I'm sure there's a simple and reasonable explanation but it seems weird to me!
Edit: Argh typo in the title, I'm a big dumb
They don't need to, and if you can create the seal it's easier not to. The real question is, why do bikes use them?
Edit: Yes, I know some bikes have tubeless tires, you don't need to keep saying it a million people already have
The spokes are usually not sealed where they go through the rim so a tube is needed.
When cars routinely had wire-spoked wheels, cars had inner tubes.
Thanks for this. I was wondering why they still use tubes.
Motorcycles with spoked wheels also still have tubes.
While true of older bikes, many newer spoked wheels are sealed and dont require tube. Moto Guzzi has been doing it for a while.
BMW’s tubeless spoked wheels have the spokes attached to lips at the edges of the rim, so the inside of the rim remains whole/solid, allowing tubeless tires.
I believe that is how Guzzi has done it, too. I had an early 2000s one with tubeless spoked wheels, but its been a decade and a half since.
Yeah, it’s really neat. The aftermarket solutions have always seemed sketchy.
That's what I have also on my bicycle wheels , the inside part of the rim has no holes ( except for the valve ) , probably an headache to lace the wheels ( all the nipples has to go through the valve hole with a magnet ) , but so easy to mount tubeless tires.
Interesting. My Harley FLHRC still requires them.
Well, that’s because it’s a Harley…
Touché
I assume they find a way to properly tension each spoke so the wheel is round before they weld them in place?
They are tensioned externally. They aren't just traditional spoked wheels that are welded.
Oh sweet. Really appreciate the clarification!
That’s what rim tape is for. I ride tubeless and it is vastly superior to tubes imo.
Agreed, ride quality with weight drop = greatness
Are we talking tubeless where it's like a tube and tyre combo? Or are there actually clincher type tubeless tyres.
Tube and tire combo are called “tubular” on bikes. They are glued to the rim. Tubeless is just a clincher with no tube.
Ah gotcha. Thought they called them tubeless as well.
It's just a rubber tire with no inner tube at all. The air is held in by the bead sealing up against the edge of the rim.
I see. Back in the day a tubeless was like I described and you used to glue it to the rim
Isn't that tubular tires?
Definitely tubular tires.
Actual tubeless with liquid sealant flowing in the tire for minor punctures.
I would love to try them. I've been running marathon plus tyres for years now, and while they are great they still have the tube.
Well, tape and goop.
None of these other vehicles need sealant to make tubeless work.
Rim tape. Tubeless on bikes is a very easy conversion that a lot of old school people haven’t bought into. I converted my mountain bike in 2009 and I’ve had one flat tire since then, that was from a cracked rim.
I recently switched to notubes on my MTB, you can feel a big difference in the rotational mass of the wheels without the tubes, they're great!
Was worried about on-trail repairs, but so far I haven't had a single puncture issue. I bought the tool for inserting rubber plugs into larger puncture wounds just for insurance, but haven't used it.
Love the original Stans video of them stabbing a MTB tire all over with a screwdriver: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FTlZvOVG8zs
I’ve been carrying a spare tube for like 12 years. Idea is if I can’t fix the tire I’ll just clean it out and throw a tube in. I didn’t think much of it but I should have replaced the tube every couple years. When I finally got a flat my spare tube had gone bad. I think it rubbed on something in the swat box. Anyway one of the best upgrades I’ve ever done. After dropper post of course.
They use rim tape to seal off the spokes and spoke nipples. My MTB is tubeless.
they just stayed with innertubes. cars used to have them too, taking tire technology invented for bicycles and scaling it up.
bike tires are thin and the tire can get poked and holed more easily so it makes sense to have the cheap replaceable tube. car tires are thick with steel belts inside so they can handle road debris without deflating
the new bikes have tubeless tires, they use a liquid sealant to both make them airtight and seal punctures so tubeless can work with bicycle tires
I've used the Slime sealant on bike and lawn tractor tires after a puncture. Works pretty well and you don't have to worry about future punctures
and you don’t have to worry about future punctures
I have some bad news…
I was going to say, ease of repair in the middle of nowhere is also a factor for bikes.
new bikes
I am almost 60 years old, and all the bikes I had as a teenager had tubeless tires. It is not a new thing at all.
Tubeless or tubular?
Oh really? My life is bike orientated and I can’t stand tubes - but I did think it was a recent thing
It is a pretty new thing - I doubt all the bikes he rode were tubeless. Maybe he’s thinking of tubular.
No, definitely tubeless. As in no tube, valve stem connected to tire, not tube.
