Innertube Recommendations

Michelin tubes are decent. I've had good luck with them. Spesh tubes also work well in my Pro4 Service Course tires.

Bontragers can be hit or miss. The joint at the base of the stem can fail with little or no abuse.

Thanks a ton, CampyBob!

Bob

Nearly every brand of tube is made by Kenda.

How interesting! Thanks a ton, ABNPFDR!

Bob

If I recall correctly there are only 2 companies that make tubes for everyone.

Schwalbe seems to be ok... Vredestein are also powdered with talc.
I tried some conti too but I always needed to wrap the valve with teflon to inflate them.
Probably best to get some cheap ones and patch them. it's the valve that needs to be ok-ish and also the tube to not lose pressure quickly.

Stay away from odd brand tubes, but Michelin, Vittoria, Continental, and Specialized all make great tubes; I use Specialized almost exclusively because I find their quality of the consistency of the thickness of the tube and the quality of the presta valve to be the best.

I've only had problems with Bont tubes, the failures at the base of the valve stem that CB mentioned. They were cheap at the Trek dealer, but didn't last more than about 6 months for me before the stem-base failures. Switched to Conti tubesabout 5 years ago and the problems went away; the difference in the thickness of the stem bonding vs Bont is obvious.

Just picked up a couple of Giant tubes at the LBS which seem to be good quality, but haven't used them yet.

Alibaba lists over 300 manufacturers and suppliers of bicycle inner tubes in China, alone. Manta lists 96.

I know there are several in Thailand and Vietnam. The last I knew there were two still companies cranking out tubes for bikes in the U.S.A., but I don't know if the plants are still in operation. Akron, Ohio...sadly...has not been the rubber capital of the world for several decades. The last thing of note to come out of Akron was the rock group, DEVO. Yeah, whip it good.

Hutchinson still makes their own tubes in France, but I have only used their sew-ups. Never their clincher tire inner tubes.

I have a few Giant tubes ready to go into the rotation. I've never used them and have no clue 'who' makes them. In the Global Economy™ it's getting more difficult to find the real source of any product inside any box marked Hecho en Chine!

Alibaba is under a lawsuit for selling counterfeit products, this is not a place I would want to do business with. marketwatch.comalibaba faces class action lawsuit in us 2015 02 05Open ↗