Seat Belt Bike Tire Hack

Flat tires are a pain.  Not only are they a pain, they seem to follow Murphy's Law and happen at the worst time possible.  Reader Nicolás came up with a great hack to combat flat tires.  All text and pictures below are credited to Nicolás. I do wonder if this might lead to an increase in the chance of separating the Hyponychium from the Sterile Matrix.

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The idea is very simple - put something between the tire and the inner tube to stop glass and other objects.  So I found some old car seat belts left from a pair of messenger bags I made and I used them like a anti puncture band. The pictures below are from the seat belt and my bike wheel.  This should not be hard to replicate if you are interested in trying.

Cut to appropriate size . . .

Insert and pump that bad boy up. 

Do you have a special defense against flats?  Let us know. 

Comments

[Nicolas]

yes it toke a littel time to puit on on the rigth way, but is grate to have a cheap anti pucture band that does cover the side walls.(sorry my bad inglish, but it,s not my mother lenguage XD)

[Min Choi]

great idea! now i'm wondering if duct tape could also be used.

[Quatch]

since you're trading air for more solid material, how does this impact the smoothness of the ride?

[arkansascajun]

why a seatbelt ? are they made of something special ?

[QuelabNM]

Sadly here in the wilds of NM we have a thorny problem called goatheads. and i suspect they would happily go through seatbelt. they even go through the kevlar shields.

[Nicolas]

seatbelt, becouse i have it at home (a lot) and they are very punture resistanse, light weigth and wider and flexibel enought so they protect the side walls too.

[Nicolas]

and to the smoothness question, it's pretty much the same, just that now y pump up my tire to 100psi and not to 120psi like before the seat belt. my tire is a maxxis detonator 700x23, and it works to on mi kona dew se 2010 with continental 700x42

[Leo Horishny]

I don't know QueLab, I think this is worth exploring further. I like the idea, it'd certainly work for glass I'm sure.

[jones]

i've used duct tape in the past with my winterized home-made screw-studded tires - this might work better.

[quick b. fox]

Cut an old inner tube lengthwise. Paste it with glue rubber to the existing tube (to use less glue, you can apply it only in the middle.

Wait for 2-3 hours.
Inflate.
Done!

[ngart]

@ quick b fox
so an inner tube is going to protect an innertube?

[Gary]

I used to manufacture materials for seat belts, and most of them are very difficult to puncture. Most punctures would most likely be re-directed by the seat belt material rather than traveling to the inner tube.

[Morton Thiokol]

Anti-puncture liners have been around for years, and every kind I've seen must work way better than a seat-belt. I've installed and used them myself.

Seat-belts weren't designed to be puncture resistant, they're designed to be stretch and break resistant. It's woven cloth, not solid material. If anything, just the thickness of the material is what provides the extra depth to prevent a thorn from reaching the tube, not the toughness of the material.

Filling the tube with hole-sealing goo also works great.

Weight and balance also matter a lot, and trying to get a wide piece of thick, heavy cloth centered and evenly in place, while you assemble and then inflate the tire, sounds like a perfect opportunity for nearly endless frustration.

Spend the freaking money for standard plastic liner strips, they work fine and are much easier to install. Or for tires with Kevlar belts embedded in the rubber.

This is not novel, or even logical. What's going to be so "cool" next, old shirt sleeves or denim jeans? Strips of tin foil? Small pebbles glued into the tire like a continuous mat? Wrapping the tube with wire?

Not, impressed, in the least.

[Bil]

Maybe you are not impressed, but you never tried this so no need to be so negative to this inventor.

If YOU are recommending hole-sealing goo than I am not impressed by your advise.

No a seat belt is not designed to be puncture resistant, but if you ever tried to put a needle in it, you know it is hard to get in the material.

No the seat belt is not designed to be puncture resistant, but that why this is called a HACK :-)

[Bill]

http://www.slime.com/

[Heat Pump Prices]

It's pretty lucky to find your webblog!Just one suggestion: It will be better and easier to follow if your blog can offer rrs subscription service.

[Morton Thiokol]

"Maybe you are not impressed, but you never tried this so no need to be so negative to this inventor.

If YOU are recommending hole-sealing goo than I am not impressed by your advise."

I don't need to try it to know it's BS, and that for the effort required, the result will be nearly worthless. The goal of any hack, is to be effective, and efficient. This cannot be either. The potential drawbacks (weight, balance, mounting infuriation) far outweigh any measure of cleverness, here.

A hack is not always admirable, or even worth recommending. This particular one, is pure shite. I've perused several others on this site, and most do exactly what they were intended to do, do it well, don't cost much, and are truly creative. Not this one.

Life isn't all candy and cartoons - if it's crap, I'm not going to sugar-coat it for you. This is crap.

[Za7ch]

Dope hack!

[theguymortonluvsuphisrectumhard]

morton thiokol is just a dick.

[Iman Azol]

"I don't need to try it to know it's BS, and that for the effort required, the result will be nearly worthless"

Well, I went ahead and tried it halfway around on an old tire and tube, then tried puncturing both sides with an awl. It took about twice as much pressure (I used dumbbells in one hand, awl in the other) to get a hole. So it does, in fact, work.

[Iman Azol]

I was taught about when philosophers "didn't need to try" dropping two weights to observe that everything of similar density falls at similar rates, "to know it's BS."

Turns out they were wrong, too.

[D. Lukow]

You can use fiberglass duct tape and many other items. Weight becomes an issue or simply ride a mountain bike.

[tyre equipment]

Getting your bike stolen is expensive and traumatizing and overall shitty. But so is having to juggle a bunch of heavy locks.

[john]

I dont know if this hack is good or not. My experience has taught me to keep tire air pressure high and to avoid debris. And when I cant I usually end up with a flat, so I put about 2 table spoons of baby-powder in the tube to make it real obvious to find the problem. This has worked well to cut down time on roadside repairs, no need to inflate tube to find hole or hunt for debris stuck in tire.

[andy]

As a man who recently lost the little peg that stops the seatbelt from fully retracting into the car floor . I tried to make the hole it left slightly larger too accomodate a tiny nut an bolt . Must have taken nearly an hour for a simple five minute job . Trust me seatbelts are very very tough indeed . Whether i'd put one inside my mtb tyres is another matter , surely it must affect the gyro stability of any bike .wheels an tyres are #1 priority on any bike . Rather carry a £5 TUBE lol