Plastic Drink Bottle for Thorn Punture Prevention

Thorns are a menace for tubes. Plastic water/pop bottles to the rescue.
Cut in lengths @ desired width, overlap a bit w/tape to inside of tire.
One or more layers....Some bottles are thicker....
Straight in nails could still suck, but so far seems to cause 'em to jeer off between tire & plastic...
one layer coke 2 liter & duct tape = no flats, 4 bikes, 3 years
prior to 'save the planet' cheapo fix about 6 a year....

ur not getting any abrading of the rubber against the sharp edge of the plastic?
other than using gaffer tape, when i tried this once long ago my tire was full of rubber crumbs after 1500 miles which looked like it was heading towards chewing a hole in the tire so i removed it.
may have only been something about that particular tire, maybe bad vulcanization or something but i dunno.
how many miles is the longest this has been working for u?
thanx for the positive feedback & will give this another go.
i should try again with a very narrow strip & work up from there.

Cool Idea! I have one bike with old street slicks inside the tires as a liner. Cutting off the bead wire, the slicks really increased the thickness of the tire so thorns have to be longer to reach the tube. Heavy though. I wonder about other types of plastic liners, like your idea. 1 inch polyethylene pipe maybe?

Toorbough ULL-Zeveigh said:

ur not getting any abrading of the rubber against the sharp edge of the plastic?
other than using gaffer tape, when i tried this once long ago my tire was full of rubber crumbs after 1500 miles which looked like it was heading towards chewing a hole in the tire so i removed it.
may have only been something about that particular tire, maybe bad vulcanization or something but i dunno.
how many miles is the longest this has been working for u?
thanx for the positive feedback & will give this another go.
i should try again with a very narrow strip & work up from there.

Click to expand...

Tube/tire chaffing and balling up rubber happens a lot in any sort of low pressure tubed tire that gets run at high speeds. I've found that using a liberal mount of baby powder on the tube and inside the tire seems to reduce or even totally stop the effect entirely.

It would likely help in this situation as well. I think it's a pretty good idea for folks who ride in areas with regular puncture items on the ground.

Now thats an idea worth selling in a shop, if you could just make this idea into something more reliable with a refined process.

Kudos!

317537 said:

Now thats an idea worth selling in a shop, if you could just make this idea into something more reliable with a refined process.

Kudos!

Click to expand...

Only a mere 115 years late...

http://www.patentstorm.us/patents/6877537/description.html

Sounds like a really good idea for a liner for home-made spiked winter tires. I've decided to make my own spiked tires for winter riding following instructions on another forum.

dogman said:

Cool Idea! I have one bike with old street slicks inside the tires as a liner. Cutting off the bead wire, the slicks really increased the thickness of the tire so thorns have to be longer to reach the tube. Heavy though. I wonder about other types of plastic liners, like your idea. 1 inch polyethylene pipe maybe?

Click to expand...

Or use the ones Slime makes--they're dang near puncture proof; I did once manage to send a roofing nail thru one, but the many others did not make it thru the liner (truck in front of me spilled them out the bed/gate gap over most of the road, not possible to avoid them all).
http://www.slime.com/product/211/Slime-Tube-Protectors.html

That was on an early version of the DayGlo Avenger upright bike with 26" wheels.

When I emailed them to let them know they are not totally puncture proof, they not only replaced *both* liners, but also sent two tubes (with pre-slimed thorn-resistant ones), no charge at all. They do stand behind their products.

I rode that bike for over a year, probably closer to a year and a half, before I finished the CrazyBike2 and rode DayGloAvenger much less, and in all that time I did not have to fix a single flat, even when riding on the unpaved canal paths and in our never-ending road construction zones (which had taken out who knows how many tubes before I got those liners).

I'm actually using the *old* liners in my 24" tires on CrazyBike2 (with the new ones still in the DayGlo Avenger), and they've already stopped a couple of serious nails from ruining my day. None so far since switching from the knobbys to the slicks, but there will be, I'm sure.

That said, I might make up a front wheel to swap out for the one I have on there now, using an identical tire and similar tube, with these bottle-plastic liners. Only change I'll make is to melt the ends together for the strips, if I have to to make them long enough. When I cut them, I'll cut them off a 3-liter bottle in a spring-shape, to maximize the length of the strip I get out of each one.