Morning all,
While riding at Gwydir the other day I managed to put an inch long slit in the side wall of my rear NN which led to two revelations. The first being that I actually have no means to repair or plug a tubeless tyre on the trail, I would ordinarily just put a tube in to see me through. The second being "holy hell, that's a tight bugger of a tyre!" Fortunately this happened on the last descent so only had a 1k walk back to the carpark so it could have been a lot worse. FWIW I'm 81kg riding a Trek Fuel 9.8 with a NN 2.35 rear with 17psi and it happened coming off one of the drop offs. The tyre also burped on the rim. Would having a foam rim protector jobby help mitigate this or are they purely for protecting the rim?
All this leads me to what's the best trailside repair kit to have, are the little ones that fit in the end of your grips any cop and is it possible to repair a slit tyre with some sort of internal patch or just a coupe of plugs and hope for the best? The tyre in question is only 4 rides old so would be somewhat galling if its borked.
I was getting heaps of pinch flats after not having any for ages. Have ditched the rim protection running DH casing and upped the pressure to 28. I carry a dynaplug mega pill and a tube.
… riding out the rest of a ride wearing a rim protector is annoying.
A properly long slit like that is likely to be unpluggable due to the amount of movement between the sides but also a very rare incident.
Hardcore wilderness types have been known to carry a needle and thread for such things but on most of my rides I'd have walked to the car long before I'd have finished faffing about sewing.
For the punctures you're more likely to encounter plugging kits basically come in 2 variants; 'bacon strip + fork' versions, which are all much of a muchness and the Dynaplug system, which is faster, easier to use in a hurry and works better IMHO but is more expensive.
A tubeless plug would be useless for a 1in slit
Only two options work in my experince
1. Carry a needle and thread to repair the slit and then fit a tube
2. Carry a piece of laminated card, £5,£10,£20 note or find some suitible rubbish by the side of the road/trail (ive done this) Also carry a small amount of duct tape wrapped around something flat (easier to carry on the bike or your person)
You can use the duct tape to hold the laminated card, money, rubbish in place on the inside of the tyre covering the slit, fit a tube and pump it up to get you back to where you need to be
This method has saved me a couple of times on the road bike when im 50 miles from home, nowhere near a train station and had no one who could collect me!
Re slit, I carry these (*but they are for tubed tyres) I’ve never used them and I’m not entirely convinced……………..
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/park-tool-emergency-tyre-boot-patch
As a wild idea for tubeless I’ve just been trying some gutter repairs and after having to move some accidentally misplaced gorilla gutter tape I’m tempted to take a bit with me
https://uk.gorillaglue.com/gorilla-waterproof-patch-seal-tape/
However I think the walking tip would probably be best
**edit, with a big hole I’d use one of these
https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/272550048602?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&_trksid=p2060353.m1438.l2649
They go on the inside but I’ve had a couple of worms blow out as the tyre has got older and more worn
Thanks for the replies so far, all useful information. It appears that the slit has partly sealed which is nice and leaves a remaining aperture of almost 1cm which seems more favourable to plugging.
On the trail;
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2 days later;
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Reckon a Dynaplug Mega Plug woud sort that, maybe with an extra 'standard' plug to tighten it up.
That's easily repairable, either with a patch in the inside or a plug. As for tyre boots, just cut a few out of an old toothpaste tube of differing sizes. Old truck but really does work.
Not quite on topic but 17psi seems hellish low unless you’re running a dh carcass. I’m the best part of 20kg lighter than you and run 10psi more in 2.3 tyres and still pinch flat more than I like .
Avoid the flat rather than fix it!
You could probably plug that, trailside, with 2 or 3 of the fatter plugs. Also I think from the pic you’ve got a hole next to the bead too. Something like that I’d stitch up with dental floss when I got home and then stick a normal patch over.
Have been running 16/17 psi on carbon 40mm rims for almost 2 years and this is the first time I've had any puncture related issues. Appreciate YMMV and may just have been lucky during this time.
So in terms of a repair kit, what have people had good experiences with and any thoughts on bar end solutions?
Re slit, I carry these (*but they are for tubed tyres) I’ve never used them and I’m not entirely convinced……………..
https://www.wiggle.co.uk/park-tool-emergency-tyre-boot-patch
/blockquote>I've used one of these on a road bike tyre with a tube. They work.
Used a Park Tool tyre boot this week, ran over something which put a 1cm tear in a GP5000. I also cary a 5" section of an old tyre as a really worse case scenario tyre boot, for where the Park tool sticker isn't able to cope (NB went to use one a couple of years back and it has lost all the stickiness - might have been over 10 years old though!).
Wednesday's puncture
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Clean the tyre throughly on the inside and patch it using a standard puncture repair patch/kit. Let it dry solid before you refill with sealant
I have saved countless nearly new Tyres using that method. It’s simple, easy and very effective
I've had plenty of success with just cleaning the sealant off, applying a strip of gorilla tape to the inside (I keep some wrapped around co2 amongst other places) and just reinflating. I'm not convinced the gorilla tape isn't stronger than most tyre sidewalls anyway.
If you want to belt and braces, strips or panels cut from an old thick inner tube make good tyre boots to be held down by gorilla tape.
