I know these tubes have been discussed to near ad nauseam, but.... Last summer I mounted up a pair of the WTB TPUs under 700c x 48 RH Oracle Ridge tires and I promised (threatened?) a follow up eval.
One of the year old tubes is still running strong. The other suffered a line of fine punctures that I was unable to adequately patch. I'm not sure what I rode over but IIRC the holes ran along the side wall. I found nothing imbedded in the tire. I purchased two more WTBs. By this time it was winter and a bit chilly in the garage workshop. I replaced the punctured tube with one of the new ones and pumped it right up to 60 psi to seat the tire on the tubeless rim. POP! Lesson learned - take the pressure up slowly for the initial inflation, probably even more important to go slow in the cold. The second newly purchased tube which now has about 6 months of riding on it has been just fine. The bike they are on is ridden 99.9% off pavement at tire pressures of 23 to 25psi. I do believe the TPUs roll a bit smoother over rough surfaces compared to butyl tubes. Recently I picked up two of the 650b WTBs and am running them on my Platypus with 47mm WTB Byway semi slicks at 30-32 psi. The Platypus is ridden on probably about 60/40 pavement/gravel. FWIW the wheels on both bikes are taped with plastic tubeless tape - not Velox style fabric. Bottom line - I like TPU tubes (at least for now). Steve in AVL -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "RBW Owners Bunch" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/rbw-owners-bunch/a5141819-38c0-49c5-9c44-4b67197649e3n%40googlegroups.com.
