Several of 1000 Uses for Old Bicycle Tubes
introSeveral of 1000 Uses for Old Bicycle Tubes
Our throw away society has begun to irritate me. Therefore, I have
become a COB (Cheap Old Bastard). I grew up in an era when you made do;
you didn't throw it away or buy a new one, just because one bit broke.
So, welcome to the Tommi Potx COB Recycling School. I carry a bit of
inner tube, paracord, duct tape, zap straps and a multitool whenever I
venture into the wilds. I am almost invincible with these items. With
these, you are a repair god.

step 1Strap Retainers
I know this is a little OCD, but I hate it when my pack is all rigged up, and there are all these spare bits of strappage hanging around all over the place. This is especia…

Yes, a lap top key. About a year ago, the /? key went AWOL on my laptop. I took a small rectangle of bike inner tube, and wedged one end under the . key and the other under…

One of these inner tube slices keep your GPS firmly attached to your home-made GPS rack (See GPS Rack Instructable.), and act as kind of quick release as well. They provide…

Spare Inner Tube Slices, on a small bottle of bike lubricant or lock de-icer.(lock de-icer is excellent for unclogging iced-up brake and shifter cables during those below …

step 5MP3 Player Battery Door Closure
Yup, the little door to the battery compartment of my MP3 player is busted; therefore, no tunes.
So, a slice of inner tube to the rescue. Stretched from end to end, the sl…

step 6AA or AAA Battery Storage
Being a COB, I resent high priced batteries,poor battery performance and the poor battery technology we suffer from.
Therefore, to keep AAs from rolling around your kit an…

step 7Dog Tag Silencers: Silence is Golden
Ok army guys: as a former army guy (25 years infantry) I came up with several ways to silence those 'rattle-bing-bang' dog tags / ID discs. This is only one of them. U.S. t…

Instead of metal-on-metal when mounting a hose clamp on a pipe, put a slice of bike inner tube between the hose clamp and the pipe; I've used this with good results on the …

step 9Friction Provider
I suppose some of us know how slippery a Zippo or Bic lighter can be, and how easily they can slip out of your pocket. A slice of inner tube wrapped around the lighter prov…

step 10Ghillie Suit Camo Loops
Sew a few slices of this on to your ghillie suit base jacket / hood; they provide excellent attachment points for foliage while you are on missions of goodness (Sniping bad…

I'm a veteran, with a messed up pair of knees and a bad back, so my bicycle is a vital form of transport for me. We have no pets, so I treat it like my pet. It's my main f…

step 12Bicycle Armour 2
Bottom tube armour.

step 13Suspension Seat Post Protector
This protects the suspension seat post from weathering.

step 14Bicycle armour: Headset
Cool, eh?

step 15Valve Stem Wrench
Hmmm...what to do with the valve stem from your old inner tube? Recycle it into a valve stem wrench! For this, you need the metal valve stem caps with a slotted top. Remo…

step 16Carabiner Anti-Slide device.
I hope this doesn't seem lame.
The climbers among you will know the frustration of having a carabiner sliding up and down a piece of cordage, or on a piece of webbing. Her…

step 17Ice Axe / Ice Hammer grips
Here's another for the ice climbers- slide a foot or so of this on the grips of your ice tools; give it a bit of a rub with sand paper, and shazam...you are going up.

This works for tubes / pipes of a diameter larger than the tube you are waterproofing. A good, cheap ,but really ugly, alternative to a waterproof case. Makes a good geoca…

Hooyah! Got this one from esqueue, and couldn't wait to put this on here; I bought Pachmayr grips years ago, but having seen this makes me think "Damn, wish i'd thought of …

