Puncture - rim tape cause?

neal1984

Evening all,

I've just spent what seems like an eternity cleaning and lubing my bike in preparation for tomorrow's nightrider event. Pic here if anyones interested:

Well I always let the air out of my tyres before I fill as the pressure gauge seems to like to start from zero. I filled the rear tyre to my usual 120 psi (I'm 90kg and I usually carry a heavy saddle bag). After I put all me bits away I was confronted with a puncture! Pretty annoyed as it's my second in a week. When I repaired the last one I noticed lots of protruding bobbles on the inner tube. Alarm bells should have been ringing but the route cause that time was a screw in the tyre (you may have seen my other thread). Well this time the puncture was around one of these bobble. Here is a picture of what appears to be rim tape not doing a very good job:

As I'm a relative noob (hence not realising this the first time I'm guessing replacing the rim tape would be my priority tomorrow afternoon and then all should be well? What are your thoughts?

Not sure why the pics are so small so I hope you can see this ok?

banditvic

Had the same thing with some hope wheels I purchased recently, took me three punctures before I realised what was happening.

neal1984

I've now taken the rim tape out and I can't believe how cr@p it is. Can't believe I didn't notice on Saturday! Only got time to replace with the Zefal Rim Tape as thats whats in stock locally. Hope that does a better job!

richk

I've used electrical tape under/over rim tape in the past to make it a bit thicker till I could get to a shop to buy something better.

motd2k

Looks pretty standard to me...

Kingy911

Absolutely, definitely , 100% your rim tape. Had the exact same problem, probably 7 or 8 punctures, I even had one on the start line of a charity ride :x , changed my wheels about 6 months ago where I now don't need rim tape, and never had a puncture since (touch wood, rabbit's foot etc), probably get one this afternoon now
Also 120psi is quite high, my tyres say a max of 116psi so tend to keep between 100-110psi, I'm probably a similar sort of weight to yourself

Dezcore

One of the first things my LBS said (www.hamiltonbikes.co.uk) was the rim tape is crap, I'll change it before you take your new bike!

wishitwasallflat

Neal1984 wrote:

I've now taken the rim tape out and I can't believe how cr@p it is. Can't believe I didn't notice on Saturday! Only got time to replace with the Zefal Rim Tape as thats whats in stock locally. Hope that does a better job!

Zefal's good but Velox is the best - in the pic your's looks like the plastic strip type which I hate.

neal1984

I changed it on Saturday for the Zefal stuff as that's all I could get at such short notice. Seems to have done the job over 106km through Saturday night / Sunday morning during the London Nightrider even. No punctures or mechanical issues at all so I was very pleased Thanks for all of your replies!