Blip tubes are a clever design by Urbane Innovations, “that saves waste, saves packaging, and saves the time of explaining tube choices to consumers.” Lofty goals for a fundamental piece of cycling equipment. But tires and tubes are certainly often replaced items on a bike. So any efficiency gained has a large impact overall. Bicycle tubes come in a mind boggling array of sizes. Blip tubes seek to remove some of that confusion and help the environment at the same time.
By making the stem removable from the tube, spare tubes are purchased without a stem. With the stem removed the tube cost is less, the weight is lower, less packaging is needed, and less space is used for storage ( in shipping, bike shops and on the bike). Since 2003 there have been more than 100 million bicycles produced EACH YEAR worldwide (source: Worldometers.info). That figure is over twice the number of cars built each year. Clearly the number of replacement tubes needed for bicycles each year is very large.
Bicycle wheels built for road, cross, and mountain use come in a wide range of rim depths. Some are shallow while a more aerodynamic rim shape is deep. Each style needs a unique stem length. Current tubes range in size from 36mm (1.42″) to 80mm (3.15″) in length. Blip tubes will help consumers because once the correct stem is purchased for a rim it is reused on replacement tubes. An added benefit of this is that a rider will always have the correct stem for use and could get a replacement tube from another rider (if they have a Blip tube) and not be concerned about stem length compatibility.
Urbane Innovations has produced a small batch of Blip tubes and we are testing them this winter. Look for a review soon. In the meantime, the company is seeking investors to move forward with full scale production of the tubes.