Road bikes, decades ago... that would be a tubular tyre (aka a tub tyre). It's fundamentally different in construction from today's tubeless tyres.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tubular_tyre
Source: Worked part time in a bike shop for 25 years.
That is a tubular tire, not a tubeless tire. There is a tube - the tire is sewn around it.
No, my tires did not look like that at all. There was no tube. They had Schrader valves, like a car tire . But it does not look like I am going to convince anyone here.
You’re not convincing anyone because you are wrong. The first tubeless mountain bike tire came out in 1999. Road tubeless in the early 2000s. Wasn’t popular until 2010ish for mtb and even later for road. There is no way every bike you road as a teenager was tubeless.
When people refer to tubeless bike tires now, they're talking about tires that are mounted like modern car tires. Tire bead seated to rim by air pressure and the valve stem is mounted right to the rim, not the tire. Is that what you mean?
Yes, exactly
This just isn't true. Tubeless bike tires were introduced in the 90s.
Edit: unless by "bike" you mean motorcycle/dirtbike and not bicycle
A lot of cyclists are moving to tubeless, even on the road. I have and haven’t looked back.
My main concern is touring. My understanding is that tubeless tires fail much less often, but when they do fail, they fail catastrophically. With a traditional tube setup, I can fix just about any type of tire failure roadside, even if it involves folding up a dollar bill to plug up a massive gash in the tire. But what do you do roadside in a remote area, potentially 50 miles away from any bike shop, miles away from any services, with no cell service, etc, if a tubeless system fails?
Just carry a spare tube with you. You can always put a tube in a tubeless tire. But the kind of failure you're talking about may mean the tire is destroyed completely.
Also if you’re going to be biking somewhere potentially 50 miles from civilization why tf wouldn’t you bring spare tires.
Carry a tube.
Granted I do mountain biking, and I'm not sure what kind of catastrophic failure you're referring to, but I carry a tube just in case I get a puncture big enough that the sealant can't deal with.
Roughly 10 years of riding tubeless and I don't recall ever having to use the tube, but better safe than sorry.
That’s what I do, sealant deals with little holes, plug strips if it’s too big for sealant, and carry a spare tube to limp back if all else fails. If you want to lighten it up TPU tubes are great to carry because they weigh nothing compared to a standard inner tube.
I did the same thing! Then I cracked my rim. My tube was so old it had worn a hole in it from jostling around my swat box.
Just fix it and move on. We carry plug kits similar to a car tire repair kit. An inner tube patch can also be used on the inside of the tire if the cut is bad. Worst case scenario for a huge cut, use a tire boot and inner tube.
If you are touring and are going to be far enough away from civilization that it’s an issue, you should have spare tubes & tires. If a tubeless tire fails, but is still more or less structurally sound, you can just put a tube in it and keep going. If it’s failed catastrophically then you replace the tire and get going again.
You can still put a tube in a tubeless tire in a pinch. I carry a tube just in case because I ride around farms, so not an ideal place to be stranded. But tubeless sealant will seal 99.999% of the punctures. Plus I carry a puncture kit and co2 shots.
Some bikes, especially MTBs with large tyres, have not used inner tubes for at least ten years.
The main problem is the rigidity of the tyre. The casing of a car or truck tyre has a steel cable mesh. The casing of a high-end bike tyre is made of Kevlar. A bicycle tyre must be able to be fitted and removed by hand using a tyre lever. A car tyre requires a wheel balancer with a hydraulic jack.
As tyres are much less rigid, tubeless bicycle tyres require a preventive liquid that more or less sticks the tyre to the rim once seated.
In theory, it would be possible to make rigid bike tyres with a steel casing, but the weight penalty would be prohibitive.
Bicycle tyres are proportionally much thinner than tyres for motorcycles, cars or other vehicles. The pressure is higher, especially on road bikes.
The sealant fluid system does not work very well at pressures above 4-5 bar. This is why it is much less common on road bikes. It also requires more maintenance.
You should look up videos of people changing semi truck tires in the field with nothing but a couple tire bars.
You absolutely don’t “need” hydraulics to change a car tire it just makes it easier in the shop.
Town I grew up in had this little tire shop and the old dude who owned it had a nice tire machine but I never saw him use it, dude was fast as fuck with the tire bars, he’d patch a tire for like 5 bucks, rip that thing off throw a patch on toss it (literally) back on and good to go.
Quick little shot of ether and a lighter and boom! (literally lol) Done.
Or a bead blaster.
It's faster too honestly. I'd much rather use bars than a tire change machine when dealing with truck tires. I'll use a machine all day for passenger vehicles like cars or pickups though.
I have seen it done on harvester. Those huge tires are less rigid than cars tires.
