My first puncture :(

[Fordulike]

I was dreading my first puncture and today my nightmare came true.
At first i thought that it might present a problem being on the rear hub motor wheel. Luckily it was easy enough to gain access to all of the inner tube without removing the wheel. It was still attached to the centre hub (if you know what i mean) but was simple to work around.
Unfortunately the tyre had been slashed in two places by glass fragments.
I had tried to avoid them but must have caught some of the shards in the tyre.
I repaired the inner tube with fairly large patches and checked the tyre for any evidence of glass still stuck in there.
The slashes in the inner tube must have been too large, as it stayed up for a few minutes then blew again. I assume through the patch somewhere.
This leads me to a few questions.

1) Is that puncture repair miracle in a can any good? I know it's temporary stuff, but probably ideal for a puncture miles away from home.
2) Assuming it does work. Do you need to replace the tyre after use?
3) Realising no tyre is puncture proof, are there any good puncture resistant 26" MTB tyres out there on the market?
4) My current tyres are 26 x 1.75. Do i need to replace the tyres with exactly same size i.e. the 1.75 dimension?

Added after a bit of research: spotted these puncture proof tyres:
Greentyre - tyres without air Bicycle tyres
Worth it for peace of mind and hassle free riding???

 

[Fordulike]

Have sent an email to the company as there doesn't seem to be a way of ordering these online.
I'm more than interested, for if they provide a good ride will prove to be very cost effective in the long term. No more punctures. Yippee
Who knows, they may send me a freebie set to test ride and report on here.
Now wouldn't that be nice

 

[flecc]

The can solutions only work on the smallest of punctures, on slashes whih a patch don't repair they are useless.

Did you patch the tube properly? It's important to let the ruibber solution dry completely so that it looks dull before pressing the patch onto the tube. That immediately welds the two together which wet patching will never do.

The best of the puncture resistant types are Schwalbe Marathon Plus which have a thick built in protective layer:

Available here in your size

Those airless tyres are generally considered to be rather poor, extremely difficult to fit and their handling leaves a lot to be desired. They've been around for years and have never received a favourable review.
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[carpetbagger]

what is needed is somebody like Etim 50mph club to try them out...if they are good for him the they will be fine for the rest of us !!

 

[Fordulike]

I realise there will probably be a compromise somewhere with airless tyres, and not suitable for the hardcore bikers.
For my needs though, it offers an ideal solution, and am prepared to accept small limitations to save having a puncture miles from home.
I'm going to give these a try as they seem fairly advanced in design.
Quote from their website:

Greentyres are produced from one piece of micro-cellular polyurethane. There's no inner tube, only millions of tiny air cells that give Greentyres a comfortable and puncture free ride

The tyre installation video makes it look like a piece of cake to fit.
Once i've obtained a set and ridden them for a while, i'll provide a write up on my experiences.

 

[eddieo]

Do what you want its your money, but these solid tyres have been rubbished on here in the past, and the consensus is that Marathon plus offer the best solution

 

[Bandit]

....At first i thought that it might present a problem being on the rear hub motor wheel....

That was always a nightmare when we had our e-Zee, because it's not clear what you'd need to do on the road if you had to remove the motor wheel complete with disc brake. Fortunately, it had Marathon Plus tyres and hasn't had a puncture in 1700 miles of use by 100 different people over the last year.

Even so, during the annual puncture season, when the hedge-cutting farmers round here attempt to remove cyclists from back roads using blackthorn calthrops, we've been grateful for the Panasonic drive configuration which leaves most of the bike accessible to the only kind of puncture repair I can manage on the road: replacing the inner tube!

 

[Fordulike]

Sorry guys and gals, i'm in no way trying to muscle in on years of experience.
I did detect a slight hint of anger entering the thread
I do remember ye olde airless tyres made of solid rubber. Just thought technology might have moved on a bit to alleviate the ghastly ride they provided.

 

[carpetbagger]

i picked up a couple of the inner tubes at £4 a pair from lidl yesterday,deciding it was quicker to change a tube if i got a puncture far from home. In future i will be well prepared

 

[flecc]

I do remember ye olde airless tyres made of solid rubber. Just thought technology might have moved on a bit to alleviate the ghastly ride they provided.

