7 Ways To Use Your Old Bicycle Inner Tubes

Most of us just tend to throw out our old or punctured inner tubes, but before you throw yours out, have a look at Jon's top 7 uses for old tubes.

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Okay, so first up it's pretty common these days for most of us to fit things like GPSs, lights, fenders, all sorts of accessories to our bikes. However, often you're clamping onto carbon and you want to protect that really. So simply grab your old tube, wrap it around, and you can see that, what it is how much you need. So what you need to do is then trim the old inner tube then to the same width as the accessory bracket you're trying to mount, wrap it around, put the accessory in place, and then simply tighten it back up.

So, dangly helmet straps. There is nothing good about a dangly strap. So simple solution, get a narrow section of inner tube, cut widthwise across it so essentially you've got a small elastic band. Pull that over across the buckle, and hey presto. It's in place. No more dangly straps.

Now chain locks are fantastic for protecting your bike. However, they're not always that kind to your paint work, especially if you're a bit haphazard in locking up your bike. So what you're going to need to do, get a mountain bike inner tube, cut it widthwise and then simply lay the chain down next to the inner tube, mark it, take a couple of centimeters off and then make another cut. That way you can just slide the chain inside that mountain bike tube and you're good to go.

Okay, so this is a ghetto solution, as I like to call it. So an off-the-shelf product which is already available. You simply get an inner tube, wrap it around the chainstay, and it stops the chain from bashing down on it.

Okay, so for this you're gonna need something fairly sturdy overhead, or least sturdy enough to hold the weight of your bike. Okay, you're gonna wrap your inner tube around, tie a small knot in it, and then poke the nose of your saddle through. And then you've got yourself somewhere to store your bike or even work on it.

And for those of you who get cold feet, and not the type when you're a little bit nervous about a situation, but the type when you're actually out riding, you may well have small ventilation holes in the sole of your shoe. If you do, what you need to do is get a mountain bike inner tube, cut it up into pieces so it's as wide as possible, so you're gonna look at probably something like this. Then simply place the insole over the tube, and cut around where the ventilation holes will be underneath the insole.

So, a final tip is to use an old inner tube as a resistance band. Personally, I think that the price of a resistance band for some pre-hab or rehab is quite expensive. So why not just make use of your old inner tube?

Let us know the ways you like to use your old inner tubes in the comments down below 👇

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