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When IT makes itself felt, cyclists have a problem. The inner tube normally does its job inconspicuously and out of sight. But it is actually what keeps the bike running. If it loses air, everything comes to a standstill. The gears? Useless. The suspension? Useless. The bicycle system, knocked out by the prick of a spike or the impact of a pavement edge. Tubeless systems increase puncture protection, save weight and reduce rolling resistance. But this technology is more common in cycling. Normal cyclists shy away from the effort involved in converting or the mess if a puncture occurs despite the sealing milk and a tube has to be inserted on the road.
Are TPU inner tubes better than classic butyl bicycle inner tubes?
Tubes made of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) are now set to replace the traditional butyl and not only improve puncture protection while being significantly lighter, but also reduce rolling resistance. Of course, such pioneering properties also have a disadvantage: TPU tubes are on average almost three times as expensive as the butyl or latex alternatives. Is the investment worth it? This is what our colleagues from our sister magazine BIKE wanted to find out in extensive laboratory and practical tests. They compared four lightweight and four standard inner tubes with four TPU models. Even if not all of these tubes are available in trekking bike sizes: A "29er" is just a wide 28er tyre. And the range is growing inexorably.
TPU inner tubes are not entirely new. We tested a plastic inner tube from Eclipse back in 2011. Tubolito has also been serving a small circle of performance-orientated cyclists and tuning fetishists for some time. But now Schwalbe is the first major manufacturer to venture into the TPU segment, producing a tube made from the thermoplastic Aerothan. This could really get the TPU wave rolling.
Weight saving at the expense of puncture protection?
The weight of the new tubing is convincing right from the start. At just 43 grams, the Tubolito S-MTB weighs a whole 99 grams less than the lightest butyl tube. And even with the 88 gram Aerothan tube, you still save over 100 grams in the set. On the rolling resistance test rig, things are not so clear-cut. The heavier Tubolito model does not roll any better than a standard inner tube. Its lightweight counterpart (S-MTB) and the Schwalbe land just below the values of the lightweight butyl tubes. Only the Reveloop, which weighs just 44 grams, manages to get below the 12-watt mark. But the real star when it comes to rolling is the latex tube from Vittoria. Thanks to its extremely flexible skin, at 11.2 watts it runs over four watts faster than a heavy freeride inner tube. Bikers can only ride even faster with a tubeless set-up - by a good half a watt, as the comparison in the Schwalbe laboratory shows. However, our practical experiment shows that the differences are difficult for the rider to understand. In the blind test, only one out of three riders was able to correctly identify the difference between tubeless, TPU and butyl tubes. And the picture is not quite as clear when it comes to puncture protection. At best, the plastic discs protect against punctures as well as the weakest butyl tubes. Here, the protective effect increases almost in line with the wall thickness. The situation is different for puncture wounds: Schwalbe's Aerothan Tube and the Tubolito MTB last an extremely long time before the test spike punctures the plastic skin. No other inner tube comes close to these values. The lightweight Tubolito and the thickest-walled butyl tubes follow far behind.
In the end, the Aerothan Tube and the Tubolito MTB made of TPU easily came out on top of the entire test field. All in all, they are clearly the better tubes. But are they worth the high price? We say: Only if weight or rolling resistance play an overriding role is the investment worthwhile. If this is less important to you, you can buy four of our price-performance winner Michelin Air Stop MTB for the price of one TPU inner tube. Or even better: convert to tubeless - the real winner in terms of rolling resistance and puncture protection.
You can download the complete laboratory and practical test of the 12 bicycle inner tubes plus lots of tube knowledge from MYBIKE 01/2022 as a PDF below the article for a fee.
Why not free of charge? Because quality journalism has a price. In return, we guarantee independence and objectivity. This applies in particular to the tests in MYBIKE. We don't charge for them, but the opposite is the case: we do charge for them - tens of thousands of euros every year.
TPU hoses in the test
- Reveloop Reveloop.mtb ultra
- Schwalbe Aerothane Tube
- Tubolito S-MTB 29
- Tubolito MTB 29
Lightweight inner tubes in the test
- Continental MTB 29 Light
- Maxxis Ultralight
- Schwalbe Extra Light SV19A
- Vittoria Competition Latex
Standard hoses in the test
Downloads:
Stefan Frey
Editor
