>>1846769>was I getting bubbles and needle-like punctures on my tubes because I was riding without rim tape?>>1846800>>1846801yes, you absolutely need rim tape and by the looks of that rim tape, it looks like the dimples are really depressed causing the bubbles, the top one also looks like it's misaligned enough to expose the spoke hole, which yes, can cause punctures. If those punctures on the tube are on the inner side of the tube rather the outside (tire side) then yes, it's the rim tape. In fact, I had a wheel with rim tape just like that which eventually gave me enough repeat problems to replace.
Learn the difference between puncture types. Punctures on the tube that are on the outside are from punctures piercing through the tire (in this case, check the tire too for sharp debris stuck on the tire which causes repeat punctures), inside most likely the rim tape (fix or you'll experience repeat punctures), and snake bites (two punctures near each other) are from pinch flats (bottoming out the tires from a hard hit or not enough pressure and bottoming out the tires). Not always but those are the common cases.
I highly recommend Velox cloth tape but if you hate fiddling with tape, I hear spoke plugs work well too, however I never experienced using plugs and have always used Velox cloth tape.
