How good are lightweight road bike inner tubes? – Ultra-lightweight inner tubes put to the test by TOUR

Nowadays, with tubeless tyres getting better and better, do you still need to worry about inner tubes? You don’t have to, but you can! Because the new inner tubes made from thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU) are astonishingly light. So light, in fact, that they immediately bring to mind plastic bags when you hold them in your hand.

Despite their light weight, they are marketed as being more robust than traditional butyl or latex inner tubes. Revoloop and Tubolito are two up-and-coming brands that are using TPU to win over road cyclists. To find out what these new plastic inner tubes can do, we compared them with a few classic latex models and also with Maxxis’s finely differentiated butyl range – representative of the standard inner tubes found in every supplier’s range.

The hoses in the test

New, super-lightweight plastic inner tubes are an interesting, but also expensive, alternative to lightweight butyl inner tubes; they cost from 25 euros and, despite their minimal weight, are more robust than extra-lightweight butyl. However, latex remains the fastest inner tube material.

• Revoloop.race 18–28*
• Revoloop.ultra 18–28*
• Tubolito Tubo Road 18–28
• Tubolito S-Tubo Road 18–28
• Maxxis Flyweight 18–25
• Maxxis Ultraweight 18–25
• Maxxis Welter Weight 18–25
• Maxxis Welter Weight 25-32
• Challenge Seamless 19–28
• Michelin Air Comp 22–23
• Vittoria Competition 25–28
• Vredestein Superlite 20-25

Test conclusion

Heavy-duty standard butyl inner tubes are a safe bet; they never cause any trouble. If you’re looking to shave off some weight, however, lightweight TPU inner tubes are an interesting option. They roll just as well as, or better than, standard-weight butyl inner tubes and are more durable than the extra-lightweight butyl ones. Tubolito beats Revoloop in the battle of the TPU inner tube manufacturers. However, if you want to squeeze the maximum out of speed and riding feel, you’ll still need natural rubber – in other words, latex. With this, you can even outperform tubeless systems.

How TOUR carries out its tests

All tests were carried out independently of manufacturers on our own test machines. We measured the rolling resistance on a fast concrete surface – for a system weight of 85 kilograms and a speed of 35 km/h. We simulated puncture resistance using a guillotine; a tube with a diameter of 20 millimetres was used as the impact body. In the puncture test, we pressed a 2-millimetre metal mandrel through a prepared tyre casing onto the inflated inner tube at a constant feed rate and recorded the force-displacement curve.