Support road.cc

Like this site? Help us to make it better.

TECH NEWS

Tubolito unveils ‘unpuncturable’ inner tube with one year warranty against flats

X-Tubo is said to be ‘the strongest tube in the world’, resistant to nails, broken glass, thorns, barbed wire… If it punctures within a year, you get a free replacement

Tubolito has released a thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) inner tube called the X_Tubo City/Tour that comes with a one year warranty against flats. If it punctures within that period you get a free replacement.

“The X-Tubo is… designed to withstand everything the city and touring rider can throw at it,” says Tubolito.

2021 Tubolito X-Tubo City-Tour inner tube - 3.jpeg

“The new, even more resistant material makes punctures impossible during normal use.

“X-Tubo City/Tour is the toughest tube worldwide. It was developed to make punctures a thing of the past and to guarantee worry-free rides in your daily life.”

7 of the best inner tubes — find out how to save weight, ride faster and prevent flats

The X-Tubo City/Tour is said to resist nails, broken glass and thorns, and Tubolito has produced a video to support its claims, and it certainly looks impressive.

You just need to register the product within a month of purchase to get a year’s warranty against all flats.

Review: Tubolito Tubo Road 700C inner tubes

The Tubolito X-Tubo City/Tour is designed for 700C wheels, comes in Presta (130g) and Schrader (139g) versions, and is suitable for tyres from 30mm to 50mm wide – meaning that you could even use it on a lot of road bikes. Each is priced at £22.99. That's considerably more than a standard butyl inner tube, of course, but if it stops you fixing a flat by the side of the road on a wet November evening... 

2021 Tubolito X-Tubo City-Tour inner tube - 2.jpeg

Get more info at www.tubolito.com. Tubolito’s UK distributor is Extra.

Mat has been in cycling media since 1996, on titles including BikeRadar, Total Bike, Total Mountain Bike, What Mountain Bike and Mountain Biking UK, and he has been editor of 220 Triathlon and Cycling Plus. Mat has been road.cc technical editor for over a decade, testing bikes, fettling the latest kit, and trying out the most up-to-the-minute clothing. He has won his category in Ironman UK 70.3 and finished on the podium in both marathons he has run. Mat is a Cambridge graduate who did a post-grad in magazine journalism, and he is a winner of the Cycling Media Award for Specialist Online Writer. Now over 50, he's riding road and gravel bikes most days for fun and fitness rather than training for competitions.

Add new comment

31 comments

Avatar
froze | 3 years ago
0 likes

That tube is almost as much money as what I spend for a tire! 

And why only guarantee the tube for a year against flats? does the tube over time degrade allowing for flats?  Or are they simply working the odds angle?

I have never heard  back from Tubolito if their patch kit will permanently attach to the tube for 10 years or more or is it simply a patch to get you home where you have to toss the tube and buy another?

Avatar
leipreachan | 3 years ago
0 likes

It looks too good to be true. I'd test them with Conti 5000GP which look like a swiss cheese after 1500k. Got four punctures on a 100km ride.. gosh.

Avatar
check12 replied to leipreachan | 3 years ago
2 likes

Before each ride (or once a week) turn your bike upside down and check for bits of glass / thorns in your tyres by slowly turning them and shining a torch in them (phone torch works fine) I find best to do when tyres are pumped up, if you find a bit of glass yuu is kind of flick it by rubbing your finger nail over it to pop it out of the tyre. 
most punctures are caused by glass slowly working its way through the tread over a fe rides then eventually getting to the tube and popping it, or that's how I'm finding my riding conditions.

Avatar
wycombewheeler replied to check12 | 3 years ago
4 likes

check12 wrote:

... turn your bike upside down and check for bits of glass / thorns in your tyres ...

Better be quick as I read it is only acceptable for the bike to be upside down mid crash

Avatar
leipreachan replied to check12 | 3 years ago
0 likes

I check tyres after each and every ride, jokes aside. They held up first 1000km and then - bam-bam-bam. Four punctures in one ride, then 3 more in 3 rides. I checked them and they literally looked like I'm a gravel cyclist, not a roadie.

