Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 November 2

= November 2 =

Road Bike Inner Tube
I have a road bike with tyres that take a 700 x 23c inner tube but I can only inner tubes for the range 18c - 25c. When I put this in my tyre, it ends up either not fitting in the tyre, if it's inflated enough, or I can only fit it in by sort of folding it over itself, which is surely going to lead to it pinching and just bursting when I go over a bump. What do I do about this? I'm a bit new to bike maintenance! Thanks! 90.217.76.135 (talk) 18:12, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * DO you have the manufacturer and model number of your tyre? If you know that, we may be able to help you locate the correct inner tube.  Alternately, if the bike has "factory" tyres and rims, we may be able to find what kind of inner tube the bike manufacturer uses.  -- Jayron 32 18:17, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Vittoria Rubino 3 Rigid Tyre Black/Black 700x23mm. Is that what you need? Thanks for your help! 2A02:C7D:A0E:4100:304C:98D4:707F:396C (talk) 18:24, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * According to this forum thread (a posting from some poor chap who has had his bike stolen), these tyres should be OK with standard 700x18/25 SV42mm tubes. The "SV42mm" is just the size of the valve, that shouldn't be critical.  Vittoria themselves do a 700x18/23 tube, which might be a closer fit than the more generic type. Tevildo (talk) 23:29, 2 November 2016 (UTC)
 * Also have you looked at videos and tutorials for putting an inner tube in? I can say when I've tried, even when things are the right size getting it in without pinching anything etc can be difficult when you're new to it. It's probably not going to be as easy as professionals make it look, and you may very well think it's not fitting properly when it is and you're just not quite getting it right. Nil Einne (talk) 01:27, 3 November 2016 (UTC)
 * That should be exactly the right tube for that size wheel, so I'm not quite why you're having problems with it. The thing I normally do to get an easy good fit is to put a little bit of air in the inner, so it starts to get, well, wheel shaped, then put it in the outer tyre, before putting the whole thing on the rim as one unit, and inflating completely. Never had any problems that way, and gets the job done in <5 min. Fgf10 (talk) 07:41, 3 November 2016 (UTC)