Just pressed buy on a new triathlon bike & it comes with tubs.

Having a look online and fit a new tyre procedure seems to consist of clean rim with solvent, leave to dry, glue, fit tyre, leave to dry etc. Does that mean if I get a flat mid ride, its a race over scenario without a new wheel or do the sealants work as puncture remedy?

Anything else I should learn about tubs?

It’s a whole new world of glues, skills (especially if you learn to mend your own), and tyre fetishery.
Park tools has got a good description of the basics.

Top tip from me, is prepare a nice clean work area, do the job sitting down with a cup of tea and don’t rush it.

I love tubs despite the hassle. When you bang through a pothole mid-race (more to do with pack racing than TT) and don’t get a pinch flat, there’s a certain feeling of a job well done.

P.S. You can get little bottles of solvent (acetone) at any chemist for about £2 each. Cheap kids flat paintbrushes are useful and visit you local haberdashers for curved needles and thread.

Don’t bother with glue use tufo extreme tape, just as sticky but less mess and easier to apply ❗

For fixes out on the road, Vitoria pit stop, essentially sealant in a can! Or other brand. Otherwise spare tub

TheDoctor – Member
Otherwise spare tub

When I was young this is how roadies rode. You’d carry a spare tub under your saddle and just swap them, if you use tape you can tape up your spare so it will stick on the rim. It is actually quite quick to swap a tub.

For authenticity the spare tub should be held to your saddle with an old Alfredo Binda toe strap and wrapped in some vinyl offcut

What the doctor said. Vittoria pit stop is most excellent. Glueing tubs is a really satisfying job. You need plenty of ventilation, as I discovered when doing it in a small space once!

Spare tub was always pre-glued, often a punctured one that had been repaired. Folded in half and then concertina’d to fit in the vinyl and secure to seat rails with toe clip strap as Kilo says! Just don’t go hammering round corners when you’ve got your spare on!

Oh and repairing them is no black art – I was doing it at 13!

Tape or glue ? Preference really. Never got on with tape. Its not as easy to get a perfect fit IMHE. More to the point when replacing a tub mid ride I always find that half of the in situ tape comes off with the tub and the other half stays. Its welded to whatever it’s stuck to and isn’t coming off at the roadside.
Carrying the spare pre taped is a new one on me. Just use an old one that will have more than enough sticky on it already.
Do these emergency sealers really work? What about the stuff you bung in in advance.
You carry it wrapped in a chopped up vinyl bonk bag I’ll have you know.

rollindoughnut – Member
…I love tubs despite the hassle. When you bang through a pothole mid-race (more to do with pack racing than TT) and don’t get a pinch flat, there’s a certain feeling of a job well done.

I did a week’s tour in outback Queensland on tubs. All dirt tracks, and the no pinch flats is great.

As for the best way to carry them, it should be done with class like this gentleman 🙂

Do these emergency sealers really work? What about the stuff you bung in in advance.

The Pitstop stuff worked the one and only time so far I’ve had to use it. I put one can in and the tyre inflated but pretty quickly went down again. The best way to use the them is to put them in and then follow up with a CO2 cannister apparently. I ended up using a second can and still had to stop about a mile later to pump the tyre up. I thought I was going to be calling a cab but after that, the tyre held up fine and I ran it for about 300km after that before changing it.

I think I made the mistake of not giving the first can enough time to work. I’ve been told it can take about 10 minutes and you need to try and keep the tub inflated during that time to help keep the latex pushed into the hole.

The good news with tubs though is that they don’t seem to, you know what, anything like as much. I’ve covered about 2000km across several sets and not had a ‘you know what’ in that time. I do run all my tubs with 20-30ml of Cafe Latex solution inside them. I can’t say whether it works or not as you’ll never know if you would have……you know what….or not. But so far I haven’t so maybe it is providing protection.

I do agree though with everything else said here, in particular the comment about it being a ‘fetish’ and how gluing them on is a strangely meditative and satisfying process. I’ve previously been using tape but found with one recent, newly acquired set of carbon rims that the tape was just not bonding to the rim. I tried three times and in the end glued them on.

Now there is a really important insight here. Carbon rims often come fresh with their mould release agent still on the rim. This will cause any type of adhesive not to bond; if you simply try to glue or tape the tub on without first cleaning that off, the tub will not stick. You’ll roll it off and crash first ride out.

The little bottles of acetone referenced above are the only thing that will remove it. You can indeed get them from Boots or any other pharmacy, but you will only be allwoed to buy one bottle and they will want to know what you want it for (because acetone is a key ingredient in any home made bomb apparently).

It’s nasty stuff though. It will eat your skin and shrivels latex gloves just by the fumes alone. You need a decent amount to clean a new carbon rim as well and it’s not easy to see where you’ve been as it evaporates almost immediately (so you don’t get a wet/shiny spot on the rim when you rub it on).

I use a cheap Park wheel truing stand to glue mine on. With the new Continental Carbon Rim Cement, you only need ONE coat on the rim and two on the tub; the second one 12 hours after the first and immediately before you mount the tub. If you put more than one coat on the rim it won’t work. This is totally counter to what everyone is used to doing (which is to build up three layers of cement on the rim).

Tape is easier and strangely, I find much easier to get a straight fit with. You mount the tub with the top layer of cover on the tape still on but pull two little tabs out either side of the valve. Inflate the tyre a little and get it properly seated and evenly alighted before then gently pulling the tape cover off.

I’ve always used Tuffo tape until recently. It delaminates when you remove the tub so if you do want to replace a tub half way around a ride, you’ll need more tape and some patience to remove the residue (it can just peel off the rim).

There is a new version now on the market from Effeto Mariposa (who make Cafe Latex) which is apparently easier to use; comes off cleanly and leaves no residue making it less faff.

That’s great, really useful information. It doesn’t seem like such a FAFF as I feared it could end up. Quite looking forward to riding on tubs on the new bike now.

I use the Jantex tape on carbon rims. No issues.
And Tufo tubular tyres with some Tufo sealant.
Tried the Vittoria pit stop once and did not work at all.

Make sure you affix them properly…

Well that’s ^ only going to end one way!

Someone got fired that day!

New to tubs here too after buying some carbon wheels for my triathlon bike.

Holding up well so far having done a couple of tris and a number of training rides.

I used tape and it was surprisingly easy.

Not had to do a mid ride repair yet but carry a can of foam repair stuff and some co2. I don’t bother carrying a spare tub on races up to Oly distance as it will be game over if the foam doesn’t work. But I do carry one if I do longer training rides.

Enjoy your new bike and new tyre fetish

Don’t bother with glue use tufo extreme tape

Don’t do this. Horrible stuff. Fine for the one use but removing it from the rim when you want to put a fresh tub on is a royal pita. It’s effectively a laminate of layers or glue and thin sheets of plastics. Big fan of glueing, its a very cathartic thing to do.

Top old skool ironman tip, directly opposite the valve hole leave a couple of inches of rim/tub unglued. It makes it so much easier to rip one off and pop a new one on mid race. Also get hold of a old rim with no glue on it and leave your pre glued spare mounted on it when not in use. Slightly stretched like that makes it much easier to mount in a hurry. Finally whilst not a fan of tufo tubs for actually riding, they make great spares, especially their heavy weight track ones which are still super light for the road and pack really small.