Use 'em, love 'em, but not on the commute bike. The air pressure holds longer in thick butyl and the weight doesn’t matter much for me there.

I use them, and have for a few years. For me the jury is still out.

Pros: Lighter, much lighter. Makes my steering feel lighter.

Smaller, which is great in a saddle bag.

Cons: I have several that developed pinhole leaks at higher pressure. They don’t leak fast enough to affect a ride, but the next day, they’ll definitely be down a good bit. I don’t know why this bugs me, but it does (I think I get nervous about trusting it). But I have some that are in my previous bike that are holding air fine for weeks, so it’s not an age thing. Or even a brand thing. Just seems to be luck of the draw.

Patching them - I haven’t tried often, but I haven’t had it work, even with the included patches some come with.

Cost, obviously. I got lucky and scored some on Amazon haul, getting 6 for like $8, with shipping. Extremely long stems, too, though I don’t have deep wheels. But the usual cost is much higher.

I keep buying them because I don’t want to go back, but I’m not 100% sold that the cost is worth it, either.

@MrAndrewD @bicycling

I’ve been happily using whatever TPU tubes are cheapest from AliExpress for about 3 years now.

I’ve had one failed out of the box: Gustavo brand had the valve only bonded on half the circumference, and their “support” was basically “sucked in!”

The supplied patches are a bit more of a grab bag of effectiveness - they’ve all held for the post-puncture ride home, but some have failed the next day. I’ve found that a roll of TPU tape, sold for patching inflatable swimming pools, is thicker and stronger and can be trusted much longer.

The other gotcha is that punctures can be really, really, teensy tiny! About 50% have required patiently submerging the tube in the bath and waiting for a solitary bubble to emerge. You can’t inflate TPU tubes above s couple of PSI if they aren’t inside a tyre, so you can’t get a healthy high pressure stream of bubbles from a tiny puncture.

Overall, happy with TPU, love being able to easily carry multiples. As with anything, a bit of a learning curve.

#BikeTooter #TPU

@MrAndrewD @bicycling I carry RideNows as emergency spares, but my tires are set up tubeless. I’ve had to press one into service once. It was fine.

They’re delicate in some ways. I carry my spares inside a latex glove (which I’ll want anyhow), and you can’t let them get pinched when mounting them.

Note that if you use an electrical inflator, you need to use a tube with a metal valve (RideNow does offer these) or a hose between the air and valve, because the heat is bad for plastic valves.

Yea. If only for the 100+ grams reduction in spinning weight.

I’m using Thinvik brand via amazon. Metal valve stems.

I could afford a pair of no-brand tpu tubes like a year ago for my road bike. Though I feel I can speed up a little quicker than before with butyl tubes, the extra space in the case is great and they loss air much more slowly than butyl’s. Haven’t had any flat either so at least that’s great, but can’t tell if it’s because the nature of the TPUs or that I’ve been really lucky.

Some other pair for my mtb is on its way, but change its tires to wider and grippier ones, so I won’t be able to feel any difference there when speeding up.

The caveat is their price, though, they still cost 3x than butyls, at least around here.

Yay. I ride Pirelli ones, but RideNow from Aliexpress are fine too. They are lighter and better rolling, more compact and I feel they are less likely to puncture (and if they do, more likely to puncture with a slow leak so you might get home just by re-inflating it). There are no downsides compared to butyl imo, besides the price (which isn’t an issue if you get cheap ones from China) and I puncture so rarely I don’t care about the added cost.

I think meh. I prefer tubeless, but butyl tubes are widely available and cheap when needed. TPU tubes are super nice due to their light weight, but repair kits are hard to come-by also, while butyl tube repair kit you can find from any grocery store or gas station. Also the plastic valve stems are super spooky

I’d probably use TPU tube on like dirt jump or bmx, but anything I may have longer rides is a no-go

I use 36gram ones (ridenow from aliexpress) and they’re surprisingly great and very cheap. I now carry four replacements when randonneuring and it’s still only the weight of one butyl tube. Also, they’ve become better in the last year between two times I’ve ordered them - the valve used to be plastic, now it’s metal; and they added two rubber washers to fill in the space below the valve, which is nice since that’s where they used to stretch and balloon in the space. I use them with a road bike, 700c*25 They do lose air a bit faster than butyl, I’d say about 1 bar a week, regardless if ridden or standing.

edit: haven’t tried lighter ones than 36gr. since a friend who did reported they tend to stretch too thin in places when re-pumping 4-5 times.

I have been using Meroca TPU inner tubes on my bike which I both train and commute on for the last 9 months and have put 2000km + on them so far and they have been absolutely brilliant. I have not had a single puncture in that time and the single negative thing I can say about them is a couple of times when I have unscrewed the dust caps it has removed the valve core instead. That is hardly a massive issue as I can just screw it back it so is more of a minor annoyance.

I cannot recommend them enough and will be using them in the future, no doubt. For reference I use them with Continental Gatorskin tyres and they hold pressure well, I usually pump them to around 80psi and end up refilling them every two weeks by which time they are usually sitting between 50 and 60 psi.

This is the first aliexpress link I found for them with a quick search.