It's an example and you are willing missing the point. Cyclist will not ride with tire bar strapped on their back.
Higher end bike tires don’t.
It’s nothing to do with price and everything to do with the rims used. If they’re spoked wheels where the nipples go through the rim into the tyre they’ll need tubes. If the spokes go outside the tyre or they have cast wheels, they don’t need tubes.
Bicycles frequently convert to tubeless setups. They do so by sealing the spoke nipples with special tape and switching to non-porous tires. They also usually use a tire sealant goop inside the tire to seal it completely, which has the added benefit of making the tire somewhat self-sealing in the case of punctures. It’s very popular in mountain biking where punctures happen frequently.
If they’re spoked wheels where the nipples go through the rim into the tyre they’ll need tubes
No, they don't. The rim does need to be welded at its seam, but spoke holes and nipples are sealed with tape and liquid sealant.
They can be, but I’m talking about motorcycles and thats not the usual setup. It’s an aftermarket modification.
Well this discussion is centered around bicycles, not motorcycles.
Not sure why you’re so insistent - it’s very clear the conversation is ambiguous, but I’ll leave you to it.
If I were just guessing it's because it's easier to patch a tube on the road than to patch a tire. Bike tires are MUCH thinner and thus much more prone to punctures.
To patch a tube you have to remove the wheel, remove the tube, glue on the patch, wait for it to dry, reattach the tube to the wheel, then reattach the wheel to the body. To patch a tire you just plug it, which takes around a minute for the whole process.
You can take the tube out without taking out the whole wheel on a quick repair.
for me it's easier to slap on a spare tube and bring the tube with the hole it in home and fix it there... city commuting just walk or ride transit home and fix it there
That's annoying enough with a bike wheel. I imagine it'd be quite difficult indeed with the tube of a 19" car wheel for quick roadside patch job.
And with a tubeless set up and accessible tools you can plug a puncture without even getting off the bike.
Often takes longer to find the puncture than fix it on a car tire
With a car yes, with a bicycle you can leave the wheel as it is.
Plugging a car tire is relatively simple - that's mostly because the tire is also a lot thicker. If there are plugs that will work on a thin bike tire I've never seen them. I also am skeptical that they'd hold for very long. In any case, taking a wheel off of a bike and removing a tube and replacing the tube is what most of us do when we are on the road and it takes five minutes or less. You assume that you can easily find the puncture which may not be true at all. When I remove the tube I can easily verify that there is no object still penetrating the tire.
Tyre plugs for bicycles exist, but they’re usually for tubeless tyres that have liquid sealant in them. Plugs help the sealants, well, plug the puncture.
There are plenty of bicycle tubeless plug kits. They work very well.
It’s the other way round, practically.
Have you actually ever a plugged a bike tire?
Motorcycle, yes. Bicycle, no. This is where it might be getting mixed up.
Very good point.
Modern bicycles are also tubeless. Field repair of a tube is easier than a tire, but with tubeless tires, you can run sealant.
And yes, you can run sealant in tube tires as well, but it's not as effective. Sealant in tubeless tires is like magic.
Well, many don't.
Lots of modern mountain bikes are tubeless
Just converted my bicycle to tubeless. The only real advantage so far is lower usable pressure on trails and I guess sealant costs less than inner tubes. We are slowly moving away from tubes.
Lots don’t
High end modern bicycles ( both road and mountain bikes) and many motorcycles do not use tubes. Tubeless is superior in most circumstances.
Not had tubes in my bike tires for nearly 20 years.
Cheap bikes with cheap rims and cheap tires come with tubes because you couldn't reliable seal them but anything half decent will come with tubeless set ups these days.
Most modern motorcycles without spoke rims are tube less. I had a motorcycle with spokes I took the rims to a guy he epoxy sealed the spokes so I could run tubeless tires.
tubeless has been available on bicycles for 20+ years. What stops me is that the sealant can be messy, setting up takes much more time and effort.
Much easier and faster to do a quick repair on a tub tire.
There’s a YouTube video that explains it better. If I find it I’ll edit this post with a link.
some bikes have tubeless tires
true UST standard tubeless spec says no sealant needed (still need it for punctures) and is similar to how cars do it. modern tubeless requires a special high tensile tape or rim strip (the tape is literally tensilized polypropylene packing tape in specific widths)
tubeless has all but completely taken over where tubular tires used to be the performance edge. with those you had to glue the tire to the rim and it was miserable.
the nice thing about tubeless bike setup is you have 3 options to fix a flat before you even have to remove the wheel from the bike- add more air and shake, add more sealant and air and shake, plug it and add more air. the downside is sealant is messy. but if you get a flat on tubeless you 100% would have gotten one with a tube anyway, and you can still toss a tube in with a boot if the cut is too big to seal
i also remember sledding on car innertubes when i was a yout.