Avatar
wtjs replied to check12 | 3 years ago
1 like

most punctures are caused by glass slowly working its way through the tread over a few rides then eventually getting to the tube and popping it

This does indeed occur in some urban areas. Out here in North Lancashire it's always thorns, sometimes working through slowly.

Four punctures in one ride, then 3 more in 3 rides. I checked them and they literally looked like I'm a gravel cyclist, not a roadie

Gravel and rough roads, with or without a trailer = hardly any punctures because there's no glass and nobody is paid to cut hawthorns and spread the cuttings across the road. I don't think these tubes are going to work- I admit that the nail would be impressive if it was genuine- that nail would stay in the tyre in real life. Round and round with the nail pressing on the tube pushed onto the point by the spoke bed? Not believable.

Avatar
leipreachan replied to wtjs | 3 years ago
0 likes

> Gravel and rough roads, with or without a trailer

that's why I'm back to Conti 4-season. Slower, but I didn't have a single puncture in three years. I seriously abused them and after more then 10000km they looked.. well.. used.. but they still were unbroken.

Avatar
jeby | 3 years ago
0 likes

It's interesting that Tubolito is using Schwalbe tyres for the test, being Schwalbe one of the few contender on the TPU "unpuncturable" tubes (the Aerothan line) market.

Avatar
Nick T | 3 years ago
2 likes

Why dont they stick a rubber tread to the outside and make a puncture proof tubular

Avatar
andystow replied to Nick T | 3 years ago
1 like

Nick T wrote:

Why dont they stick a rubber tread to the outside and make a puncture proof tubular

Watch the video at around 1:22. The tube only has to be tough enough that the nail can push it away from the tread without puncturing it. If you glued the tread to it, it would have to take the whole force.

Avatar
mdavidford replied to andystow | 3 years ago
0 likes

andystow wrote:

Nick T wrote:

Why dont they stick a rubber tread to the outside and make a puncture proof tubular

Watch the video at around 1:22. The tube only has to be tough enough that the nail can push it away from the tread without puncturing it. If you glued the tread to it, it would have to take the whole force.

You could glue it only along the edge of the tread, rather than the whole surface, which would still allow it to move away from the tread, albeit the play would reduce the nearer your puncture site got to the rim.

Avatar
Velophaart_95 | 3 years ago
1 like

I'd like to know where they tested them.....it seems far too good to be true. However, I may be tempted to buy a pair later in the year.

Avatar
EddyBerckx | 3 years ago
1 like

If they'd do a 28mm version I'd buy them today!! 
 

That's assuming they work of course...

Avatar
Steve K replied to EddyBerckx | 3 years ago
0 likes

EddyBerckx wrote:

If they'd do a 28mm version I'd buy them today!! 
 

That's assuming they work of course...

Ditto (for 25mm) - any particular reason why they don't think their narrow tubes are as puncture resistant?

Avatar
hannawald replied to Steve K | 3 years ago
1 like

It´s probably meant for commuting. 130g thick tube is not the best for rolling resistance so it is not meant for performance oriented road tyre.

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to Steve K | 3 years ago
2 likes

Steve K wrote:

EddyBerckx wrote:

If they'd do a 28mm version I'd buy them today!! 
 

That's assuming they work of course...

Ditto (for 25mm) - any particular reason why they don't think their narrow tubes are as puncture resistant?

My guess would be that thinner tyres often have higher pressures and that would mean more force pushing the inner tube against the puncturing thorn/nail and thus less puncture resistance.

Avatar
wtjs | 3 years ago
5 likes

It is axiomatic that nothing resists hawthorns! Therefore, this is an ideal candidate for a road.cc test. It should be carried out along a canal towpath when a hawthorn hedge has just been cut, but without cheating by using Marathon Plus tyres- these do mostly work, but are pretty heavy. Even I would consider these if they actually worked, but I don't believe it yet- you can easily get a 5 mm thorn through the tyre and it just stays there, sometimes plugging its own hole through the ordinary tube for a while.

