How To Use A Tubeless Tire Repair Kit

Ryder'south Slug Plug kit comes with thin (blackness) and fat (brown) tire plugs.

If you've been mountain biking with tubeless tires for any length of time, y'all know sealant isn't a cure-all for punctures. For larger holes, or even tiny ones that won't seal for whatsoever reason, at that place's a simple, convenient solution: tire plugs.

What is a tire plug?

A wheel tire plug is basically just a two-inch strip of rubber designed to be inserted into a tire puncture. The idea is that the plug fills the hole just enough for sealant to do its work, while remaining flexible plenty to whorl with the tire. Unfortunately tire plugs are not designed to seal holes in a tube then if y'all're running tubes, look into patches instead.

Mountain bike tire plugs are generally sticky on the exterior, and so they tend to be stored between two sheets of plastic motion-picture show to keep them moist and to prevent the plugs from getting stuck to items in your pack. The rubber is irregular and often wavy to help the strip stay in place. Tire plugs of varying thicknesses can be used to seal holes of varying sizes, though a medium-sized plug should fill virtually holes riders volition come across.

Tire plug tools are basically fatty needles with a sharp tip and a mechanism for holding the plug. They're mostly pocket-sized and lightweight, often with plug storage within the tool itself.

How to use tubeless bike tire plugs

Imagine this: Y'all're riding along on your tubeless mountain bike tires with two ounces of fresh sealant when you lot accidentally veer into a thorny cactus (or blackberry bush) on the side of the trail. Sealant immediately starts spewing out of a hole in your forepart tire. You slam on the brakes, leap off your bike, and lift the wheel off the footing, spinning the hole to the 6 o'clock position and so the sealant tin do its job. Except, the sealant only keeps shooting out.

Without tire plugs, the best you can do is keep shaking the tire around and hoping the remaining fluid will seal the puncture. If you're carrying tire plugs and a tool, don't but sit down effectually and lookout man! Put a finger over the hole to forestall any more than sealant and air force per unit area from escaping, and grab your plug kit.

Step one: Thread the plug

Thread the needle. This is the Ryder Slug Plug.

Thread a plug into your tool. For the Ryder Slug Plug shown in the photos in a higher place, thread either a small or big plug (depending on the size of the hole) through the heart of the tool. With other tools, similar the Blackburn Plugger Tubeless Tire Repair kit shown below, insert one cease of the plug into the inside of the needle itself. With either one, you'll want to position the plug so it'due south held in place at its middle.

Blackburn Plugger Tubeless Tire Repair tool. The plugs are sticky which allows you to stick the costless end of the plug to the side of the tool, holding it in identify.

If yous're using a tool like the Ryder Slug Plug, y'all'll want to fold the plug upwardly a bit as shown in the photograph beneath. For a tool like the 1 from Blackburn, stick the free end of the plug to the side of the needle.

Footstep ii: Find the hole, and insert the tool

Tire plugs but work if you're plugging the actual hole, and non merely a spot nearby. This sounds obvious, but finding the puncture can be difficult in some cases, specially if your tire is dry out and at that place's no sealant leaking out. Use your ears to hone in on the spot, then spray some water from a bottle or your hydration hose around the area and wait for bubbles to pinpoint the verbal spot.

Once y'all've identified the hole, insert the tool. As you can see from the photos of these tools, the needles are generally pretty stout (they're not for sewing thread after all) and information technology will take a skilful flake of forcefulness to get them all the style through the tire. Having a decent amount of pressure level in the tire makes it easier as yous'll have something to push button against.

Insert the plug until information technology's almost halfway through its folded length, leaving a good bit of the plug exposed. If yous insert the plug besides far information technology may just drop inside your tire which doesn't assist. With the plug inserted the tool should slide out, leaving the plug in place.

Step three: Inflate your tire

Chances are some air has seeped out during this procedure and then be sure to air up your tire before you roll away. If you lot're carrying extra sealant, this could be a good time to add some more, though in my experience a plug, even in a dry out tire, tends to do a good job sealing the puncture by itself.

Keep in listen that if you allow all the air to leak out of your tire post-obit the initial puncture, in that location'southward a good chance the tire bead will get unseated. In this case, it may be hard, if not impossible to re-seat the tubeless tire with a mini-pump. If you accept a CO2 inflator, now is the fourth dimension to use it. Otherwise, do any you lot can to continue some corporeality of air in the tire while y'all're inserting the plug to avoid an unsealed bead.

Step four: Ride on!

This crusty plug (left) has a lot of miles on information technology, and no sign of leakage.

The cool thing about using tire plugs is they allow riders to fix a puncture without having to take the wheel off, which definitely saves time. Not only that, you lot can ride on the plugged tire indefinitely without the need to make a more permanent repair at home. In the past my go-to trailside tubeless tire repair method involved throwing in a tube, which meant futzing with the tire again at habitation to get back to tubeless.

Two tubeless tire plug tools

Everything fits inside the Blackburn tool.

I've tried the Ryder Slug Plug and Blackburn Plugger Tubeless Tire Repair kit, and both perform well.

The Ryder kit is smaller and lighter than the Blackburn kit at xix.3g vs. 27.4g. Withal, the Blackburn kit does have a spot within the tool to store plugs which helps proceed things organized. A frame strap is included with the Blackburn kit, adding boosted weight, but saves pack space if that'southward important for y'all. The pigsty in the end of the Ryder tool works as a Presta valve core remover.

Strap the Blackburn to your frame if you like.

Ryder includes nearly a dozen plugs in two different sizes, while the Blackburn kit comes with nearly the same number of plugs in only a single size. Pricing is $10 for the Ryder kit and $20 for the Blackburn kit. Most tire plugs are cross-compatible with tools from other manufacturers, and replacement packs are available for about $five.

Thanks to Ryder and Blackburn for providing the plug kits used in this tutorial.