Ahh thanks for pointing that out. I defer to your leviathan intellect, as I was confused and under the impression that this thread was concerned with the eclipse tubes. What a thick twit I am.

Three previous posts about the FOSS tubes in the thread 🙂

indeed it took three posts for a someone much brighter than me to point out

Take a look at the spec on those Foss ones – 182g it says, so not the same thing.

Well I think just for once I’ll put my money where my mouth is and pick one up to try. Tubeless on downhill bikes being a pain in the arris.

trail_rat – Member

was thinking the same thing stoner – not to mention flamible fire extinguisher – mmmmmm fun !

OT- I worked in a fringe venue that had a sort of circus archaos troupe performing. You know how sometimes, you see lots of warning signs and think “health and safety gone maaaaad”? Well, I made an exception for their Fire Inquishers, which were standard 50 litre red Chubb fire extinguishers, loaded with petrol instead of water.

NW, I’m thinking along the same lines. Is there a UK source?

Rutland have some of the range, otherwise Google is your friend 😉

Yeah rutland dont have the dh size.

Well according to my scales at home the FOSS tubes are 80gr for the MTB size tubes……………..so probably very similar to the Eclipse tube in weight and product claims

Freeflow have the bigger sizes, as do the folks linked up the page who had the patch deal. Rutland has the small ones for less, and free postage.

If anyone can find a cheaper source for the big sizes, that’d be welcome! Otherwise Freeflow I think.

No 29er version at the moment! Would love to give them a go..

No 29er version at the moment! Would love to give them a go..

Yes there is:
http://www.silverfish-uk.com/ProductDetail/13352/13363/Inner-Tube

*700 x 28-45mm fits 27.5″ x 1.5″-2.25″ and 29″ x 1.5″-2.25″

Well according to my scales at home the FOSS tubes are 80gr for the MTB size tubes

I stand corrected, I guess Deal extreme quote weight in packing which is not what we want to see. Anyway……

http://forums.mtbr.com/weight-weenies/eclipse-innertube-56g-490356.html

From eclipse’ own website:

So by their own claims about on par with this rather average ~£3 butyl tube for pinch flat resistance… Meh.

But about on par with a £10 Maxxis DH if you plan on riding over a bed of nails….

How’s that work then?

Pinch flat resistance should be a pretty important measure of these tube’s durability IMO, and in that respect it’s apparently not substantially better than a “normal” butyl tube.

I suppose “Save 130g a wheel and still get as many pinch flats!” isn’t much of a strap line though…

I have a better strap line “Money to burn but too inept to run tubeless?”

Well according to my scales at home the FOSS tubes are 80gr for the MTB size tubes……………..so probably very similar to the Eclipse tube in weight and product claims

I call BS. Somebody weighed the small mtb size and got 120g. So 180 ish for the bigger size seems reasonable.

see here weighed at 120g.

Does it matter?
They’re still crap whatever the weight…

I’m not sure if anyone knows if the eclipse ones are crap or not. I’m not convinced that they are the same as the foss ones in any way.

Tubeless on downhill bikes being a pain in the arris.

Why is that then NW? I would have though tubeless for DH was a pretty good idea

you tend to get very high side loadings on DH bikes and tubeless tyres can “burp” air out.
also the serious DH boys tend to swap tyres a lot depending on track conditions.

you tend to get very high side loadings on DH bikes and tubeless tyres can “burp” air out.
also the serious DH boys tend to swap tyres a lot depending on track conditions.

I think the Burping thing primarily comes from people who rather early on believed they could run silly low, low pressures in a tubeless tyre, the truth is you can perhaps knock a small amount off of what you would use in a tubed tyre but run any setup at ~10 psi and your chances of finishing a run are marginal…

Tubeless undeniably comes with a bit of faff, but it’s mostly faff in the garage with a compressor that can be done long before the event, assuming you either:

A- Trust the weather forecast.
or
B- Run a “Nominal” tyre setup in all conditions… (This applies to me).

If you are a serial tyre changer or just a Faff-phobe then don’t use it for DH, better to stick with what you know then I reckon accept the weight, use DH tyres and tubes and MTFu…

If these new tubes prove to be any good, then you have just outlined the logic for DHers using them. Happy days.

