Latex v TPU v butyl inner tubes: what's the difference and should you upgrade?

Is tubeless always worth the hassle?

This competition is now closed

By Simon von Bromley

Published: August 24, 2023 at 4:30 pm

With much of the professional peloton transitioning from tubular to tubeless wheel and tyre systems in recent years, the humble clincher tyre has often been forgotten.

Clinchers had a brief moment in the spotlight a few years ago, before the tubeless takeover built up momentum, but since then, most talk has been of ditching inner tubes altogether.

A close look at the tyre tech being used at this year’s Tour de France, though, proved some of the top riders and teams believe clincher systems can still cut it at the highest level.

Given the well-evidenced performance credentials of latex inner tubes and recent developments such as ultra-lightweight TPU (thermoplastic polyurethane) tubes, clinchers are perhaps being unfairly overlooked.

After all, while tubeless tyres undoubtedly have their benefits, they aren’t without their drawbacks.

Can a modern clincher tyre paired with a high-end tube truly compete with the best tubeless road tyres currently available, and provide an easy, sealant-free upgrade? Let’s find out.

Standard bicycle inner tubes are made from a synthetic rubber called butyl.

In contrast, latex and TPU inner tubes are made from (as their names imply) latex rubber and thermoplastic polyurethane (a type of highly flexible plastic).

Both latex and TPU tubes exhibit different characteristics, which can help improve the performance of your bike.

Generally, they’re both lighter and more flexible, which lowers the overall weight of your bike and reduces rolling resistance – meaning more of your effort is used to propel you and your bike forwards.

As with anything, there are trade-offs compared to using butyl tubes. For some people, though, those drawbacks may be easier to live with than switching to a tubeless system.

Latex inner tubes were traditionally used inside the fastest tubular tyres. A tubular tyre sees the casing wrapped around an inner tube, and then sewn closed. The tyre is then glued to the rim.

Latex rubber is both lighter and more flexible than butyl rubber, which results in latex tubes producing much less rolling resistance.

According to testing by UK-based performance consultants, AeroCoach, for example, the difference in performance between Vittoria Competition latex inner tubes and Continental Race 28 butyl inner tubes is 7.1 watts (for a pair of wheels, measured at 45km/h).

Given butyl inner tubes can vary significantly in terms of weight, it’s hard to put a figure on the exact weight saving you can expect by switching to latex tubes.

Of our sample tubes, a Vittoria Competition latex inner tube (size 700×25/28c) weighed 73g, compared to 119g for a standard Schwalbe butyl tube (size 700×18/28c).

That’s a saving of 46g per tube.

Considering Vittoria latex inner tubes cost £14.99 each, you’d be hard pressed to find a better-value performance upgrade for your bike, if you’re still using standard butyl tubes.

In our experience, latex inner tubes also provide a tangible improvement to ride feel.

Where butyl inner tubes (especially cheap ones) can make a set of tyres feel wooden, good tyres fitted with latex inner tubes gain an appreciable zing to their ride quality (they even make a nicer sound as you roll along).

The main downside is latex inner tubes cost more than butyl ones.

The Continental Race 28 inner tube mentioned earlier, for example, has an RRP of £7.50 and can typically be found online for less.

Latex rubber is also more porous than butyl, meaning latex tubes lose air much more quickly. Where you might need to pump up butyl inner tubes just once a week or so, latex tubes will need reinflating before every ride to maintain optimum tyre pressures.

Because they’re lighter and more flexible, latex inner tubes are more delicate than butyl ones too.

As a result, you need to be careful when installing them, particularly if you’re working with a tight tyre, because they can be damaged easily if pinched by the tyre against the rim.

Traditional puncture repair kits also aren’t strictly designed for latex inner tubes, though some of our team have had decent luck with both old-school glue on patches and the pre-glued type (such as Park Tool’s GP-2 Super Patches).

