TPU tubes - should we all be using them?

I can't talk while we're riding it's too dangerous in a bunch so anyways the third Ride Now ridden on these cheap YouTubes very nice uh fault Road vibration there's no difference in than butyl tubes just the same can't feel anymore if anything maybe they feel a little bit more forgiving if that makes sense other than that they're nice they're smooth rolling resistance I can't really feel any difference maybe there's a fraction more uh less rolling system sorry less resistance so they roll better than neutral they are definitely noisiest the first thing you notice when you write a now I'm writing the same pressure which is about 78 pounds per square inch same pressure as a butyl and you notice the first thing is noise they're not overly loud but they're more juicy juicy and make my position or especially when you're climbing a hill or you're going fast you'll notice that the first thing you put your teeth to your tubes in you go for a ride you'll you'll notice the sound [Music] foreign and maybe even a few more Stone clicks like flipping off a stone from your tire a little bit more of that maybe a bit sharper by sound haven't had any punctures yet no problems and I haven't had the public ties up they're exactly the same so that's good too remind you it takes a farewell for the butyls to lose a bit of pressure uh usually about two weeks two and a half weeks and give them a bit more air what else feels like feels like you're riding with no tubes right there's just a tire on there with air in it not like tubeless tubeless a little bit more dead this is an ordinary bike tube as we know them it's made of butyl and this is a TP YouTube It's Made of thermoplastic urethane it's a lot smaller isn't it in fact both these tubes fit the same size tire 700 by 28c its small size is only one advantage of the TPU tube in fact in this video I'm going to show you why it's about time we all went to TPU tubes [Music] thank you [Music] [Music] 100 percent [Music] everything's burning long legs it's all his fault so what exactly is TPU as far as materials are concerned well it's a poly model plastic that can be softened or melted and its molecular structure Remains the Same when it's cooled so that means it can be reshaped or even recycled over and over and amongst other properties it has high Optical Clarity resistant to chemical attack has high UV resistance and is non-toxic so let's have a look at the most important points we demand from our bike tubes and we're going to compare the butyl and the latex and the TPU tube now don't have a latex with me but I certainly have the statistics on them so to illustrate I've just taken three random wheels and let's just say we put one of each tube in so we've got the butyl tube the latex tube and the TP YouTube so the first thing we're going to look at is weight first to butyl tubes and the standard butyl tube will weigh between 100 and 130 grams now there are ultralight butyl tubes such as Continental Schwalbe and Bontrager and they range anywhere between 50 to 65 grams over to the latex now registering or registering you can get them at 50 grams and Victoria common weight for latex is around about 80 grams over to our TP YouTube standard TP YouTube 34 grams and yes ultralight TP YouTubes down to 23 grams and it's not just the weight look at the size difference here we go front on like that look about the same but then you turn them side on and the TPU tubes size wise are way smaller than the standard butyl in fact you could probably fit one two three at least three of these in the same size package as you do with one butyl tube so space saving in your back pocket or in your tool bag on your bike as well with the TP YouTubes over the butyl is a normal sized butyl tube you can see it takes up almost all of the tool bag TP YouTube it's lost in that bag space now I mentioned an ultralight version of the TP YouTube this is the standard one 34 grams it has a steel valve stem the ultralight version same tube it has a plastic stem so you save yourself around about 10 11 grams using the ultralight with the plastic stem next up rolling resistance now I don't have the facilities here to test rolling resistance but someone else did of course it's always someone with stats and the winner is a latex latex has the lowest rolling resistance hence why they use a lot of latex tubes in the gluons on the track racing secondly is TPU not far behind the latex is the TPU tubes and then significantly further up is the butyl tubes puncture resistance now of course the last thing you want to have to do is end your bike race or have to catch a taxi or walk home because you forgot to take a spare tube with you when you went for your ride now I haven't spent a lot of time with them on the road with the TP YouTubes as yet but quite a few people have and this is based on their results so we're looking at pinch Flats snake bites Sharps and cuts now the winner is TP YouTubes they come out as best puncture resistance secondly and not far behind was butyl tubes but then significantly lower down the list was latex are the worst for getting punches air retention and it was a battle between the TPU tube and the butyl tube very very close taking around about one week to go down but nevertheless the TP YouTube only just won out above the butyl the worst one was the latex every time you go for a ride you have to pump the thing up repair ability now for a lot of us it's a good money saver because you can just whack a patch on the hole in the tube and put it back on your bike and off your ride now the winner for repairability happens to be butyl not only is it easier and the patches stick really