Rolling resistance

Rolling resistance, sometimes called rolling friction or rolling drag, is the force resisting the motion when a body (such as a ball, tire, or wheel) rolls on a surface. It is mainly caused by non-elastic effects, that is, not all the energy that is needed for deformation (or movement) of the wheel, roadbed, etc. is recovered when the pressure is removed. Two forms of this are hysteresis losses, see below, and permanent (plastic) deformation of the object or the surface (e.g. soil). Another cause of rolling resistance lies in the slippage between the wheel and the surface, which dissipates energy. Note that only the last one of these effects involves friction, therefore the name “rolling friction” is to some extent a misnomer.

In analogy with sliding friction, rolling resistance is often expressed as a coefficient times the normal force. This coefficient of rolling resistance is generally much smaller than the coefficient of sliding friction.[1]

Any coasting wheeled vehicle will gradually slow down due to rolling resistance including that of the bearings, but a train car with steel wheels running on steel rails will roll farther than a bus of the same mass with rubber tires running on tarmac. Factors that contribute to rolling resistance are the (amount of) deformation of the wheels, the deformation of the roadbed surface, and movement below the surface. Additional contributing factors include wheel diameter, speed[2] load on wheel, surface adhesion, sliding, and relative micro-sliding between the surfaces of contact. It depends very much on the material of the wheel or tire and the sort of surface it runs on. For example, a rubber tire will have higher rolling resistance on a paved road than a steel railroad wheel on a steel rail. But if one were to drive a steel wheeled vehicle on a paved road it would likely have more resistance than a rubber tire would (why? reference needed). Also, sand on the ground will give more rolling resistance than concrete (why? reference needed).

On the back of the thread last week I’ve got some of the Eclipse ones (on the MTB). Bit early to reserve judgement, but I’ve not died yet!

Hmm. Actually I will not put my money where my mouth is, til the big ones can be found in stock for cheaper- everyone that I can find that has them wants £45 + £5 p&p 🙁

richmtb – Member

Why is that then NW? I would have though tubeless for DH was a pretty good idea

Tyre swapping for conditions mostly. The very fast guys tend to struggle keeping the air in (I remember a pinkbike article with someone, whose name escapes me, was using tubeless but putting an extra 10psi in to compensate for the air he lost on the way down!).

(of course, everyone just accepts tube failures like it’s no thing)

For me it’s just the tyre swapping, burping never been an issue. But even then, these tubes in dh size will be a little lighter than my tubeless setup is when I use it.

I put in a ride with them at about 28psi on Saturday and they’re still inflated to about that now, so they don’t seem to leak like many lightweight tubes do. Both were 59g on my scales, 3g over claimed.

So are they like Latex tubes, but 4 x the price?

They’re lighter than latex tubes, don’t leak half their air during a ride and are more puncture proof.

£36 from Merlin, in all sizes, btw… Just ordered me 2 for the big bike, should be interesting.

Good find NW.

Oh and it might be punishable by death, but Merlin now do topcashback so if anyone wanted to follow my referral I get £10 😉 Which I will donate to a mate who is doing a French coast-to-coast for Macmillan.

http://www.topcashback.co.uk/ref/northwind?source=tellafriend

Anyone who disapproves of this is pro-cancer 😉

You are Lance Armstrong and I claim my 10 vials of EPO herbal remedy.

You went and bought them all, didn’t you? Out of stock now.

Merlin also pro-cancer 🙁

So – did they explode and shower you in flames?

‘Anyone using those new inner tubes?’

(Fixed that for you) 😀

I see what you did there. Mirthsome.

Right, I haven’t ridden them yet as they’re going in the most endlessly delayed bike build I’ve ever done. But, they’re both up and holding air fine at least. One of them turned out to be defective! It’s been joined wrongly at the “end” (when they turn it from a hose to a tube) and is twisted. But it inflated fine and the twist wasn’t noticable once it’s got some air in, so Merlin suggested “See what happens, if it fails we’ll replace it anyway”.

Not totally impressed at Eclipse over that tbh! But it’s not hurting to try it.

for a long term review – still out of my budget (for the toad bike that is, Tubeless for eons with the MTB)

OK, a follow-on… One of them’s burst, while sat in the garage in a tyre, at 30psi. It has ridden zero miles. Leaking at one of the seams. Slightly to my surprise, it’s not the defective one.

So. Not inspired, really. Should get a replacement or refund from Merlin, tempted to insist they do both. Not entirely given up.