No more flats? Tubolito X-Tubo City/Tour Bike Inner Tube Review – feat. 1 Year Warranty + 30-50mm
Thanks for tuning in today we’re going to
be reviewing the Tubolito X-Tubo City/Tour
bicycle inner tube. If there’s one thing
that can instantly ruin a ride it’s getting
a flat tire. That’s especially true if you
ride in the city or do a lot of commuting
where you have to deal with a lot of
rough roads or debris on the road.
Tubolito is looking to make punctures a thing of
the past with their new X-Tubo City/Tour tubes.
These have their X-Tubo technology which provides
high puncture resistance and they have an unheard
of one year warranty so if you actually get a flat
you can just send it back and get a replacement.
Packaging wise very simple you see a distinctive
orange tube that Tubolito is known for
and then simple cardboard box with
everything just printed right on it
and on the back again same information. We’ll
go ahead and take it out of the box and go over
the specs retail price on this is $24.90 so like a
lot of the Tubolito products it’s quite expensive
so you’re definitely paying a premium for
the technology. It has that one year flat
warranty which is really impressive so even
though it’s expensive if
before you know you have to go through multiple
tubes this can save you quite a bit of money.
It has Presta and Schrader valve options so
you can choose the one that’s right for you
and as with a lot of the tubo lido products
you can see quite compact so you can see
compared to a butyl rubber it’s a lot
flatter and has this proprietary material.
It’s compatible with 30 to 50 millimeter tires
so you can even use this on a road bike if you
don’t mind the slightly heavier weight and it
works on disc or rim brakes. In terms of what
comes in the box that’s about it you have a
little rubber holder so you can pack this away
and then pop it on your bike whenever you need
it. Also don’t forget to activate the warranty
to make sure you can take advantage of that one
year replacement policy. Now take a look at the
weight of the tube we’ll go ahead and take off
the little strap that holds it together. This is
the Presta version and that comes in at 136 grams
which is pretty close to the claim to weight. Now
let’s take a closer look at the fit
and finish of the Tubolito tubes.
Obviously these cost almost as much a lot
of people’s tires at almost 25 dollars
and with this version of the Tubolito variations
you get that one-year warranty which actually
makes it worth it especially if you ride in the
city and a lot of debris. You can see it has a
classic orange color and compared to a rubber
tube these things lay really nice and flat so
you can see a normal one would be almost double
that especially for this 30 to 50 millimeter range
so that’s the one big advantage. You can pack
multiple spares of these compared to a normal
tube and that’s actually what i do with my
road bike i use their lightweight version
and then pack three tubes instead of one so i
have extra backups. They have the distinctive
orange finish you can see that i have that on all
their products and that really makes it stand out.
What’s unique about the tuba light is their
proprietary material they don’t really tell
you what it is obviously it’s a company
secret but it feels a lot more robust so
has the same stretch ability but it feels thicker
and it’s almost a rubber like coating on it which
prevents it from getting the puncture. So it can
actually flex so if you were to try to puncture
it it would flex out of the way. You have the nice
orange valve cover that’s a great way to actually
tell if someone is running these it’s pretty hard
to miss it’s not threaded so you can actually put
a little lock ring which is one downside and
the orange color is a little bit distracting.
It would have been nice if it had other
color options and you can see if you just
fully unfold it just rubber finish and you
can see some basic printing on top of it.
So one thing to point out here this actually
says do not use with rim brakes even though
the box itself and the website everywhere says
rim brakes and disc brakes are compatible with
their lighter tube of lights you actually don’t
want to use them rim brakes due to the heat
but this one it looks like they just
forgot to change the printing on here.
Now lets do a comparison between the Tubolito
tube and a standard butyl tube. What i have
here on the left is a standard butyl tube for
a road cycling tire so you can see it’s more
narrow than the Tubolito version. You can also
see that the valve stems are different most
of the ones you purchase will have the rubber
threaded design or non-threaded while the
Tubolito save a little bit weight by just going
with this polymer design all the way up until the
valve head itself. They also have that distinctive
orange coloring which makes it really hard to miss
now in terms of the anti-puncture claims here the
idea with the Tubolito polymer is that it’s a lot
more flexible so i actually move out of the way
instead of getting flat. So if i take a little
screwdriver here and push it through you can
see it will go through there with enough force
and then this is how you typically get a
puncture you either get a puncture through
some kind of piece of glass or shard or it can
actually get pinched inside your rim but you can
see here the rubber one does a good job so you can
see it flexes and it just requires enough force
before it pops through. If we repeat that with
the Tubolito you can see same thing but it’s a
lot more flexible you can see it actually sticks
out quite a bit before it’ll actually puncture.
So you can see with that there’s actually
just a little mark here but it didn’t actually
puncture through so you really have to put
a lot of force these are not impenetrable
so if you push hard enough it will go through
so i’m not going to actually do that here
but just indicates that for comparable forces
where this one would kind of cut through the
tuba light does a little bit better and with a one
year warranty you don’t have to worry about a flat
just make sure you sign up for the warranty
using your card before you start using it.
Now let’s go over the pros and cons for the
Tubolito tubes. What we like about them they have
a very impressive warranty it’s pretty rare to see
any type of no-flat warranty so one year is very
exciting to see. It also packs flatter than butyl
tubes even though it’s designed for robustness
instead of lightweight like some of the other
Tubolito tubes and they feel fast and smooth on
the road. They also install just like any standard
tube there’s nothing really special about them.
The cons for the tube is the fact they
have limited size options currently it has
a non-threaded valve body which means you can’t
use a standard lock ring you need to use a little
rubber one if you want to hold the valve body down
against your rim. Taking everything into account
would give the tubes a 9.3 out of 10. They’re nice
robust and durable tubes with a very impressive
warranty to back them up. Thanks for watching
this review don’t forget to like and subscribe
you can see more content from us on our website
at thesweetcyclists.com you can also follow us
on Instagram at @TheSweetCyclists. This is The
Sweet Cyclists reminding you to enjoy the ride!
