>>2077472>add air once or twice a weeka good tube is "add air once a year maybe"
adding air every week is more maintenance than anyone is willing to do
though admittedly most tpu tubes on aliexpress have shitty leaky valves so perception might be skewed
>if you only ride once or twice a monthmost people don't live in places with year-long cycling seasons
even if you ride in winter, you are likely not riding your nice bike, so you have at least two bikes that alternate between being ridden and idling on a half year cycle
it's even more fun if you have multiple bikes for multiple disciplines
>>2077479they are getting cheaper, and the cheap ones are getting better. you almost don't see plastic valve tubes anymore.
the right glue makes patching about as easy as butyl, and you can use offcuts from any dead tpu tube for it rather than a special patch. i also might or might not be developing an electric patcher that exploits the t part of tpu together with a peltier element to fuse the patches on thermally, if that comes to market (by my hand or by lurking chinks beating me to it) you'd only ever need offcuts, no chemicals.
tpu tubes are easier to pinch when installing, but once they are in they are generally on par with midweight butyl in terms of puncture resistance. a super fat butyl tube is still unbeatable, but if the valve is good, tpu tubes are pretty similar to what you'd grown to expect, except they aren't going to develop random slow punctures like thinner butyls all inevitably do. yes, if you hammer a nail into your tire they will puncture, but nothing can protect you from that.
why are you looking at your tube, hide your gay inside the wheel and never look at him again.
>>2077490the expected schedule for bike maintenance for most end users is "never". for someone more involved, it's look over it once a month, ride it raw the rest of the time. "pump it every couple days" takes valuable time you could be riding.
