By blackmountaincycles,
Filed under: Things I like
Been a while since I posted a “things I like” post, but these are just the best. You can make your own, but it’s kind of convenient to have these with their sticky backs that don’t shift when installing. What I’m talking about is the Park Tools “Emergency Tire Boot.” Personally, I would drop “emergency” and just call them “tire boot.”
What they do is patch a cut tire. I’ve got thousands of miles on tires with boots in them. I consider them to be a fairly permanent fix to a cut tire. I get customers in who have tiny cuts in tires who want new tires even after I show them they can save their tire. It’s what I use, but I’m happy to sell a new tire too.
The Park boots come in a pack of 3 or 4 and are fairly large. Too large, so I cut mine in half and get double the amount out of a pack. Here is a Challenge Strada tire that picked up a chunk of glass on a wet ride put of slice all the way through the tire. Behind that nasty cut is a Park tire boot. It’s been holding strong for several hundred miles of pavement and dirt. I figure I can get full life out of this tire with the boot. Get some and keep them with your riding kit that should consist of tube, patch kit, multi-tool.
The cut in half boots I keep in my patch kit.
Before I used the Park boot, I used a piece of an old road tire – the thinner, the better. I cut the bead off the tire and then cut the tire in to small 1″ square sections and fit that behind the cut. Works like a champ and everyone has old, worn out tires, right?
(What’s playing: Queens Of The Stone Age If Only)
0 responses to “Give ’em the boot…”
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I've not used the Park boot, but I've booted a lot of tires with a dollar bill. The bill approach is good for getting home, but if left in place the bill often ends up chafing the tube and causing flats along the edge of the bill. Are Park boots better?
Other good emergency boot material besides dollar bills (twenties work too) are Clif/Power Bar wrapers. These will let you finish a ride, but if the cut is too large, they won't hold the tube back from eventually pushing out the cut.
I've not seen flats caused by the Park boots. I've got thousands of miles on tires with the Park boot with no flats caused by it. Ideally, the edge could be chamfered to eliminate the hard edge.
Another cool method I've seen is using tyvek to repair a sidewall (https://www.flickr.com/photos/58323617@N08/sets/72157644236509079/)
I used one of the Park boots to repair a tire a few days ago. Not realizing that the boot could be anything more than a temporary, emergency measure, I planned to buy a new tire this weekend. Your post saves me that expense. Thanks
I use the park non-glue tyre patches for booting my tyres. They're not particularly great as actual tyre patches (except to get you home) but as a boot they work just great. Actually, same goes for any non-glue patch. I've saved a lot of tyres with these.
Here here!
Yeah, any stout paper/plastic bill (In Canada they're plastic but work fine). And yeah, empty gel packs etc. Also handlebar finishing tape and the piece of tape behind the break lever.
Trying to figure out something permanent, though. Trying an old casing from a Vittoria cx3, glued in. Easy to pull off tread to get a piece of casing. Prob so far is that i cant get the edge of boot rounded (even though its really thin), so boot edge eating into tube. Should I try the Park boots? But they lack the support for casing (still running cx 3's) cut that I get when boot is cemented in. Ideas appreciated…
The Park boots are adhesive and a large enough boot might help support the casing where the cut is. I've noticed the cut in the tire above getting a bit larger and the casing is deforming slightly around it. I can also feel the slight blip in that spot when pedaling on a super smooth road. I've got about 500 miles on the tire since the initial cut. I figure if I can get that many miles out of a cut like that, I'm doing pretty good. When I've used sections of tire casings for boots, I've used a grinder and run the edge of the tire casing on it to feather the edge.