The real question is, why do bikes use them?
Because of the spokes. It's the same with motorcycle rims with spokes (specially wire spokes). They do not air seal where they mount to the inner and outer portion of the rim. Doing so (spot welding them or otherwise) would add a ton of cost to the manufacturing. Further, due to the design of those rims, each spoke has to be tightened to a specific spec or the entire rim will be out of round and never balance correctly. You can't adjust a spoke that is permanently affixed to the structure.
So, add a tube inside instead instead.
Bikes, as in peddle bikes, use them. You need tubeless tyres. They generally cost more than regular ones as they need to be stronger around the rim.
Bicycles tyres are much thinner and prone to leaking air and moisture so sealant fluid doesn’t stay wet for as long and requires occasional topping up then the built up latex occasionally needs ripping out and replacing. This is why mountain bikers were the first to use tubeless tyres as they have thicker tyres. Alternatively, an inner can simply be patched or replaced in a minute or two.
It’s two different forms of laziness, running tubeless takes time at home whereas inner tubes takes time when you get a puncture. I’m on the side of setting up tubeless tyres as I get too stressed trying to change a tube roadside.
They do. Some, especially heavy-duty trucks and off-road, vehicles use tube tires.
But tubeless tires are easier to maintain on standard roads, and they're also easier to replace. Or, read "easier" as "cheaper". So tubeless tires are more common on consumer-grade vehicles.
It costs more, as you need a separate tube and tire now.
It's another point of failure, as the tube and tire can fail independently of each other.
It requires you to dismount the tire to change the tube if you get a flat instead of getting a plug or need to fix a bad valve stem.
They used to, but when the inner tube got punctured by a nail or something it would rapidly deflate resulting in a blowout and potential loss of control.
Modern tires w/o inner tuber will deflate from a nail but at a much slower rate. Blowouts are pretty much a thing of the past.
Except on semis. When I worked as a fireman I saw more than one accident caused by a truck tire explosion.
Truck tyre's are ALOT more pressured than regular autos to be fair.
It's also FAR more common for them to be retreads, too.
I drove over a piece of steel that punctured the tread and severed the steel cables in my tire. Even going at 35 miles an hour nothing really happened except for warning lights going off, I maintained control until stopped.
It's worth mentioning that tubeless bicycle tires are becoming increasingly popular due to their superior reliability. Tubes, in general a prone to pinching leaks.
Where are y’all living where tubeless tires on bikes are still ‘becoming popular’? When I was a teenager, 40+ years ago, all my bikes had tubeless tires. I did not know anyone who still bothered with tubes, except for touring bikes.
Yeah, weird. I've ran tubeless tires on my bikes for more than 2 decades.
Southern Ontario tubeless isn’t standard yet imo. Different people run their preferred setups. No one in my personal crew runs tubeless.
There's no particular reason to use tubes in cars and trucks. One less thing to pay for. One less thing to go wrong.
Reduces performance - additional weight, really difficult to make tubes for wide low profile tyres, they slip inside under severe braking and acceleration
Good question. However, as others have answered, the real question is "why do bikes use inner tubes?". Because making an airtight tyre requires thicker rubber than what you want on a bike. They become too heavy to be pleasant on a bike. Also, the rims for bikes have the spokes penetrating the "frame", so making that airtight is harder. On cars the whole rim is one piece of metal (and therefore airtight)
Bike tires need inner tubes because bike rims have holes for the spokes, and they're very narrow, so it'd be really hard keeping an airtight seal on the rim. Car tires only have the two beads where the tire meets the rim, and a single valve stem leading to the outside. Since its easier to make an airtight seal, theres no reason to have a two part tire.
Inner tubes on cars are very dangerous at high speeds. I was in such a car once when the tube busted and we nearly crashed. The immediate loss of all air in the tire makes the car incredibly hard to handle.
I didn't see this mentioned:
Tires shape is an important consideration here too. Bicycle tire tubes are mostly toroidal, which is easier to manufacture without the sort of seam failure points that could be an issue with car tire tube requirements. This isn't to say it's impossible, just that's cheaper to maintain a level of quality.
Additionally, I expect that wheel rigidity impacts bead seal. Cars have more complex suspension to let the rotating assembly absorb some shock independently from the weight of the chassis while many bicycles will get more of that shock that could result in rim elastic (probably plastic too) deformation. This is just my intuition and some experience, though, so it may be less of a concern than I think.
