I know what you’re thinking, “why in the world would someone review a patch kit?” The fact of the matter is that, while there are more and more tubeless tires on the market every day, it seems that the idea of repairing a tubeless tire is still fairly foreign to most. I found myself happily riding tubeless tires until a catastrophic flat occurred (in my case landing directly on a jagged rock off of a jump), and with no way to properly restore the tires tubeless ability, it would be thrown away or gifted to someone riding tubes.

I got to the point that I was fed up with not having a solid way to repair my tubeless tires, so I set out to find a tubeless repair kit that actually worked. After using a few “plug” style kits without consistent success, I tried the Hutchinson Rep’air kit.

How did it work?

Find out after the break!

The culprit: A 10mm gash caused by a rock on a rough landing.

My first thought upon opening the Rep’air kit, was “super glue? This must be a joke.” Inside the box you will simply find 4 tubeless patches, and 1 tube of glue, no more, no less, although with it retailing at $15.99 the possibility of saving up to 4 tires you can’t expect much more. It looked like tube-type patches and a tube of Hutchinson branded super glue, not exactly what I was expecting. However, after doing some research it turns out that Hutchinson claims that it is a special type of super glue that remains flexible and won’t dry out the rubber. This makes sense, as I have tried to repair tires with super glue before and it basically made the rubber brittle and didn’t really work. So I forged ahead, and tried to fix two different tires, each with large gashes through the casing.

INSTALLATION:

Hutchinson gives you two courses of action when determining how to go about fixing your tire, the trail-side emergency tire-on method, and the more permanent tireoff method. The cool thing about the tire-on method, is that it can be done obviously without taking off your tire meaning that you don’t have to unseat the bead. This of course means that once the tire is fixed a hand pump will bring it up to pressure, because the bead is already seated. Pretty neat huh?

Applying glue from the outside of the tire.

To use the tire-on method, simply clean out the cut as best as you can and then squeeze the tire so that it opens up the cut. Once the cut is open and exposed, apply a good amount of glue to the inside and outside of the cut, let go, and allow to dry. Then inflate your tire and you’re off. While I used this method once and had success, although I would still only use this as an emergency way to get home and then I would remove the tire and install a patch.

Clean the inside and outside of the tire to allow for proper adhesion.

To start the permanent, tire-off patch method, remove the tire and this time clean both the inside and outside area of the cut as well as possible. I chose to use Finishline Speed Clean to remove the dried up Stan’s from the inside of the tire and in the cut itself, but you can use whatever works – just make sure it is as clean as possible.

Applying glue to the inside of the tire in an area slightly bigger than the patch.

Once the tire is clean, start by applying glue from the outside of the tire while squeezing the tire (as shown above earlier). Apply plenty of glue, and then switch to the inside of the tire and continue to apply glue. You want to be sure that the glue on the inside of the tire mixes with the glue in the cut so that once it dries, it pulls everything together. Apply a spot of glue on the inside of the tire slightly larger than the surface area of the patch (shown directly above).

Apply patch with clear plastic film facing up.

Once the glue is in place, immediately peel the foil off of the patch, and apply and hold until it’s fixed. This is the most frustrating part of the repair as it’s fairly messy, and it takes awhile for the patch to affix to the tire. I would recommend a pair of Nitrile gloves such as Park Tool’s mechanic gloves, so that your hands won’t be covered in glue, trust me, it will happen. Also, I find that you will want to pull of the plastic protective film on the patch as soon as possible, so that it doesn’t get glued to the tire. Make sure all the edges of the patch are glued down, and once the glue is dry you are ready to ride!

Patch in place. The white residue is residual dried glue.

RESULTS:

So far I have patched two tubeless tires with the Hutchinson kit, one was a Kenda UST and the other was a Schwalbe tubeless ready tire. After the repair I have had zero issues, and the tires performed like there was never an issue. The UST tire even held air without sealant, while obviously the tubeless ready tire with sealant didn’t leak at all as well. Ride quality didn’t suffer either, as it was impossible to tell a tire had been repaired while riding.

Repaired tire, fully inflated. No leaks, no bulge.

What I really like about the Hutchinson kit is that once the patch is installed, it is strong enough to keep the tire from bulging out at the cut. Most of the plug style kits will still allow the tire casing to bulge slightly, although this is probably more cosmetic than functional. The largest cut I repaired was just over a centimeter, although you could probably fix up to a 15mm tear with the round patches.

Not reviewed, but available: Hutchinson Rep'air Road

Bottom line, this is the best option I have found to repair a tubeless tire, regardless of type. Rep’air offers a one of the few consistent methods of reliably patching  a tire. While I used the MTB kit, Hutchinson now offers a road tubeless repair kit as well, which means even fewer reasons not to try road tubeless. Hopefully you never have to use it, but it’s nice to know it’s there.

I haven’t had a tubeless flat that I haven’t been able to fix with the Rep’air kit yet, and it’s saved me some serious $$ on tires, which I why I am awarding it 5 thumbs up.

11 COMMENTS

  2. @James, I don’t see why not. The glue wouldn’t know the difference, and based on how strong the bond seems, I think it would hold it together quite well.

  3. I repaired two pinhole leaks in the sidewall of a Hutchinson Intensive tire, only applying glue to the inside of the tire and then applying the patch. The one patch has held for over a thousand miles and all day 90 degree heat and 20 degree cold in the winter. There is minimal air loss between rides. Now that I know the proper procedure I will apply glue to the inside and outside and work it into the hole before applying the patch.

  4. I’ve used regular tube patch kit to the same effect, on 26″ UST with out sealant. Is this kit significantly different from a standard tube patch kit? Everything looks similar to me. Cheers!

  5. One time, I was about 30 miles from the trail head and tore a sidewall. I had Super Glue with me but nothing to work as a patch. I walked around looking for things to use and found an old dead squirrel. He was fresh enough that he was still pliable. I cut a section of pelt out of him with my razor knife and saturated it with superglue and used it to repair the sidewall. It worked perfectly for the 30 miles back to the car.

  7. I use either the black or clear gorilla tape, no glue required, no round patches, peel your tire off, clean it the best you can,tear a piece of tape off the roll that’s about 4 times the size of the hole or tear, apply it with the hole or tear as centered as possible, open the tire, wrap it over your knee or thigh so the tread is against your leg pushing the inside upwards, take a bic lighter, rub the tape down real good to ensure there is no bubbles or edges coming up, then Reassemble and go about you ride, this works with tubes as well, I use the clear tape for tubes and the black duct tape for tubeless, and have never once had to stop for air after doing this!

  8. Don’t worry! It works very well. I use TipTop patches and there glue. it’s made for repairing tubes and are very flexible and flexible enough for even S-works renegade tires. I have repaired a 23 mm. long hole. And afterwards, used the tire until it was worned out. So on the longer trips, bring a small and a large patch, glue, small pcs. of sandpaper, 100 ml. No Zisch, Stans or what ever you prefer. Also remember a small cotton rack to clean around the hole inside before the cleaning with the sandpaper.
    It takes around 15-20 min. to fix.
    A spare tube takes more space I your jersey pocket. Just wrap the parts in the rack and stuff it in a small plastic back.
    P.S. The glue free patches from ParkTool also works excellent and you don’t needs to wait the glue drying up before vulcanizing the patch to the tire.
    Br. B9

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