Tire Repair for TUBE tires (not tubeless)

Cmfpatrick

Cmfpatrick

New Member
The other post about a tire plug kit got me thinking, does anyone here have a bike with tires that have inner tubes? If so, what do you do about plugging a flat?

My wife sometimes joins me (K1600GTL) on long trips on her R-18, which has tubes. It's a heavy bike. To repair a flat would require a jack of some kind, and all the tools to get the tire off and a new tube in. I have a flat repair kit for my tubeless tires, but I've begun to wonder what we'd do if she ever got a flat (short of calling for a tow, or converting her bike to tubeless).
 
I have a DRZ because my buddy kept convincing me my FJR was a dirt bike, to predictable results. Getting together a kit to fix a flat roadside underscored for me how _convenient_ tubeless tires are.

When I was married, and my wife's bike had tubes, but we were sticking to roads, I just had AAA RV+ tow insurance to summon a flatbed to wherever we were, and then I'd happily pay the dealer for that. It's really probably the best answer for a R-18.

For the DRZ, since we're out in the woods, I'm carrying the following kit.

Endurostar trail stand: https://www.endurostar.com/ lets you get either tire up using the kickstand as the pivot
This might be a little small for your application, but it only needs to hold 1/3 the weight of the bike

A pair of the tusk tire spoons of the appropriate size for your axle nuts
One spare tire iron in case I have a third hand
Motion Pro T6 Trail Bead Buddy in case I don't
Pro-buds comes in single-use packets: https://pro-buds.co/collections/tire-changing-paste-pro-buds-soap-lube/products/otho-packet
Red rags for various purposes including stuffing in your axle hole, and a tyvek mailer to change on (which also helps wrap tools)
Gloves and shop-towel-size wipes to have a fighting chance of wanting to put gloves on afterwards
Some flavor of air, I carry a dynaplug inflator, but I have a battery powered one in the car which will still use a 12v plug for backup in a pinch
Biggie pack of regular patches + scuffer
Extra tubes of rubber cement
Pliers + Wrench for valve stem nut + screwdriver for brake pads
(I added this kit: https://cruztools.com/product/speedkit-for-off-road-motorcycles-utv-atv/)
Valve tool + extra valves
Strap for the front brake
Spare heavy duty tube in the larger of the two tire sizes, packed with generous talc in vacuum bag (more to contain the mess than anything)

All of this except the tube and inflator fits in a manual canister strapped to the bike https://www.agrisupply.com/manual-canister-large-plain/p/109319/

My plan of action is get the wheel off, unmount one side, try to patch just by pulling the tube through
_When_ I puncture that tube in the process of remounting it, I can switch to the spare tube, and stuff the big tube in the little tire for the low-speed trip out of the woods.
_When_ I puncture that tube, I have a buddy whose fault it is that we're in the woods to go fetch more tubes.
 
Norman said:
I have a DRZ because my buddy kept convincing me my FJR was a dirt bike, to predictable results. Getting together a kit to fix a flat roadside underscored for me how _convenient_ tubeless tires are.

When I was married, and my wife's bike had tubes, but we were sticking to roads, I just had AAA RV+ tow insurance to summon a flatbed to wherever we were, and then I'd happily pay the dealer for that. It's really probably the best answer for a R-18.

For the DRZ, since we're out in the woods, I'm carrying the following kit.

Endurostar trail stand: https://www.endurostar.com/ lets you get either tire up using the kickstand as the pivot
This might be a little small for your application, but it only needs to hold 1/3 the weight of the bike

A pair of the tusk tire spoons of the appropriate size for your axle nuts
One spare tire iron in case I have a third hand
Motion Pro T6 Trail Bead Buddy in case I don't
Pro-buds comes in single-use packets: https://pro-buds.co/collections/tire-changing-paste-pro-buds-soap-lube/products/otho-packet
Red rags for various purposes including stuffing in your axle hole, and a tyvek mailer to change on (which also helps wrap tools)
Gloves and shop-towel-size wipes to have a fighting chance of wanting to put gloves on afterwards
Some flavor of air, I carry a dynaplug inflator, but I have a battery powered one in the car which will still use a 12v plug for backup in a pinch
Biggie pack of regular patches + scuffer
Extra tubes of rubber cement
Pliers + Wrench for valve stem nut + screwdriver for brake pads
(I added this kit: https://cruztools.com/product/speedkit-for-off-road-motorcycles-utv-atv/)
Valve tool + extra valves
Strap for the front brake
Spare heavy duty tube in the larger of the two tire sizes, packed with generous talc in vacuum bag (more to contain the mess than anything)