well the patches last a long time next is TPU now TPU patches tend to be a bit fussier they like to have a really clean surface to stick to so use isopropyl alcohol or something like that to clean the tube around the hole then the patch sticks a lot better not the best for repairing on the roadside but better done when you're at home the worst one was latex latex patches don't work very well at so you're better off actually replacing the latex tube itself now there is one caveat to repairability well I'd call it a caveat because remember how small the TPU tube is compared to that you can pack in three of these tubes at least in the size of the butyl tube so who of us doesn't take a spare tube with us anyway just in case oh we don't want to patch it we just whack in on YouTube and we'll repair the other one when we get home if we were a parrot so for us weight weenies or for a lot of us who want to be minimalist I'm one of them I like to be a minimalist don't like to carry stuff I don't have to like a whole bunch of Allen keys and things having a TP YouTube is a spare you will not even know you've got it with you over to something that's becoming more and more important these days and that is the product's environmental impact that includes two aspects as far as we're concerned here manufacturing and the end of life disposal ah the humble bicycle tube and not just the bicycle tube lots of other stuff too all made from this stuff called butyl and butyl comes from Good Old crude oil to manufacture butyl is complicated and not clean but who cares it's worth six billion dollars a year oh it's recyclable it takes only 12.8 megajoules to recycle one kilogram of butyl but 64 megajoules per kilo to make it fresh from the ground so let's keep all our old butyl tubes put them on a ship and take them all the way to Southeast Asia remove all the valves by hand oh no there's a machine for that put them through Auntie May's Mix Master 43 steps later out comes your brand new recycled bike tube one more step repack and transport it all the way back to your local bike shop total carbon footprint for recycling your bike tube the latex bicycle tube its prime material is from the sap of the rubber tree and there's plenty of rubber trees so that's because we planted them lots of them lots and lots of them too many lots of them the rubber trees tropical belonging to the Amazon basin but there's now so much demand for rubber that the plantations are now pan tropical replacing native Flora in other countries now latex is recyclable and it turns out to be quite a Simple and Clean process it's also readily biodegradable but it releases methane like someone else we know now don't get confused latex is not rubber it's made from rubber it's rubber plus zinc oxide formaldehyde colorants and more chemicals nevertheless it's still cleaner than butyl the TPU or thermoplastic urethane tube and elastomer that can be either polyester based or tetrahydrofurin depending on how hard or soft you want the plastic to be now you're probably familiar with TPU here's a few items you'll recognize that are made from this plastic the plastic used in 3D printing that's usually TPU here's a 3D mesh material made from TPU it's high abrasion resistance flexibility and lightweight make it ideal for making high quality Sports Products and now you know with the mesh on this bike seat comes from performing and recycling processes are simple relatively speedy and can be achieved on small scale equipment so it can be done on a more localized basis and this also cuts out a lot of Transport Logistics when you're making a bike tube out of TPU it requires a lot less material than with butyl and TPU is biodegradable so in many respects TPU should be our choice so there's a lot to consider how a certain product affects our environment and I'm sure some of you viewers can give a lot more input as to this topic than I can the cost and this section I left will last because this is actually why I'm making this video previously the TP YouTube used to be very expensive in fact the most expensive tube you could buy but now China has come to make these tubes in mass production and the price has plummeted so much so the cost of a TP YouTube is the same as a butyl tube yep that's it exactly the same and this is only a very recent occurrence so check out to see the prices they are the same price you need a hand yeah we do now there's one way of keeping your tire up which we haven't mentioned and that is tubeless first of all if you're getting punches more than the guys around you on a regular basis first of all check your tire wear that it's not gone down to the canvas or getting too thin and secondly check out what sort of tires you're using if all the other guys are using standard or heavier Duty tires and you're an ultra light tires very very thin well of course you're going to get more punches now with tubeless I'm sure there's a lot of riders out there like some of our Riders here they've gone off of tubeless and gone back to using tubes why first of all it's too messy and difficult to set up secondly it's about the same weight or even heavier than using a tube anyhow the tire use the tubeless tire has a layer inside the casing which makes it airtight and that makes the tire a little bit heavier and then you're adding the sealant on top of that so ends up not being lighter now as good as tubeless is it's not 100 guarantee you're never ever going to get a puncture and you've probably seen it as much as I have especially in a bunch you're rolling along guy gets a puncture with his tubeless and the sealant goes everywhere all up his back and over his bike and some of us Riders wear it as well