DIY: Bicycle Tyre Puncture Armour Protection. Ultra-Light Weight.

This Guide will show you how to create a simple, Super cheap, light and effective way for protecting your Bicycle tyres from punctures. Getting a puncture is not a nice feeling, Puncture protection tyres are expensive, With a little know how and a few cheap materials, you have have world class protection for a fraction of the cost.

To get Started you will need.

Some Flexible chopping mats, Used for chopping food.

A ruler

A pencil, Pen or marker

Scissors

sand paper.

Tape.

Basically the chopping mats are very light and are used for chopping foods, I've tested it with Knives, needles and it resist them all. it's flexible, very light, but is hard to penetrate through. You can find these Flexible chopping mats in the kitchen section in DIY stores and large supermarkets and they are not very expensive.

This step is very important because it will affect how easy the next steps will be. use your ruler and measure the width of your tyre. Try to make the measurement as accurate as you can because later on, when it comes to fitting the strips, if they are too wide, or too small they will not sit easily and correctly. use your ruler and make a detail measurement of the type width.

In this Step, Take the width measurements, make detailed markings and cut out strips from the chopping mat. my bicycles wheels are 26 inches so i only needed 5 and a half stips per type. my strips were aprox 3-1/2* cm wide and about 30 cm long.

After you have cut of the strips, You will need to sand the edges to make sure they are not sharp and do not puncture the inner tube,using your sand paper, try to round the edges a little and smooth the sides.

I pre-tested to see how it would fit, i placed one strip into the tyre, the strip should sit within the tyre, not too tight, but not too slack. Remember i said it was very important to measure it accurately, If the strip is too wide it does not bend effectively inside the tyre.

If you do choose to pre-test and you are happy with the results. Join the strips together, lengthwise, into something that looks like a belt, I gave the joining edges a 1 cm over lap to avoid any sharp materials being able to get through at the joining but not too much because you don't want to shorten strip.. You should end up with something that looked like a long flexible belt. i used normal electrical tape to join them.

Take the belt strip and fit it into the tyre. fit it all round until the end over laps the beginning of the strip. so you have one loop with no breaks that would allow sharp materials to enter.

Place your inner tube back into the tyre, Place the rim into the tyre inflate the tyre to the correct pressure.