All of this except the tube and inflator fits in a manual canister strapped to the bike https://www.agrisupply.com/manual-canister-large-plain/p/109319/

My plan of action is get the wheel off, unmount one side, try to patch just by pulling the tube through
_When_ I puncture that tube in the process of remounting it, I can switch to the spare tube, and stuff the big tube in the little tire for the low-speed trip out of the woods.
_When_ I puncture that tube, I have a buddy whose fault it is that we're in the woods to go fetch more tubes.
Click to expand...

Thanks, you confirmed for me that there really is no simple way to do this, something I was overlooking. As you say, it's probably best just to get a tow to a dealer. That's a LOT of tools/kit to carry.
 
@Norman - Excellent post. You may want to add “tools to remove the wheels” to your packing list. ;)

On a big bike that can mean leverage is required. I packed a breaker bar or a full size 27mm combo wrench in the bottom of my pannier on the Super Tenere for wheel removal. (tire change on long trips for me, rather than tube repair). There are a few telescoping breaker bars/lug wrenches, but I could never pull the trigger on a dedicated piece of kit like that just for the bike. Easier to grab what I had on the relatively rare occasions I wanted to carry it.
 
EricV said:
@Norman - Excellent post. You may want to add “tools to remove the wheels” to your packing list. ;)

On a big bike that can mean leverage is required. I packed a breaker bar or a full size 27mm combo wrench in the bottom of my pannier on the Super Tenere for wheel removal. (tire change on long trips for me, rather than tube repair). There are a few telescoping breaker bars/lug wrenches, but I could never pull the trigger on a dedicated piece of kit like that just for the bike. Easier to grab what I had on the relatively rare occasions I wanted to carry it.
Click to expand...
Yeah, on the DRZ the tusk spoons are adequate to the task, little skinny axles.
 
I am confused a to why folks fit tubes to tubeless tyres on a modern bike...

Back in the dark days of cross or bias ply tyres on every bike, tubes were needed because the wheel rims did not allow tubeless tyres and were to all intents and purposes not sealed when tyres were fitted.
A puncture with a tube is an instant deflation, or certainly in seconds! Tubeless tyres have a "liner" layer which makes the casing non permeable.

A puncture on a tubeless tyre usually goes down much more slowly and it may be miles before you are aware of it, unless you have a TPMS equipped bike.

Tubed type tyres have a different aspect ratio (tyre width to sidewall depth) to tubeless ones, 90-100 percent compared to 82 percent or lower for tubeless.

Yes we all cheated and fitted tubes to the early tubeless tyres to save the tyre and so on, until of course we had tubeless repairs kit like wiggly worms etc.

Tyre sealants, well.... not going to go there as I use Dynabeads for balancing and have had bad experience with a sealant based "repair"....

Each to their own but if you must use tubes then you need to remove the wheel, unseat or remove the tyre and used a PRP or plug repair parch to do the repair from the inside out, which is considered permanent, this is the kind of repair they use on car tyres.

Never let anyone tell you just to stick a patch on the inside of the tyre over the hole as on modern motorcycle tyre there can be metal cords in the structure, yes many use polyamid or aramid or even polyester cord in the structrue, but if there is metal in there and you don't repair properly with a PRP, water gets straight in and corrodes those metal cords and it is simply another failure waiting to happen.

Sorry to jump in like this but folks need to understand the risks of using incorrect repair techniques on tube type or radial tyre technology and the potential consequences thereof!

If you consider this to be an egg sucking moment, my apologies, but not everyone knows tyres and the ins and outs of their construction and why repairs can be done badly, wrongly and possibly even dangerously!

HTH

YEMV.
 
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