Looking for the best options when it comes to your Brompton inner tubes? Want to know what to expect from high to low price points? Well, look no further as we've compiled our top 5 choices for your Brompton.
Here we hope to highlight what you can expect from some of the big brands, the super premium Smartubes, all the way down to a simple tube to get the job done. Plus, no matter what size tyres you're running on your Brompton (Broadly speaking the tyres fall between 30/37-349). Our list will have something to fit them all.
Traditionally, its a 16 x 1 3/8 (37-349) you'd be looking for, but with so many great tyre options to suit your requirements our list hopes to take in them all when it comes to a great matching tube. If you're running the super lightweight Schwalbe One (175g if you wanted to know!), the Schwalbe Marathon Racer (extra style points with tan walls), 16 x 1 1/4 Schwalbe Kojak (32-349), 16 x 1.20 Schwalbe Winter tyre (30-349), Raleigh Record tyre 16 x 1 3/8 (37-349) and more we're got your covered with our top picks.
Tubolito 16 x 1 1/8 - 1 3/8
Why not cut to the chase and get the best for your brompton? Not only will you get a crazy light tube (34 grams!) but you'll get dramatically increased puncture resistance. Perfect as a main tube, but also as a backup due to it's tiny size and weight being half the size of a regular inner tube. Also, it fits a great range of sizes too from 1 1/8 to 1 3/8. As a contender for the best Brompton tube, the Tubolito has to be worth a look. Perhaps the only question to ask is are the benefits worth the price? We think so, especially given the characteristics a Brompton demands of a tube.
Schwalbe No.4
The Schwalbe No.4 is a premium big hitting tube with everything you want for a Brompton tube. It's certainly a tube you can rely on. Schwalbe brings some of the industries best manufacturing and quality control (every tube is pressure tested for 24 hours before leaving the factory as just one example!) plus it's a tube that doesn't shy away from performance. Over a standard tube's weight you can be saving around 25% which must make the price difference over a standard tube worth it alone. Plus as a further testament to it's quality, the Schwalbe tube will comfortably dilate to a wide variety of sizes, meaning no matter what tyre's you're running on your Brompton, Schwalbe will have you covered. Premium reliability and with a weight advantage, coupled with performance as standard, all in a huge range of sizes.
Continental Compact 16
Up there with the best of the best; brands don't get much bigger than Continental. The Continental 'Compact 16' is their go-to tube for a wide range of Brompton sizes. What is there to say that the brand name doesn't? Quality, reliability, performance, continental has it all. Plus their tube fits a wide variety of sizes, including 400 x 32A to 400 x 47A, 16 x 1 3/8 right through to 16 x 1.75. Safe to say you're Brompton running Conti rubber isn't exactly the worst idea!
Kenda 16 x 1 3/8
Moving away from the ultra premium end with the likes Tubolito, through the premium brands like Schwalbe and Conti, you're then met with the rubber giant that is Kenda. Kenda tubes are quite literally everywhere, they are an enormous brand with tens of millions of bikes running Kenda tubes. And it's for good reason, Kenda know how to do a good tube at the right price. Nothing too flash, nothing too cheap, just a straight up all round tube that does the job well. You might not get the weight saving and performance gains of others, but if you want a tube to be a tube on your Brompton with a big brand name behind it, then a Kenda isn't a bad choice at all. Plus if you don't need the last word in performance and weight, then why pay more? This is where Kenda comes in and does a cracking job.
ETC 16 x 1 3/8 (37-349)
Our final tube might be the cheapest tube in our line up, but it's certainly not a poor quality tube by any means. In fact it's a little puzzling how a tube of this quality is so low priced. ETC tubes are fairly new in the industry, however they are backed by a long standing powerhouse who know all about quality, value and cycling. It's all too easy to get some cheap tubes from China, brand it up and start firing them out (like some others at this sort of price point). We want to show how in the case of ETC, they are somewhat of a standout and hats off to them for bringing a great tube in at a great price. So if you want the job done at the lowest price, ETC are well worth a look!
