MTN bike tubes

[kermit]

I'm gonna be the oddball here but I put thorn resistant tubes in my mountain bikes. They are heavy, about 10x heavier than regular, but I have never had a flat. The worst thing in the world is being 6 miles into a trail with a flat. I would rather carry the extra weight.

[tzvia]

I use light weight tubes, right now running Specialized. With a spare in the seat bag, and another (along with patches) in the Camelbak, I think I'm covered. For tire cuts, I cut up an old water bottle into 2" squares, and taped then together with electrical tape. If I get a cut that allows the tube to stick out, I would put the square of plastic inside the tire and hold it in place with a little electrical tape till pressure from re-inflating the tube holds it against the sidewall. That would get me back to my car without any extra risk of the new tube being cut because it was exposed. I did it once and much to my surprise, it did work. And it was a good excuse to buy new water bottles .

Rotating weight is a good place to save weight; whatever you can trim from the wheels is like trimming 3 times the weight somewhere else. No thorn proof tubes for me; if an object is strong/sharp enough to get through my tire, it can get through a thornproof tube too so I don't think it helps much. I'd rather save the weight.

[stephanie1129]

self healing tubes are heavy, and the "slime" inside can pool to one side of your tire making your wheel unbalanced.

I used to have tire liners in my mtb, until they kept slicing my inner tubes.

Now I just have regular tubes, no liners, or self healing stuff, and I rarely have problems with flats.