Lastly, latex inner tubes are more susceptible to damage from heat. For this reason, most manufacturers recommend against using latex inner tubes in carbon wheels designed for rim brake bikes, especially for any rides that involve heavy sustained braking (such as on long descents, where prolonged braking can cause heat build-up in the rims).

With the advent of road disc brakes, however, that’s likely less of an issue for many riders.

TPU inner tubes have only become available in recent years, with Schwalbe being one of the first to market in 2020 with its Aerothan TPU tubes.

The plastic used to make TPU inner tubes is significantly lighter and more flexible than butyl.

As with latex tubes, this can help to cut weight from your bike and lower rolling resistance.

In the same test, AeroCoach found TPU inner tubes rival latex ones for efficiency, with a set of Schwalbe Aerothan tubes saving 5.6 watts at 45km/h compared to the Continental Race 28 tubes.

In terms of weight, a 700×25/30c Vittoria Ultra Light Speed TPU tube, for example, weighs just 30g.

That represents a saving of 43g per tube compared to the Vittoria latex tubes, and 89g per tube compared to the Schwalbe butyl tubes.

While Vittoria says its TPU tubes should only be used in disc brake wheels, Schwalbe and Pirelli both say their TPU tubes can be used in rim brake wheels.

This, combined with the low weight of TPU tubes, makes them a strong choice on paper for riding in mountainous terrain.

TPU tubes are also typically very compact when folded, making them a good option as a spare or emergency tube, if you’re tight on space.

If you care about every last few tenths of a watt, then TPU inner tubes are typically still marginally less efficient than latex ones.

Beyond that, TPU inner tubes are more expensive and potentially harder to repair than butyl tubes.

Vittoria’s Ultra Light Speed TPU tubes, for example, cost £29.99 – twice the cost of its latex tubes, and almost four times the price of the Continental Race 28 butyl tube.

Whether standard puncture repair patches are able to repair TPU inner tubes is also unclear.

Vittoria includes a puncture repair patch, which looks almost identical to a Park Tool GP-2 pre-glued patch with its TPU tubes. Other manufacturers, such as Tubolito and Pirelli, produce TPU-specific puncture repair kits.

If you decide to try TPU tubes, then, these could be a smart investment.

Though the continued adoption of wider, tubeless tyres was a clear trend at this year’s Tour de France, there were at least four teams with riders using clincher setups.

Three of these were Specialized-sponsored teams, and all were mostly using Roval carbon wheelsets combined with Specialized S-Works Turbo Cotton clincher tyres.

This is the same setup Kasper Asgreen used to win the 2021 Tour of Flanders.

Specialized’s latest top-of-the-range tubeless road tyre, the S-Works Turbo RapidAir 2BR, is claimed to weigh 230g in a size 700x26c – 10g less than an equivalently sized turbo cotton clincher.

However, the original, clincher-only Roval Rapide CLX and Alpinist CLX wheelsets were around 100g lighter than the updated tubeless-ready versions.

If paired with an ultra-light TPU inner tube, the clincher setups could be a little lighter overall, then.

Alternatively, it may be that the riders simply prefer the tubular-esque ride quality of the Turbo Cotton tyres compared to the tubeless tyres, regardless of any small weight differences.

Beyond the Specialized-sponsored teams, we also saw AG2R-Citroen’s Ben O’Connor using Pirelli P Zero Race clinchers.

Given his prototype BMC aero road bike weighed an impressively svelte (considering it was a 58cm aero road bike) 7.345kg, we believe this was a weight-saving tactic.

Though highly rated, Pirelli’s tubeless P Zero Race TLR certainly isn’t the lightest tyre available, at an average of 310g for a size 700x28c tyre.

In contrast, a 28c P Zero Race clincher has a claimed weight of 225g. Pairing a set of these with Pirelli’s TPU P Zero SmarTubes, which are said to weigh just 35g each, could potentially save O’Connor nearly 100g per wheel (given the tubeless tyres would also need around 40ml of tubeless sealant per wheel, too).

