I’m not ready to embrace tubeless just yet so that’s not up for discussion right now.
Latex tubes are getting to be very hard to find. Looks like Silca no longer sells them on their website. Which basically leaves Vittoria (who I think made Silca’s tubes) and Challenge. Challenge gets terrible reviews. Vittoria in 25/28 size are getting hard to source and the tubes are $20+ per tube.
I think it’s time to move to TPU. What brand? My wheels are all between 60-88 mm. I see Amazon sells some RideNow brand that is 4.2 star rated in a 4-pack for under $60. They are aluminum valves with removable cores.
I finally made the switch from latex and I’m never going back. This tube just holds air pretty much like butyl. Using the Tubolito Tubo Road, which had better ratings in the Bicycle Rolling Resistance website. RideNow is I think a cheap Chinese brand.
I started using Tubolito tubes about two years ago. They were fine but expensive. Never had a flat with them and they rolled great, felt comfortable and were super lightweight and compact (if you have one in your flat kit).
Then I got a set of deeper wheels and couldn’t use them anymore because it isn’t recommended to use valve extenders with these tubes.
I switched to Revoloop as they come with removable valves, so you can actually use valve extenders. Downside is the plastic valve stem which sometimes can be problematic getting the extender tight enough to seal, but not too tight to damage the valve stem itself. (They come in 80mm max.)
I use them now since 1 1/2 years (daily) and had three failures so far, all of them around the valve stem area, one where the valve/extender connection leaked air.
I like the idea of TPU, but dislike the plastic stem, so currently looking for TPU tubes with metal stem and removable valves. Don’t want to rely on Chinese stuff, prefer to pay a little more and have peace of mind to run a name brand. Like Pirelli, Schwalbe, …
Wish Conti would hop on the TPU bandwagon!
RideNow on Ali Express is 25-50% the cost compared to Amazon for the same product. Make sure to get the aluminum stem unless you are using a shallow enough rim.
The plastic stems can be used with an extender that goes over the valve, but its not ideal as you lose access to the valve.
The thing with TPU tubes is that, depending on design, they can roll almost as well as latex or as poorly as butyl. Look at the Tublito regular vs. their S-Turbo (chart below).Some brands (ex. RideNow) have also had issues with bad batches that had slow, undetectable leaks. Personally, I love the idea of TPU tubes (and have Tublitos in my race flat kit for weight/compactness); but am sticking with latex for the moment.
Revoloop doesn’t have any week spots there. I used them for years and not a single one lelked. Meanwhile the Vittorias that I had previously would development leaks in that area over time after they switched to the smaller patch design.
I use both latex and TPU. The ride is nice on the TPU although they do seem more flat or failure prone. Was using a Ride Now brand and just received some different ones with a metal stem. Will report back once installed and ridden.
I run tubeless on my gravel bike, latex on the tri bike, and TPU for spares on both bikes. Tubeless is way too messy for triathlon, and I historically haven’t had problems with flats. If it’s not broke, don’t fix it. Having to air up latex tubes on every ride is a little annoying, but I like the ride better. I ran some Quarq TyreWiz sensors in IMCHOO this year, and they only dropped about 2 psi over the distance (100.656 → 98.089 Front and 100.627 → 98.495 Rear). Had the pressure drop been > 10 psi, I’d probably switch over to TPU for main tubes.
