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Can I use electric tape in place of rim tape? When I overheated the brakes the rim tape sort of rolled up from the heat. I was able to get it back fairly smooth but now I’ve had two flats in a row from small cuts on the tape side of the tube. 

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3 minutes ago, Zackny said:

Can I use electric tape in place of rim tape? When I overheated the brakes the rim tape sort of rolled up from the heat. I was able to get it back fairly smooth but now I’ve had two flats in a row from small cuts on the tape side of the tube. 

I suppose you could as it's only protecting the tube from the spokes but I prefer to use rim tape designed for the job.  It's the proper demension, strong but not too thick and reletively inexpensive.

My fear would be the spokes could wear through the tape & cause punctures.

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The wheels that came with the Hill Topper kit had crappy rim tape (it was actually a big rubber band with a hole for the valve stem). My SIL’s wheel had a flat and it was the rim “tape” failure.  My wife’s wheel about six weeks later had the same thing. I fixed both with electrical tape, so far, so good. While I was in the LBS buying a couple bikes for my granddaughters I remembered that I needed rim tape just after the owner had rung up the sale. He threw in the rim tape. It was marked $5.99.  Both bikes are still riding on electrical tape.

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59 minutes ago, Zackny said:

I’d prefer to use regular rim tape but the LBS is an hour and a half away and online would take 3-5 days. 

Where do you live that the only place that you can buy rim tape is a hour and a half away?

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3 minutes ago, BR46 said:

Where do you live that the only place that you can buy rim tape is a hour and a half away?

Welcome to northern NY?

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Gorilla Tape and Duct tape....works OK, but not as good as fiberglass strapping tape.  All of these are a bear to remove once they've been on a while, because the adhesive hardens.

Regular cloth rim tape....works OK, easliy removed and is reusable if the adhesive is not too far gone.

One piece, plastic rim strips....work sort of OK, but some of them work better than others.  I think the ones that work best are made from some kind of hard nylon.

Kapton tape...is the newest trendy rim tape.  Works well, , comes in a variety of widths, much cheaper to buy than overpriced Velox cloth rim tape, easy to remove, and very lightweight, so you can use two layers.

 

If you're stuck in the boonies, find some of that fiberglass strapping tape they sell to wrap packages, and rip it down to the size you need by starting a cut at one end and just tearing it. Electrical tape made from vinyl or rubber does not work worth a damn. You're already protected from lightning strikes by your rubber tyres.

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I've never used it myself, but working in a shop, I've worked on bikes that had electrical tape used as rim tape. Mostly on single wall rims where the tape just covers the nipple heads. Does the job I guess, but it's almost always a gooey mess to remove.

 I'm sure it would take more than one layer on a double wall rim with any sort of pressure in the tube.

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For double wall rims, maybe some medical tape? It's cloth and the adhesive is not as robust. 

When I went to the local bike shops to get tape, they all tried to sell me 16 mm tape. It was the smallest they had in stock. My well is 11 mm wide. They all say they put 16 mm tape in there. I don't understand that. AFAIK, you need tape that is as wide as your well and no wider.

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17 minutes ago, pedalphile said:

Use the electrical tape if you wish to keep mending those flats, otherwise buy a rim tape, they're cheap.

It’s not the cost, it’s the time to get it. New tape will be here Friday so only a few days of no riding. Guess I can catch up on some chores.

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The mountain bike I have originally had a cheap wide-rubber-band that circled the inside of the rim and, around 2012, I got a a flat as a tube pinched in a spoke well when the cheap rim band shifted a little.

So I had my local LBS install Velox rim tape and have been riding happy ever since.

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