Crucially, independent testing by Bicyclerollingresistance.com has shown the difference in efficiency between TPU and latex inner tubes and tubeless is negligible.

This is especially true when we consider the tubeless setup tested by Bicyclerollingresistance.com contained just 20ml of sealant – about half what most manufacturers would recommend for a 28c tubeless tyre – and that adding more sealant marginally increases rolling resistance.

Of course, by opting for clincher setups, these riders are forgoing the improved puncture protection afforded by tubeless sealant.

However, it’s clear that at least some riders and teams feel the potential weight savings or ride quality improvements of a clincher setup make up for this.

One potential downside of clinchers is that most of the big tyre manufacturers are focusing their resources on developing new tubeless-ready models.

Neither Continental or Vittoria, for example, have released updated, clincher-specific versions of their latest high-end road tyres, the GP5000 S TR and Corsa Pro TLR.

The original GP5000 clincher is still available (and remains a fantastic choice), but we may be reaching the end of the line for clincher development in the near future.

You can of course use tubeless tyres with inner tubes, but given tubeless tyres almost always use thicker, heavier casings and beads to enable an airtight seal without a tube, it’s typically not an optimal solution.

In our experience, installing some tubeless tyres with inner tubes can also be very difficult. This is particularly true on narrower rims, where the tube prevents the tyre beads from dropping into the deepest part of the channel on the rim (which reduces the amount of slack you have to work with).

It’s worth noting that if you have a wheelset with hookless rims then you must use tubeless tyres, because clincher tyres require rims with bead hooks to prevent blow-offs.

You can use inner tubes with tubeless tyres on hookless rims, but, as discussed in the previous section, this isn’t always an ideal option.

If you care about the performance of your bike, then yes.

If you ride off-road more regularly, on a gravel, all-road or mountain bike, then for most at BikeRadar the balance tips more decisively towards tubeless.

For road, however, it’s less clear cut.

I still use clincher tyres and basic butyl inner tubes on my commuter bike because they’re cheap, easy and I don’t need to pump them up every day.

On any bike I use for fun, though, upgrading what’s inside the tyres would always be one of the first upgrades I’d look to make.

Tubeless can be fantastic – the ability to self-seal small punctures while you ride can feel like a marvel – but if you don’t already have a tubeless-ready wheelset it’s perhaps not worth the cost of upgrading on its own.

Given tubeless sealant needs to be topped up from time to time, too, it’s not a fit-and-forget option either.

Whatever your view on the subject, it’s important to remember you don’t need to pick a side, or be all-in on one system or the other. Different bikes and riders have different requirements, and that’s no bad thing.

I currently use a combination of butyl tubes and tubeless setups across my bikes, depending on what the main purpose of each bike is.

But I still keep a few sets of latex inner tubes on hand to use when I don’t have enough time (or simply can’t be bothered) to set some new tyres up tubeless.

Were I building up a hill climb bike, a set of lightweight clincher tyres and featherweight TPU tubes would be an obvious pick.

Of course, tubeless can be great, but in terms of rolling efficiency it’s not a clear winner once latex or TPU inner tubes are factored in.

Given this, if you feel tubeless is too much hassle but you still want a fast and light setup, then it’s worth trying either option out.

Senior technical writer

Simon von Bromley is a senior technical writer for BikeRadar.com. Simon joined BikeRadar in 2020, but has been riding bikes all his life, and racing road and time trial bikes for over a decade. As a person of little physical talent, he has a keen interest in any tech which can help him ride faster and is obsessed with the tiniest details. Simon writes reviews and features on power meters, smart trainers, aerodynamic bikes and kit, and nerdy topics like chain lubricants, tyres and pro bike tech. Simon also makes regular appearances on the BikeRadar Podcast and BikeRadar’s YouTube channel. Before joining BikeRadar, Simon was a freelance writer and photographer, with work published on BikeRadar.com, Cyclingnews.com and in CyclingPlus magazine. You can follow Simon on Twitter or Instagram.

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