Yes, they were indeed awful things.

The trouble will all one material solids is that they behave the same in all directions. Tyre carcases are designed to have lateral stability with vertical compliance to absorb shocks, but these polyurethane ones are the same in both planes. The result is that they can feel unstable on corners, particularly as the bank angle increases. I couldn't live with that, but you might well be happy with them if you take things easy on bends.

Then again, I don't find punctures a problem at all, usually holding me up for less than five minutes on the rare occasions they happen. These days that's almost never as I use the Marathon Plus tyres.
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[bode]

Is there any reason why there could not be a tyre with a conventional carcase to provide the lateral stability, but an inside of material similar to the Greentyre, thus (hopefully) providing the advantages of both? Just a thought.

 

[Phil the drill]

In the off road motorcycle world of both motocross and enduro, many riders use tyres which are in effect solid. These use a conventional tyre, but are fitted with a "mousse" - a solid foam like material to replace the inner tube. They work well and are popular, but do wear out. They are notoriously evil to fit!
Another alternative has been the 'tyre balls' a large number of inflate balls which sit inside the tyre and where a puncture tends to only affect one or two balls, with little effect on tyre performance (also a pig to fit, but less so than the mousses).
Unfortunately these solutions do not translate to bicycle tyres, which are much narrower, shallower and operate at comparatively high pressures.
I'm quite confident though that the materials technology does exist to develop an acceptable solution for bicycle tyres - if the right developers (with an appropriate budget) become involved. That will only happen if they could see a big enough market to recoup their development costs - something which I'm afraid I can't honestly see happening in the near future .
One day perhaps.....

Phil

 

[Old Timer]

I was dreading my first puncture and today my nightmare came true.
At first i thought that it might present a problem being on the rear hub motor wheel. Luckily it was easy enough to gain access to all of the inner tube without removing the wheel. It was still attached to the centre hub (if you know what i mean) but was simple to work around.
Unfortunately the tyre had been slashed in two places by glass fragments.
I had tried to avoid them but must have caught some of the shards in the tyre.
I repaired the inner tube with fairly large patches and checked the tyre for any evidence of glass still stuck in there.
The slashes in the inner tube must have been too large, as it stayed up for a few minutes then blew again. I assume through the patch somewhere.
This leads me to a few questions.

1) Is that puncture repair miracle in a can any good? I know it's temporary stuff, but probably ideal for a puncture miles away from home.
2) Assuming it does work. Do you need to replace the tyre after use?
3) Realising no tyre is puncture proof, are there any good puncture resistant 26" MTB tyres out there on the market?
4) My current tyres are 26 x 1.75. Do i need to replace the tyres with exactly same size i.e. the 1.75 dimension?

Added after a bit of research: spotted these puncture proof tyres:
Greentyre - tyres without air Bicycle tyres
Worth it for peace of mind and hassle free riding???

I`ve now got Marathon plus tyres on both my MTB E bikes and don`t even think about punctures. where I live every road is screened with hawthorns and it is in the centre of flint country I did have a puncture on one of them but to be honest I pushed my luck.)
Got mine from here at £19.50 each sent unfolded.Schwalbe Marathon PLUS 26 x 1.75 puncture proof tyre on eBay (end time 26-Mar-10 11:43:06 GMT)
Fit them and forget them but just carry a spanner and a new tube in case.

 

[flecc]

Is there any reason why there could not be a tyre with a conventional carcase to provide the lateral stability, but an inside of material similar to the Greentyre, thus (hopefully) providing the advantages of both? Just a thought.

It's cetainly possible to have two materials, but as Phil says, the high pressures needed on small section bike tyres make it a difficult one to design for and results almost impossible to fit without split rims. It's so much easier for large tyres that only need lowish pressures.

There have been many attempts over the years but none have got anywhere good enough compared with the air inflated tyre with a well designed carcase. Contrary to the myths that tyre companies block such progress, they would love to make simple solids and avoid the present labour intensive processes of tyre manufacture.
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