Found: World’s Lightest Bicycle Tubes from Eclipse

$ 63.52 for a tube..the mind boggles.

They have “eclipse(d)” the record for the most ridiculously priced bicycle component. And here I thought the electronic $950 Campy derailleur was over the top.

That would be an expensive week of riding for me.

Thats more than a rim strip and sealant for TWO tires…why? What are they made of? Do they change the way the tire rolls?

@Saris Mercanti, I think Ripnshread was talking about the price, not the actual physical weird.

@Saris Mercanti People still run UST tires? Doubtful. NoTubes is the way to go!

What’s a tube?

just how thin are they actually, they seem super thin with how tightly they are tied up in the first pic.

According to the posting on their site which at least appears to be from a german magazine “bike tipp” in testing they were as puncture proof as a 400g butyl tube and as pinch flat proof as a 180 grams tube. Intrigued, but not paying that price!

I tried to get some of these last year, and the listed US distributor had no stock, and no expectation of getting any. I have also seen some reports on the forums of explosive decompression, as it were, with these and Foss tubes. They are apparently very sensitive to how you install them–no stretching, no wrinkling. They certainly are promising in terms of weight and rolling resistance, but they seem a bit delicate.

Tried Foss tubes. Three of them. All valve stems separated. Heard the same stories about Eclipse – looks like in three years they went nowhere.

Got back to tubeless. Just switched all wheelsets to the new Caffelatex – with some additives.

A group of my riding buddies and me bought a batch of FOSS tubes – similar to these – about 30 in total. ALL of them seperated at the valve or got ruptured to a level where they could not be repaired with the dedicated FOSS patches.

Avoid like plague.

They are very similar to FOSS tubes which are complete rubbish. DON’T BUY THIS CRAP.

I’ve been using the FOSS counterpart for about a year with great success. From my experience, all the separated valve stems I’ve seen happened with Presta-style tubes. Since I use the Schradder ones, my tubes have been hanging on without major issues, and I have been able to repair them with the dedicated patch system (which also works on normal rubber tubes, BTW) and with a cigarette lighter a couple of times. The only tube I had to throw away got damaged not by a puncture, but by me when I overheated it (the tube caught fire) while trying to fix a puncture.

I even got to the point of riding a whole week with a punctured tire without noticing it, since the air loss was minimal.

But, as usually said, your mileage may vary.

Yikes. Stans, NON-UST tire, problem solved. (I have never run a “UST” tire tubeless and never had a problem).
Hot topic I know, but who still runs tubes?

People who have used these tubes, would not use them again, even if they are paid to do so… These could win the prize of the worst new component of the decade. Easily… Tubeless ready tires + latex, are exactly the opposite.

Used these tubes along with

Schwalbe Ultremo ZLX tires
Dash Hubs
Pillar ti spokes and sapim cxrays on the drive side
Stans alpha 340 rims
Red cassette.

built up clinchers at 1096grams. 1700 with tubes tires skewers and cassette.
Tney ride great. The only flaw with them is that they can be punctured otherwise its actually cheap weight to take off your bike.

What you have to realise with these tubes is that they can shave any where from 0.5lb – 1lb plus off the weight of your bike depending on the weight of your tubes. To lose an lb in weight from buying say a new set of wheels it would cost you about a grand so they are a good and cheap investment if you are a weight weenie.

I’ve had 1 puncture in a year on Eclipses, inside Mich Pro 4 Endurance.