I'm sure it's out there, I did a search... Honest. I currently carry a single 21" spare tube for my WRR (21" front and 18" rear). Will a 21" tube work as a spare for the F800GS's 17" rear? Would you carry slime instead? Or both?
I am doing the same when I am riding my WR. Since my F800GS have panniers I carry both 21" tube & 17" tube for spare, my rear wheel is tubeless.
I see. So you'd have to cut the original valve stem out and get a tube in there to limp back to civilization.
I carry only a normal duty 21' tube, it'll get you out of a bind if you need to use it on the rear. it's a "limp home" solution. Little story, about 2 weeks ago, was mountain biking with friends, one was using a tubless setup and had a sidewall blow out. I grabbed my handy backpack and pulled out a tube......it was for my road bike :eek1 (Much thinner and larger diameter, not even close) I used a cliff bar wrapper as a boot for the sidewall, then threw in the way too skinny tube (Pulled the tubless stem out first) and slowly blew it up. It was lumpy and scary to say the least, but it got him off the mountain at a slow rate, otherwise he'd be carrying it out on foot. FYI, the road tube is used for a 23mm wide tire, the mountain bike was 60mm wide. Thin tubes can stretch and fold themselves up a bit to fill the areas when needed.
+1 I used them infrequently. But enough that it was worth the space. But I found that a two year storage interval in my pannier did not suit longevity of a tube. So last year I got bright and vacuum packed the spare tubes. Smaller package and better shelf life.
Vac packing tubes. Great idea. Maybe I'll do that with a lot of other "always with me but rarely use" stuff. Thanks
Why not just install your spares in new tires, and replace the spares with new tubes, and so on? Then you'll never have two-year-old tubes. Fred
Because I ran tubeless and didn't need tubes in the rear. The fronts did get rotated a bit. The vacuum pack provided a good configuration for size and storage for the loooong rides to remote locations. EDIT: BTW Fred, I really like riding the ridge up PA74 there north of Carlisle. Good terrain there abouts.
I ziplock my F800GS tubes. Then take out all air in the bags. Then tightly duct tape them like a present. The tape protects the tubes from wear after many years of not needing them, and if you need tape, voila! Happy riding
I ordered the Moose Racing HD tubes to put in my TKC 80 tires when I swap from the Pirelli Scorpions. I'll vac pack the OEM tubes and carry them as my spares.
Maybe for a little while... I always carry a front tube, and only a patch kit for the rear. I had a large, unrepairable blowout in the rear tire, and had to use the front to limp back to civilization. I got about 15 miles before the 21" tube blew out in the rear tire (which was far enough - that time). Lesson learned: carry both tubes, not just a front when away from civilization.
A 21 inch tube will work fine the rear in a pinch. Pun intended. I did it it once. Then I got home and had to do the whole tube replacement again to fit a new 17 inch tube. The 21 inch tube, having been twisted to fit in the 17 rear was deemed no longer usable. So in the end I had to do an extra tire change and wasted a perfectly good tube - all to save the inconvenience of carrying a 2nd spare tube. Lesson learned. Fix it right the first time.
After vacuum sealing both tubes they don't take up much room in my top box. I don't want to have to "fix it twice" either.
