Birzman Tubeless Repair Kit

The Birzman Tubeless Repair Kit has the same form factor (and threaded end) as a CO2 canister, so you can add it to a canister mount if you have one on your bike, or just sling it in your toolkit. The tool is effective at plugging punctures in road and gravel tyres, and the case holds everything together so it's nice and tidy.

The Birzman Tubeless Repair Kit is designed as an emergency fix out on the road or trail, when something makes a big enough hole in your tyre that the sealant won't plug the gap. Inside the steel casing are five 3mm tyre plugs – or worms, or anchovies, or whatever – for fixing your puncture, and a combined file and insertion fork.

You can unscrew the tool from the inside of the case, and there's a threaded hole in the end of the case, so you can use the whole case as a handle. This makes it pretty easy to use.

Fixing a puncture is simple and it's the standard process: stick the fork through the hole and use the file to roughen up the edges of the hole a bit, then feed a worm through the fork end and shove it into the hole before working the fork back out, leaving the fix in place. The combination of the sticky worm and the sealant should have you airtight again.

It's good practice to chop off the ends of the worm, otherwise road forces can drag it out of the hole. There's no knife in this kit, although you could easily chuck something like a scalpel blade into the case to do the chopping, or you might carry a blade of some sort in your bike toolkit anyway.

This kit doesn't have an air plug – basically a spike – to stick in the tyre to stop the air escaping either, which some kits include, for example the Topeak Tubi Pod; I find those more use on bigger tyres.

The kit is pretty easy to use: the end of the fork is nice and sharp, which makes it easier to get it through the tyre, but you'll need to be careful – especially with smaller tyres – that you keep it away from the sidewalls and the rim tape, to make sure you're not making any more holes for the sealant to fill.

It's a bit of a fiddle to get the 3mm worms into the fork, and they'll be overkill for the size of some of the punctures that won't seal in a higher-pressure road tyre. Ideally the kit would include a couple of worm sizes to cover all bases, but you can always get some thinner ones and stick them in the case. Or you can just cut one of the 3mm ones lengthways with a sharp knife.

Overall, this is a good kit, and it's very nicely designed; you might want to add a couple of things to make it more of a complete solution, but it'll get you home in a pinch. I don't have any kind of mount for a CO2 canister on my bike but even so it's a pretty compact kit that fits into my tool bottle easily enough, and the case protects the plugs (they can pick up dust and grime really easily, reducing their effectiveness).

It's not especially cheap; basic kits can be had for a fiver, and there are more premium ones that cost less – the Muc-Off Puncture Plug Repair Kit, for example, has gone up a couple of quid since Liam reviewed it for off.road.cc in 2021, but is just £14.99. Nukeproof has a CO2-alike kit similar to this one, but we haven't tested that one so I can't speak for its performance. I'm a fan of the Dynaplug system for its speed and simplicity (we reviewed it back in 2021), and I also like the Peaty's Holeshot with its one-sided fork that makes getting your plugs in (and the tool out) that much easier (Patrick reviewed it for off.road.cc and thought it was excellent). Both of those are £24.99. As a pretty standard system, though, the Birzman kit is dependable and nicely put together.

Verdict

Neat tubeless repair kit that will fit wherever a CO2 canister does