“Wish We Thought of That” File: Cobra “No Tools” Tubes.

True Story: With literally two minutes til the A Pro main at the Christmas Classic in Louisville, Logan Collins comes over to the finish line with terror in his eyes. Dad Robert Campbell is standing around shooting the bull with a bunch of us. Logan says, with surprising calm “blew a tire!”

Suddenly, in a moment inspired by watching too much NASCAR, seven people spring into motion. One is finding a tube, one is unbolting Logan’s rear wheel and popping the brakes, one is finding a pump (and the other four of us are standing around looking at the bike—like a union road crew). It all came together, in time for Logan to get third in the main. But if he were just Joe Novice, who knows?

Well, all the drama could be averted next time with a few of these bad boys close at hand. Fly Bikes out of Spain has spent the past two years developing a “no-tools” innertube. This invention does not require removal of the wheel, and comes in one strip that can easily be looped around the sick wheel, and fastened into place using a loop into which the valve stem gets inserted (see above). You may need a couple tire levers, and you’ll definitely need a pump, but the rest is a cakewalk, as shown in the video on their site.

We called a couple popular mail order vendors to see if they had them in stock (or had ever heard of them, for that matter), and the answer was zero-in stock and one on the case to get them in soon. Rumored retail is USD$8.99, but the convenience far outweighs any added cost. They are available in 20″, 24″ and 26″ sizes.

BMXNEWS will try to get our hands on some and bring you a more complete product spotlight on them in the coming weeks. How many inner tubes does it take to buy a Ferrari? We think the guys at Fly Bikes are about to find out.