How fortuitous that the latest cold snap broke the windshield washer hose connecting the reservoir to the nozzle, so I could pass this on to you. Inner tube to the rescue! …
| erm. not being funny, but what's this supposed to do? is it just a
disguise to fool people into thinking its an inner tube?
|
| Use them whole as giant rubber bands. Great for holding the quilt
around your furniture when moving. Just remove the valve first.
|
| over pressurize 5 of them and duct tape them together, use as a
floatation device
|
| NICE!!
I've got one
hair elastics!
not pretty, or painless, but in a pinch it would work for us with long
hair... lol
Also, i noticed a Canadian flag patch, very cool.... a lot of brilliant
ideas come from Canada
|
| "The sign says that long haired, creepy people, may not apply."
Tesla - Signs
|
| Hmm. I thought that was a 5 Man Electrical Band song. I have the CD.
I love fatboy slims version too. its called Dont Let the Man( get you down)
|
| Dec 21, 2008. 10:10 AMkenn123
says:
name one...
:P
|
| cold fronts, hockey, maple syrup, Igloos, Canadian Bacon! (it looks like
ham, but its not, its bacon!) and of course the accent that everyone
says we have.
|
| i made bike handle bar grips out of my old inertubes
|
| if there the stetchy type you can use them for making slingshot bands
|
| if you make stripes of it you have a haloween wig
|
| I use 'em to strap gear onto my bike or frame pack.
|
| My pair of converse get full of sweaty, feet-bacteria and the canvas
falls to pieces. Even worse in areas of high friction such as the toes.
I had developed serious holes that could have ruined the shoes. It is
hard to sew something through the rubber toe, so I super glued a strip
of inner tube on the inside and it seems to work fine.
|
| this is awesome
btw is that a real gun ?
|
| why would u ask, it is, and btw, guns are common
|
| May 4, 2009. 1:37 PMEirinn
says:
Not where i'm from buddy - they're illegal.
|
| well they r if u dont have a licence
|
| They're common if you don't have a licence?
|
| no to own a real bullet firing gun that uses explosive as the propellant
you have to own a licence for things like paintball and air/co2 guns you
should be 16 but this 'ible shlould not be classified as a gun
|
| BRILLIANT USAGE OF INNERTUBES
Many of you seem to not realise what this Dude is About....... HE WANTS
TO SAVE MONEY, re use, what he has, if everyone was the same this planet
would be a whole lot less screwed up!
I applaud this Guy!
|
| but if no-one threw anything away then it'd just build up on YOUR land
|
| I use old inner tubes as Bungee cords (elastic tie downs), and as bike
handlebar tape. (thick, soft, and grippy)
You find lots of thin high end ones behind good bike stores.
|
| Feb 14, 2009. 3:17 AMtrgz
says:
I've just hung my punchbag up in the garage with an old inner tube -
works brilliantly.
|
| If you despise the poor battery life, why don't ya use rechargable
batteries? $15 ought to get you a charger and 4 AAs which can be
recharged like a zillion times.
|
| Because I go on extended trips to the back of beyond, and there are no
plug-ins there.
|
| Feb 13, 2009. 4:06 PMtrgz
says:
I read somewhere that Duracell-type batteries hate the cold and
rechargeables actually perform better in extreme temps
|
| This might not be terribly relevant, but I bought a 1974 Sturmey Archer
Dyno hub off ebay for $30. I had to disassemble it and derust, regrease
and adjust stuff, but once built into a wheel, it will be capable of
charging whatever 6 volt or so light I mount on my looooong excursion
bike. I think I shall attach my highend cateye (which is presently an
LED unit and a switch, all else broke) to a C battery pack I have
sitting around, and shell out for some rechargeable Cs which I can
recharge over and over and over and over... which my Dynohub will charge
in the daytime. Deepbreath, stop for periods.
So generator hubs can sometimes be found on a COB budget, and they make
rechargeables way worth it...
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and
over and over and over and over and over and over and over and over and
over and over and...
|
| Mar 20, 2008. 12:43 PMxsmurf
says:
I sure would like to see that instructables. Seen and have been told a
couple of how to's, but none seem to match the real thing. I'm just too
cheap to buy a pair, specially since it sorts of require another set of
wheels for city commuting... after a few days they've cleared all of the
snow and the studs become a disadvantage. Mind you I'm sure it would
have been great to get to work the next morning after one of the half
dozen foot+ falls. Anyway, why stop at -20°C? We haven't
really seen any lower this year here, but I did for a ride on one of
those days just to test it out... it's not that bad.... you just don't
wanna stop too much ;)
|
| The irony is, sometimes when it's super cold it's safer to ride because
the ice on the ground is rock hard - as opposed to when the temp's right
around zero C and you keep slipping on the melty bits.
|
| Feb 10, 2009. 11:35 PMxsmurf
says:
So by now I'm in my second winter riding... Funny you mentioned that, we
just had some freezing rain, so little you could barely see it on the
road. I think it's the most slippery thing I've ever seen. Saw three
cars miss their stops and one rear end a parked car on my way. And then
I wiped out trying to avoid a ped that decided to cross (with his kid)
from between two parked cars. Then met up with 3 other experienced
cyclists. Out of us 4 only one hadn't wiped out, but he also came close.
This year however we've seen constant < -20°C for a about a week
or two. It can be a little intense when coupled with 30kmh winds (that's
~-35*C with windchill, not include your own "wind"). But
really I see as many cyclists on the road as the day it started to snow.
How winter treating you?
|
| Oh man I wish I had seen this at the beginning of the winter. My
Diamondback Apex is covered in grit.
|
| maybe this is a stupid question but...batteries rolling around lose
makes them lose their charge faster than if kept in pairs?
|
| Jan 31, 2009. 11:55 PMlaznz1
says:
i think he means he forever having to find em in his bag and that makes
it easier
|
| Dec 21, 2008. 10:12 AMkenn123
says:
Cutting an inner tube at whatever hole made it "unusable", and
sealing both ends, you can add a simple piece of flotation to the
underside of canoe gunnels
|
| Lit pieces of inner tubes are great fire starters for outdoor
survival--they even burn when wet.
|
| Dec 21, 2008. 10:03 AMkenn123
says:
They work well alone, but you can also cut the tube into 3 inch pieces,
and seal one end, then fill the pouch with saw dust and wax, then seal
the other end...makes a great emergency fire starter that lasts a little
longer than just burning rubber
|
| Nov 5, 2008. 4:31 AMDerin
says:
heh,nice
|
| You are a GENIUS for thinking up the carabiner anti-slip device! Now I
know how to keep the buggers in place. Thank you!
|
| Heatshrink works better for most this stuff, assuming you can find it in
a sufficient size. Say for a lighter/mp3/leathermans grip, just slip it
on and apply heat. Wraps around it for a factory fit and has about the
same grip as a tire innertube. I don't know how large heatshrink is
available, but I would think it would work incredibly for a gun grip.
|
| I've tried heat-shrink for a machete grip... heating it makes the
surface smooth, didn't really help... inner-tube was cheaper and looks
like it would've been more durable.
I guess you could also heat the tubing and get the same effect, but
stretching it around something would make it look pretty too, if you
wrapped it correctly.
|
| What about doing a paracord wrapping and then going over it in big
heatshrink? The grip of the cord and the waterproofness of the tube together.
|
| I use inner tube primarily because it deals with recycling.
|
| you can also use it to strap your self to a skateboard so you can do
360's and stuff
|
| you can also use a piece of inner tube to protect trailer wiring and
loose wires under your car. I don't have a camera, but it works better
then the wiring loom.
I also have a chunk of rubber on my leatherman for grip and to keep the
other tools tucked when using the knife, I like my fingers in one piece
with no slices.
|
| is that a norco I see peeking out from behind those tube chunks?
|