Hands down the most frustrating aspect of riding a bicycle are tire punctures. When you’re running late for work, rushing to get your errands done so you can go relax or trying to get to a date on time punctures have a bad habit of striking at the worst of times.

Many road bicycles can’t run larger more protective tyres and due to road brake calipers are often limited to 700×25 or if you’re lucky 700×28 size tires. Because of this many riders then turn to tire liners such as the Mr. Tuffy brand pictured left.

What they usually then find is that the liners work great on the tire side but after time, especially under a pannier load, the tire liners themselves start to cut into the inner tube.

This is usually when they take off the liners in disgust, post about how much they suck on their favourite bicycle forum and then throw them into a dark corner somewhere.

I’m one of those people who can’t let a good thing go and after several attempts and some experimentation managed to get it right and enjoy 6000 km’s of puncture free bliss.

Here’s how.

Tire liners are made of some really solid but flexible plastic stuff. I don’t know what it’s called and you don’t care. What I do know though is that I got 6000 km’s out of my Continental Gatorskins on commuting duty around Melbourne’s glassy streets with Mr. Tuffy Tire Liners fitted so whatever they are made out of, it works.

Mr. Tuffy tire liners are essentially a long strip of plastic, you simply unroll it place it inside your tire and then fit the tube and tire as normal to your rims. What you will notice is the unavoidable overlap on the inside of the liner where it’s cut too long.

I’ve read of people using a lighter to melt the liner onto itself and create a smooth surface or to simply measure out how much of the liner is used when the tube is inflated inside the tire and cut the rest off with some pliers.

The problem with melting the liner is it’s made out of plastic and plastic doesn’t take too well to being melted. Aside from possibly going brittle after a while there’s also the chance if you screw it up you’ll restrict the tube when it’s inflated and cause it to bulge or burst.

Cutting the liner poses a similar problem in that even the slightest gap where the ends meet can cause the tube to bulge through and be eventually cut on the ends, even if they’re rounded off.

Both options seemed like a waste of time but I was really keen to make the liners work. My first idea was to try some electrical tape wrapped around the inner overlap of the liner. This was similar to the burning technique but without the possible brittleness. Also if it didn’t work I could just take the tape off and try something else.

To measure the exact point of overlap I used the tire liners for a week without any inner protection and let it settle. When I took it out after a week it was clear where the liner had settled on itself and I could clearly see where to tape it.

This worked great for about a month but then the tape deteriorated and began to damage the inner tube. It didn’t cut through the tube but caused a sandpaper like effect as the broken tape rubbed on it. Over time it would have broken through and I’d have been left with a tube not worth patching.

My next attempt was to simply use stronger tape. I got a roll of duct tape, not the typical grey stuff, this was wide black tape with a white cloth like bit inbetween the black and the sticky underside.

I figured stronger tape would be able to withstand the pressure of the overlap better and it did, for a while anyway. This time I got about two months out of the tape before it too deteriorated.

What I noticed this time though was because the tape was stronger, when it began to crumble the damage to the inner tube was much more severe. It was still not enough to puncture the tube in the two months I had it in there though.

I rode for about another month without the liners as I tried to think of a way to stop the overlap cutting into the tube and then one day it came to me. Why don’t I just fit an old inner tube at the overlap?

This proved to be the golden ticket in getting the tire liners to work flawlessly. It still wasn’t 100% perfect as the overlap wore into the inner tube covering over time but replacing the cover was much more economical and trouble free then letting it cut into my actual inner tube over time.

To make the sheath I simply took an old inner tube and cut it into a suitable length of about two to three inches. I then simply slid it over the liner and then threaded the other end through so that the inner tube covered the overlap. If you cut two to three inches you have a bit of leeway as the liner settles and no doubt moves around gradually over time.

On the left is what it should look like when you’re done.

Note that it does look like the sheath is pinchign the liner together a bit but once in the tyre it is pushed flat. I didn’t notice any side effects of this.

I fitted my tire liners about this time last year and have since clocked over 6000 km’s on them. You can see the wear the overlap caused to the sheath in the photo below.

Keep in mind this is commuting and shopping under pannier load and taken from my rear tire. My front tire using this system had barely a mark on the inner tube sheath.

Where the sheath sat over the inner tube inside the tire was not noticeable and had I not have been using a sheath the damage you see would have occured on my inner tube.

I was running a 700×28 Continental Gatorskin with this setup and reckon you’d probably want to change the sheath (a 5 min job) every 5000 km or so.

You can probably leave the front to 10,000km (if your tire lasts that long!) before replacing unless you do a lot of loaded touring on the front.

If you run skinnier tires (say a 700×25 or lower on the rear) you’ll probably want to change the sheath or at least see how it’s going at 3000 km or so.

Working out the sheath solution was the best improvement I’ve made enjoyment wise in my cycling. It’s been a year now since I had a puncture and using the sheath method I wholeheartedly swear by the tire liners, they really make a difference. I’m almost tempted to remove the seat pack with my puncture kit seeing as I haven’t used it in so long.

Almost.

Currently I’m running the stock 700×37 Continental Contact tires that came with my Long Haul Trucker but if I ever do go back to skinnier tires you can bet it’ll be with tire liners fitted.

Sure it’s not a perfect solution but a simple 5 minute swap out every 5000km’s or so beats having to repair 2-3 punctures every fortnight!

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