and you know what he's going to have to put a spare tube in anyhow so why not take one of these little things with you now consider this how much would you have to spend to take off 200 grams off of your bike quite a bit of money how about replacing your butyl tubes with TPU tubes to save weight well your butyl tube's 100 grams the TPU tube's 30. so that's 70 grams each tube front wheel 70 grams rear wheel 70 grams and how about a spare one that you take with you another 70. three times 70 grams 210 grams and how much did it cost you 11 each tube at the moment around about 33 dollars to save yourself 200 grams let's have a look at this TPU tube undo it and what's holding it together this is a piece of TPU itself a piece of plastic and it's really stretchy but it's strong at the same time it goes back to its original shape so here's the tube this was the steel valve one I'll do it so it's very flat bit like snakeskin if you've ever seen snake skin very flat very thin very light it's slippery silky slippery and smooth and just to show you how strong and flexible at the same time this TPU is or push this flat head screwdriver into it release and it goes back to its original shape and pretty much no damage now let's try to this standard butyl tube 700 by 28c and it's the same screwdriver and it pushes through easier than with the TP YouTube once more and we'll just go a bit slower yes it definitely takes less effort to rupture the butyl tube our mounting ATP YouTube is exactly the same as any other tube just put firstly a little bit of air in the tube so it just takes shape with one half a tire on the rim and the other half off slide the valve in the valve hole and simply tuck the tube in the tire cavity a pickles the tube slippery it falls into place easily then final part when you use the palm of your hands the tube doesn't stick to the tire bead or grab the rim the tire flips on into place nice and easily and the tube doesn't get caught between the tire bead and the rim either foreign up is it rings when you flick it now you haven't got overly too much air in it's just that the tube is so thin it almost sounds like there's no tube in there at all so here I've mounted the TPU tubes onto the wheels that I'm going to test ride them with and I certainly make the wheels bouncy [Music] this is the TPU punctual repair kit it's basically just patches they're self-adhesive patches but you'll find also in that apart from the instructions are alcohol wipes to clean the tube before you put the patch on very very important always clean the tube thoroughly before pulling these patches on because a little bit of oil or dirt on there will cause the patch to lift once you've found the hole in the tube open up the alcohol wipe and wipe around the punctured hole a size slightly larger than the patch you're going to put on if your fingers are not clean use gloves peel the patch off of the backing paper make sure you eye up the hole with the patch properly once that patch starts to stick it's difficult to remove and stretch the patch and tube in different directions to make sure that the patch has a good seal on the tube and as you can see the patch has stuck really well if you find your patches not sticking to the tube properly it's because the area around the hole hasn't been cleaned properly so use another alcohol wipe or some IPA itself from a spray bottle and wipe again a quick look to see how TPU is made into a bicycle tube starts off granulized heated to melting temperature and then formed heat being made into a long sausage type shape obviously for a bicycle tube and then it's cooled down through this trough which is filled with water and comes out the end as a very long tube this is obviously a clear tube because no colorants were added but you can add colors at the beginning of the melting process and you can have any color you want and how about some positives for the TPU tubes well there's plenty of them isn't there my personal favorite is this extremely light and packable secondly they roll better than any butyl tube out there and they feel smoother to ride on thirdly because they're so slippery and smooth they're a lot easier to install than any other tube they won't grab on the tire bead or the rim in fact in most cases they're going to eliminate the need for tire levers altogether and lastly they're cheap as just before I finish the video I've got a delivery late delivery and it was one of the super light tubes so here you go 24 grams and it looks exactly the same as the other tube very small different color where's the other one pink and the other one was green and of course the see the valves are different this one's actually got an 85 mil stem which is good but this is plastic this one is steel so this one's a little bit heavier that's why notable too because this one's got a removable valve so you can take the valve out not that you need to put an extension on that that's long enough anyhow but if you need to take your valve out of a shorter one then you can do that put an extension on so because it's plastic remember a metal valve will chew out the plastic thread in there if you keep undoing it and doing it up tight enough and even if you put your valve clip on tight you could strip the thread so just go easy on that on that stem there 24 grams what's this pouring with rain as the others come past yet it's probably doing what we're doing so I'm hiding behind a tree we're hiding behind the sign and uh gingerbread no Ginger Donut Man

Channel: oz cycle

Views: 39,220

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Id: _ecfabTgSfg

Length: 22min 20sec (1340 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 28 2023