Why TPU tubes in 3 widths?
We just received a shipment of TPU tubes from Germany. We also got a restock of TPU Sealant. After shipping all the pre-ordered tubes, some models are already running low, but more tubes are in production. We recommend reserving yours by pre-ordering them. If our website doesn’t allow pre-ordering a particular model, it means that this particular tube is more than a few weeks out. We don’t take pre-orders unless we can fill them quickly.
Why do we offer so many different versions of our TPU tubes? In fact, the photo above doesn’t even show all of them. Between wheels sizes (700C and 650B / 26″) and tire widths (20 – 68 mm), plus four valve types, we now have 20 different TPU tubes in the Rene Herse program.
For manufacturing and warehousing, reducing the number of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) is beneficial… In theory, you could cover the tire widths of road and gravel bikes with just two tube widths: narrow (for 25-43 mm tires) and wide (for 44-64 mm tires). Then why do we offer Rene Herse TPU tubes in three widths?
We’re offering a narrow tube that’s designed for tires from 20 to 32 mm wide. You may think: “But nobody is running 20 mm tires any longer!” That’s (almost) true. The real reason to offer such a ‘narrow’ tube is at the other end of that range: 28 to 32 mm tires are the sweet spot for today’s road bikes. We could cover those tires with a wider tube—a tube that fits tires from 25 to 43 mm. But then road bikes would have to run wider—and heavier—tubes than necessary.
The weight difference comes to 26 g for two wheels. In terms of wheel weight, that’s a lot, especially when it’s free and doesn’t come with drawbacks. To us, it doesn’t make sense to offer superlight tubes and then make them 40% (!) heavier than necessary (45 g instead of 32 g). Especially since we’re talking about road bikes… If you’re riding a road bike, you probably care about weight and especially the rotating weight of your wheels. At Rene Herse, we make some of the world’s lightest and fastest road and all-road tires, and it doesn’t make sense to stick tubes inside that are heavier than necessary.
There would be no benefit for you as a rider—only for us as a manufacturer. In the end, we’re riders first and foremost, and that’s why on-the-road performance always comes first for us. If that means adding more models to our TPU tube line-up, that’s OK. Because we wouldn’t want to ride heavier-than-necessary tubes ourselves!
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