Genuine Innovations Tubeless Tire Repair Kit

Modern tubeless tyres offer a number of benefits over traditional clinchers and inner tubes, not least their increased puncture resistance. But although they are strong and tubeless sealant does a great job, on occasion you can run over something so nasty that even the tyre/sealant combo can't do the trick. That's where the Genuine Innovations Tubeless Tire Repair Kit comes into play...

​It's a simple idea: if your tyre is leaking air, ram a rubberised 'rope plug' in the hole from the outside. Job done. It's so simple the 'instructions' on the packet consist of two drawings.

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The kit consists of the 'needle' (or fork, to be more accurate) plus five 'rope plugs', also known as 'anchovies' in mountain biking circles. These are made from butyl rubber coating a super-strong fibre wick, and come stuck between two clear plastic sheets. Removed from the packaging, they are best popped into a wee ziplock bag, but can be stuffed anywhere inside a tool roll or pocket pack. Weighing only 3g in total, the kit is hardly going to be to blame for you losing that KOM.

My first experience needing to use the kit was while testing the Slime Tubeless Conversion Kit on a Schwalbe One tyre. A loud hissing along with a fine fountain of green liquid indicated something was amiss, so I rolled to a stop to check. The hole was right in the centre of the tread, and a quick spin to the bottom of the tyre to let the sealant try to do its job told me this was too large to seal at the 45psi running in the front tyre.

I fished the GI kit out of my tool roll, threaded up an anchovy on the fork and stabbed it into the hole, using quite a bit of force to get through the tough tread area. I then removed the fork, and the hole sealed. That's it. The amount of air lost was so minimal I didn't bother getting the pump out – just carried on riding.

On returning home I trimmed the exposed ends of the anchovy flush with the tread using sidecutters. The cut measured 3.61mm – so fairly hefty.

After 1,250 autumn/winter miles, the repair is holding up fine. Removing the tyre to swap between rims for other road.cc testing purposes gave me a chance to inspect the anchovy from the inside and it hasn't changed, despite using several other sealants in the meantime. It now takes a fair bit of looking to find the spot where the repair was done.

Somewhat spookily, midway through writing this review I nipped out for a cheeky midday 50k, on what had to be the filthiest roads Hampshire has ever proffered for cycling enjoyment. In the last 5k I thought things were getting a bit wriggly out the back, and on returning home found I had about 10psi left in the rear tyre (28mm Schwalbe One tubeless). This further displays the amazing performance of tubeless tyres, that they can still be quite rideable having lost 55psi of pressure.

A quick check revealed a sizeable (3.5mm) flint chip embedded in the centre of the tread, still letting air out. Again, a quick whip out of the kit, anchovy on, plug in, job done. I have every reason to believe this new repair will last thousands of miles as well.

> Why you should think about going tubeless...

It's possible that you may have a cut larger than what one anchovy can seal – the practice in mountain biking circles is just to keep ramming in the anchovies until the air stops falling out. I can't comment on this for road use because every time I've used the kit one has done the job.

I've only had to resort to a tube once in a year of tubeless use, when an 8mm-long slice in a sidewall let all the air out in one explosive go. No quantity of sealant/anchovies was going to work, particularly on the part of the tyre subject to maximum flex every revolution. (A cut this large would have destroyed a traditional clincher/tube setup as well.)

I reckon the Genuine Innovations Tubeless Tire Repair Kit is a must-carry if you are running tubeless tyres. It's so small and light you won't even know it's there until you need it. Any solution that gets you back on the road in a minute or so, without having to remove a wheel or tubeless tyre, get covered in sealant, break tyre levers unmounting what could be a very tight-fitting tyre bead, or indeed without having to even put more air in, has to be worth every penny of the £4.99 outlay.

Verdict

The Genuine Innovations Tubeless Tire Repair Kit does what it says on the tin. If you run tubeless tyres, you really should carry this