They used to, or at least some did. In the early days of cars they're wheels where a lot more like bicycle wheels, and often had tyres with inner tubes, but somewhere along the line we realised we could do just as well with tubeless tyres for less money and complexity, so we moved over to doing that instead.
I had a car with a tyre with an inner tube, because it was the easiest way to deal with the slow puncture
Because tubes tend to deflate rapidly when punctured, if you get a nail in a tubeless tyre it can take hours or days to go flat rather than seconds or minutes.
Not always though I had for the first time ever a tubeless tyre go flat while driving last night requiring a roadside change over normally I'd have a chance to notice a tyre going flat.
I thought it was because tyres are now all low profile?
Its quite impressive that the tire dosent leak anything. Well guess not but i have no clue how it works 😅
They do! Just not in the way that you think. There is a different type of rubber(butyl) on the inside of the tire that acts as a tube. It is impermeable (does not allow air through) and is cured into the tire. The benefit of this is that the whole tire is effectively the inner tube, which strengthens it. As to why, it's actually pretty simple: If the tube was separate whenever you got a leak in the tube you'd have to take your rims off to repair them.
Also, probably more importantly : it simplifies production. Instead of 2 separate cures you have 1 for both.
Cars can (or used to) use inner tubes sometimes as a 'fix'.
I had one tyre on an old Escort that had an inner tube as a 'fix' for a tyre that was legal, but had a leak.
After about three years the tyre went completely flat and I took it for repair or replacement but the new puncture was not repairable. The guy at the tyre shop wasn't impressed that an inner tube had been used but that tyre had been on the car for three years with no problem so I wasn't bothered. They just want to sell you new tyres.
When my brother and I were really young we used to take spare car tyre inner tubes on holiday, inflate them at the service station and use them in the sea.
They used to, and they made great pool floats. It was easier to patch a tube too, but it became cheaper to get rid of them once they improved sealing the tire to the rim.
They essentially do. The inner most layer of the tire is air impermeable neoprene, same as innertubes are made of. It withstands the heat generated by sidewall flexing better than tubes and is more convenient.
1) they don't need to
2) inner tubes are shit. They can't be patched or repaired, are more fragile and add unnecessary expense. Ride quality would also suffer as there is another barrier between the outside of the tire and the cushion of the air.
I have spoked wheels on my old MG, and it has inner tubes. Can be more susceptible to punctures I have found (but only slightly)
They used to. But modern tires use tubeless technology.
Tubeless tires have several advantages, among them:
I could imagine that it also encourages better tire maintenance. A leaky tire usually gets replaced and this happens when the wheel gets worn. If car wheels had inner tubes they might remain sealed long after they are safe to drive on. Getting tires replaced when they start to leak prevents people from driving until a much more catastrophic failure endangers lives.
Wait do people really use leaks as an indicator of when to replace a tire? I’ve only ever had 1 leaky tire and it was a good tire with tons of tread left. I’ve had many sets of tires approach unsafe levels of tread depth without any leaks. Holding air is not a good indicator of tire safety.
Go over to r/ just rolledintotheshop. You'll see cars that come in with the steel belts showing and the customer refuses tires.
Not only that but the customer regularly refuses the replacement of those worn through tires.
If only there was some sort of sensible yearly test that drivers had to put their cars through to declare them roadworthy and not a danger to themselves and others. A crazy idea eh.
Not directly and on purpose. But a leak can force a person who doesn't pay attention to their tire tread maintenance to stand in front of a professional who says "Buy new tires or you are seriously going to end up killing someone"
When I first got my drivers license many moons ago, I was a poor teen barely able to afford to pay 79 cents a gallon for gas. When I needed tires, I would pull old used tires out of the dumpster at service stations and put a tube in them so they would hold air. They were often just down to the low tread indicators, or were just old and dry rotted. I could get another 6-12 months out of them.
This is wrong. A tire will hold air long past when it is worn out.
Check the tread depth on your tires every time you change your oil.
This. If you think 'it still holds air so much still be good' then neither tubes or tubeless tires can save you.
Another tire myth I see a lot: Lots of people think a tire pops like a balloon when it gets a hole.
They don't, not if it was a good tire before the puncture. They burst because people drive on them after the puncture
But my car gets faster, cause I eventually turn all my tires into slicks. /s
If plugs are done appropriately and correctly plugs vulcanize and provide a safe, reliable, and permanent fix. And unlike patches they don't tend to cause balance issues. They're also cheaper, quicker, and easier to replace which means there is less likely to be an error on installation.
So I wouldn't make a blanket statement that patches are superior.
TIL plugs unlike plugs don't cause balance issues :p
Thanks for pointing out the typo. I fixed it inline. Patches are more likely to cause balance issues.