Review: Dynaplug Tubeless Puncture Repair Kit

In Issue #110 of Singletrack Magazine, Chipps published his review of the clever Dynaplug tubeless tyre repair kit

No one likes punctures, but with the general sorting-out of tubeless systems in the last few years, punctures have become a much rarer thing on rides. However, they still happen and the convenience of tubeless systems then serves to make a trailside repair more complex. Getting a pinchflat or a nail in your tyre now means you’re faced with three options. Number one: you can hope that the sealant will plug the hole, which it often does if it’s fresh and the hole isn’t too big. Or you can pop a bead off, remove the shard and throw in a tube, though that can leave you covered in slime and you still need to fix the tyre (and wash the tube) when you get home. Then option three is you plug the hole with one of the many great sticky-string ‘poo stick’ systems (also referred to as ‘anchovies’).

These sticky strings are a great fix and they work very well, but digging them from your pack and threading them onto the insertion tool can take enough time that the tyre goes flat and you run the risk of popping a bead off.

Dynaplug comes from the motor industry, where fixing holes from the outside is pretty commonplace. It has scaled down its automotive tyre plugs to suit bikes and I’ve had a couple of the systems on test, both here and with a couple of mountain bike guides who see more trailside repairs than I ever will.

The Pill is about the size of a quail’s egg, machined from aluminium. Unscrew the two halves and you’ll see one half holds a pre-loaded tip and the other holds spare tips, a small knife for trimming the plugs and a machined tapered plug to keep the air in while you’re faffing around.

The plugs feature a pointy brass end with a sticky ‘viscoelastic impregnated rubber’ string tail. The small tip and tail sit in an application tube on one side of the pill, ready to plug holes. Replacement five-packs of tips are £9 or so. (Get spares when you order the tool.)

In use, the system is very simple to use: discover you’ve got air leaking out, reach for the very handily sized pill that lives in a back pocket, or in your pack. Unscrew it and then plunge the loaded tip through the tyre (or use the pointy placeholder if you need some time). The barbed tip pops through and, as you withdraw the holder, it leaves the plug firmly in place and ready to trim with the included world’s smallest craft knife. Good fixes really are that quick. It doesn’t like holes bigger than 4mm or so (though a new three-stringed super-plug is in the works for that) but it has consistently and speedily fixed anything else I’ve thrown at it – even snakebite holes near the bead have plugged fine. For those that worry about having a pointy thing in the tyre if they need to throw a tube in, there are rounder, bullet-ended tips available.

It’s not a cheap system (though the bulkier ‘carbon’ handle version is half the price) and currently you need to buy from the US, but for sheer speed and simplicity, Dynaplug works wonders.

Overall

It’s been in my kitbag since I got it and I’m keeping it there. The addition of the MegaPlugs will probably perfect what it can fit fast. A better exchange rate would make it worth recommending.

Review Info