Latex inner tubes

andi1363

Strange what you find on Ebay when you search "Latex tube"! Possibly NSFW.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Sexy-BARBIE-W ... 2a29746489

Cleat Eastwood

Its a shame bobbinogs just declared he wasnt looking for a smooth ride - she looks his type

team47b

@ Cleat

ผมไม่เคยเห็นสงครามดาวทั้ง

nferrar

Can't say I noticed any difference, apart from having to pump tyres up more often and be more careful fitting them (much easier to trap on the bead than a butyl tube).

Sir Velo

With supple tyres then I do feel the make a difference.

But, why all the discussion? Just go and buy a pair, not hugely expensive, and try them. If you do my advice is to use them with your 'best tyres', make sure the tyres have been on and off the rims a few times, dust the inside of the tyres with some talcum powder and sit down and fit them in a nice warm room.

Then go and ride and hopefully notice a difference.

I carry butyl for spare tubes on a ride as fitting latex ones takes a bit more time and don't fancy that at the road side.

Sv

amaferanga

Velonutter wrote:

I will switch over to Latex this summer, but the thing that strikes me is the number of people who don't check their tyres before every ride, I find my tyres lose between 5-10psi overnight, that's enough to cause a pinch puncture!

Now, don't take this the wrong way, but you do know that you 'lose' some pressure by just attaching the pump? Or are you using a separate pressure gauge to measure this pressure drop? If you really are losing 5-10psi overnight from standard tubes then there's something up with them.

Velonutter

amaferanga wrote:

Velonutter wrote:

I will switch over to Latex this summer, but the thing that strikes me is the number of people who don't check their tyres before every ride, I find my tyres lose between 5-10psi overnight, that's enough to cause a pinch puncture!

Now, don't take this the wrong way, but you do know that you 'lose' some pressure by just attaching the pump? Or are you using a separate pressure gauge to measure this pressure drop? If you really are losing 5-10psi overnight from standard tubes then there's something up with them.

Yep, I have previously used an external gauge and it matched up with the loss on the pump, so as a matter of course I just do it before every ride.

For the sake of 2 mins before a ride I treat it as my safety routine on the bike before I ride. 8)

ADIHEAD

I've been using Michelin Latex for several years. I can honestly say that when I first installed them with a set of Vittoria Open Corsa CX tyres that I went round the block and had to go back to make sure I'd put enough pressure in as they felt so much smoother:-o Only had 1 puncture but the cut in the tyre was so big the tyre was junk anyway! You do have to be careful fitting them, easy to pinch if you don't put a little air in first and I use a little talc now to stop them sticking to the tyre and pinching when removing. I'm sure they feel a little faster and personally I did notice a small difference even with Conti GP4's. One word of warning is using them in hotter climates, a friend pumped his up on cool morning for a stage on a French stage sportive. In the midday sun the tyre exploded just after a fast descent - presumably where it had got so hot the pressure had got dangerously high. It exploded blowing the tyre off the rim. This in not uncommon apparently so I probably wouldn't use them in such conditions myself, just for piece of mind!