I came across snarky. I was writing quickly, and trying to get my point across.
The early ones were pretty poor but I think they're now on version 6/7 - I like the version with white/clear valve cores as all issues with the materials had been addressed, and I don't see the value in the pink threaded metal cores.
That might help some people but

Ultimately I think it's a good product, but they need to be installed with care. Once installed they should be fit and forget until a puncture occurs. In my experience if I get a pinch flag I swap the tube, but a single hole is easily fixed with a park patch.
The free ride now patches are poor as are other TPU patches I've tested.

I

I'm now on page 22 of this thread (reading form the start), and I see that there are mixed opinions on the use of this tube on carbon clinchers with rim brakes.

I've already seen a post where a member points out that the 33g and 24g versions are rim brake compatible, even stating that on the tubes box, but then again I think it was you that posted something about a conversation with RideNow themselves about this concern, saying that these are not appropriate for rim brakes on carbon if the user lives in a hilly area (which is my case).

Seeing that the tubes have gone through some improvements (you mention at least 6), what's your take on using this tube in my conditions?

Thanks

[Steve Curtis]

The instructions say not to use, but it's up to you.
Not everyone brakes in the same way - some drag and others brake late and hard.

Of my 14 bikes 13 have these tubes, with 2 being rim brake on carbon wheels. I don't currently live in a mountainous area so use them, but I wouldn't in Geneva where the descents are usually into hairpin bends, over and over again.

I'm 80kg so if you're 60kg it's going to be a very different story.

[naavt]

The instructions say not to use, but it's up to you.
Not everyone brakes in the same way - some drag and others brake late and hard.

Of my 14 bikes 13 have these tubes, with 2 being rim brake on carbon wheels. I don't currently live in a mountainous area so use them, but I wouldn't in Geneva where the descents are usually into hairpin bends, over and over again.

I'm 80kg so if you're 60kg it's going to be a very different story.

69 kgs. Using this bike in my region, some long descents with open twists, but this is my travel bike to Granada, Alps and Pyrenees

[naavt]

Sent RideNow an email regarding my concerns. Here's what they've replied (now I just have to think about going non removable or the new pink design valve system)

[Steve Curtis]

Cool. So this has changed in the more recent iteration/s.
I wonder if they've changed the instructions to this effect ?