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35 km On Temporary Mylar Inner Tubes
Mylar inner tubes are light weight, cheap and easy to fabricate out of prepper food film. Mylar balloon film may be even better. Just iron the polyethylene sides together at the polyester heat setting.
Bopet film is strong and holds air much better than butyl rubber but unlike rubber not very tough so you need to lubricate it to go more than 15 km. (I know what you are thinking: This Bret guy is pulling our legs. No one would make an inner tube out of Mylar. Someone in a "caravan" group made a joke about Mylar inner tubes a few years ago.) To be sure, there is some correlation, some Law of Nature that sez, "if it's tough, it don't hold air. If it holds air, it's crystalline and will not flex." The goal here, however, was a temporary short range emergency inner tube that would be stowed inside of the tire behind the rubber inner tube. After a flat you remove the thorn and pump up the Mylar tube which has its own valve. You then replace both tubes when you get home. I increased the range by 50% wrapping the Mylar tube in wax paper and riding furiously to the border. I almost made it before the entire tube split. In a fraction of a wheel turn I was on the rims. Extrapolating wildly a superior lubricant like graphite or Teflon dust might get you 100 km down the road. Maybe Mylar could make a difference in sprints or hill climbs. 10 gms vs 90 gms rotational weight is nothing to sneer at. Bret Cahill |
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