Avatar
watlina replied to wtjs | 3 years ago
2 likes

Your right nothing resists hawthorns  2  I've had Marathon Plus on my commuter for years and hawthorns just seem to cut through like the tyres are made of butter. I was reading the article thinking I might get a set of these tubes and go back to a set of tyres that don't weigh a ton and I can actually feel the road but you brought me back down to earth. Thanks, I think  1  

Avatar
ktache replied to watlina | 3 years ago
1 like

Admittedly, I have low pressure 3 inch Maxxis Chronicles, but they are like thorn magnets, but luckily I decided to set them up tubeless, lbs put Orange Enduance Seal in them, which I have continued to use, of the very many thorns I have pulled out all have sealed quickly.  This of course may not work with higher pressure narrower tyres, or them demon foreign thorns.

All of them would have been ride ruiners with my latex tubed 2 inch knobblies.

The smug satisfaction of pulling out and inch of more worth of thorn, even with stick attached, watching it seal and continueing the ride...

Avatar
Chris Hayes | 3 years ago
1 like

I think that I'll self-insure on this one.... 

Avatar
yupiteru | 3 years ago
0 likes

Yet again, not a new idea, polyurethane innertubes were 'the big thing' a number of years ago I seem to remember.

They did not catch on then either for a number of practical and excessive cost reasons.

Avatar
Sriracha | 3 years ago
4 likes
Quote:

Each is priced at £22.99. That's considerably more than a standard butyl inner tube...

Seems like they just rolled the puncture insurance premium into the price of the tube. More financial engineering than product engineering.

Avatar
Alessandro replied to Sriracha | 3 years ago
1 like

If a standard inner tube costs £3 then this is roughly 8 tubes. In my normal years of riding 4,000 - 5,000km I don't puncture 8 times so it would perhaps seem to be overpriced until you take into account the hassle of changing a tube, especially if most of your distance is commuting when you need to be somewhere at a certain time. If you get 3 punctures every 5,000km then you're essentially paying a £14 premium to not puncture for the year which seems pretty reasonable to me (assuming that the tube does as it's supposed to and not puncture). 

Avatar
Compact Corned Beef replied to Alessandro | 3 years ago
3 likes

If it works as intended - and that's a big if - I'd certainly take that £14 a year. Having to replace a tube in the pissing rain, in the middle of winter, worrying about picking up the wee one in time was no fun.

Avatar
hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
4 likes

I'm intrigued. What's the chance of a Road.cc test of these?

Avatar
samuri replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
3 likes

Given I'm Mr Puncture I'll happily test them. Lob a few over and they'll get a proper testing.

Avatar
Jack Sexty replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
3 likes

It'll definitely happen if they will send us some, already requested!

Avatar
hawkinspeter replied to Jack Sexty | 3 years ago
3 likes

Jack Sexty wrote:

It'll definitely happen if they will send us some, already requested!

If you really want to put the cat amongst the pigeons, you could have a puncture-off with one rider on tubeless and one rider on these.

Avatar
Jenova20 replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
2 likes

hawkinspeter wrote:

Jack Sexty wrote:

It'll definitely happen if they will send us some, already requested!

If you really want to put the cat amongst the pigeons, you could have a puncture-off with one rider on tubeless and one rider on these.

Spend ten minutes cycling on roads in the West Midlands...See how long they last on these pot-holed hellscape roads.

Avatar
Bikeylikey replied to hawkinspeter | 3 years ago
1 like

hawkinspeter wrote:

Jack Sexty wrote:

It'll definitely happen if they will send us some, already requested!

If you really want to put the cat amongst the pigeons, you could have a puncture-off with one rider on tubeless and one rider on these.

You'd never be able to get exactly the same conditions for both sets of tyres though, so you could never have a 'real world' test comparing the two. A lab test would be the only way to do it.

I'd imagine that the big price to pay, other than the £ cost, would be rolling resistance. They'd probably give your tyres the feel of tractor tyres. A rolling resistance test would be an essential part of any test RoadCC undertook.

Pages

Latest Comments