Bell Normal and Self Sealing Bike Tubes

Holding up great
Has withstood several rides, holding air great. Easy and quick to put on and fit great around my rare size tire.

They worked for me… Update 2022…
The first thing to mention is the tubes I received were manufactured by Kenda, see the photo.The second thing to mention is that buying tubes seems to be a crap shoot. Aside from whether or not you will get the correct tube when you order online (size, sealant, presta or schrader)…will the tube last?Lastly, when buying tubes…You can put a Presta into a Schrader rim. All you need is an adapter to use a standard pump or compressor for air. You should also get the lock rings to secure the Presta valve into the larger Schrader rim hole. If you have an old bike, you may have to do this as some tire sizes that have Schraders are becoming harder to find tubes for.Buy Rim Strips or Rim Tape. These didn’t come with them, nor do Slime or Schwalbe tubes.With that being said, below is my experience with these tubes….As some reviews mentioned tubes blowing up shortly after install, I inflated mine to see if there were any bulges or leaks.As the picture shows, I screwed up inflating my first tube. My air chuck stuck in the valve and by the time I got it out, the tube had stretched way beyond 26″, was over 3 inches in diameter and turned itself inside out. Luckily for me, it did not blow or create a weak spot.I let air out of the over inflated tube, lightly inflated the second tube and let them sit for a few hours to see if they leaked, or any weak spots (bulges) appeared. Despite my over inflating the one tube, there were no issues. So I mounted them up.Once mounted, I brought them up to 50lbs and took a test ride. I weigh around 230 and there were no tube issues.Then we had a heat wave in the northeast, and despite the bike sitting in the sun during100 degree plus heat indexes for about a week straight, there were no tube issues and the bike was lightly ridden.A month later, I removed my old tires and upgraded them to new Specialized Hemispheres with Flack Jacket and did some more light riding. About two weeks later, my rear tire began losing air and was going flat within three days.At first, I figured that all the negative reviews about these tubes must be correct.The only thing was that I had no issues at all with the front tube. There had also been no issues with the rear tube until the tire swap.Because the leak was so slow, my first thought was maybe the valve core had come loose. So, I decided to loosen it slightly and tighten it back up. This was the start of a learning curve.When I loosened the valve core, I was greeted with a few drops of light green liquid that immediately became tacky. Even though I hadn’t ordered sealant filled tubes and there was no marking on the box or colored valve covers, apparently I had received at least one sealant filled tube.I re-tightened the core, aired the tire up and waited to see what would happen. Within a few days, the tire lost air again. At this point, I was baffled how a tube, with sealant (that seemed to be active), could have such a slow leak. Before I removed the rear tire again, I ordered in a pair of Extra Strong Slime Tubes as replacements.Upon removing the rear tube from the rim and tire, the mystery continued. There was no sign of sealant anywhere on the tube, rim or inside of the tire. When I put the tube in water, there were no escaping air bubbles. I dried the tube off and took one last look. While I was slowly turning the tube in my hands, I felt something hard and sharp on my finger. I couldn’t see it, but could feel it. As it turned out, I found three spots on the tube that felt this way. When I probed these spots further, I could feel whatever it was come out of the tube. Also, the sealant flowed and seemed to seal the punctures. I only caught a glimpse of one of the objects in the tube and it was just a dark speck on my fingertip before it fell off.The Specialized tires had been ordered in and maybe something had gotten into the tire I put on the rear during shipping. However, this was doubtful as I blow out, then wipe my tires out before installing them.The tires that I replaced due to age and cracking, had been last ridden when I lived in AZ in 2007. When I left AZ, I dropped the bike off in a shed at the family home in NH where it sat until now. Which, is why the old tires were shot.So, I’m guessing the old tires had picked up some of the nasty thorn tips that are in AZ and that they had worked their way into the the old cracked tires and Bell tube during the few quick rides I took to test the tubes. Then, when I swapped the tires, the thorn tips were already in the tube and worked their way in further during my test ride with the Specialized Hemispheres.The only thing I knew for sure, was that the Specialized Hemispheres couldn’t have picked up anything like what I felt and saw on my finger tip from the paved New England back roads that the bike had been ridden on during it’s test rides.So, at this point, do I throw both Bell tubes out and put the Slime tubes in?No.The Bell tube feels heavier than the Slime tube and reminded me of bicycle tubes that I had as a kid in the late 70’s and early 80’s that were heavy, durable and never seemed to loose air. Also, the sealant seemed to have worked exactly as it should have when there was a puncture. When the objects came out of the tube, the sealant flowed and became tacky.Lastly, the front tube hadn’t needed air since the Hemisphere’s were installed.So, I put the Bell back in the rear tire to see how it held up. Ironically, that was also the tube I over inflated in the beginning.So far after three weeks of light riding, the tube has not lost air, nor has the front tube lost air since the tire swap.While my experience with the Bell has been a little frustrating, it’s not any fault of the tube. The tube survived being over inflated outside of a tire and rim, then sealed itself after three small punctures. As of now it’s 4 stars. If they continue to hold up I’ll be giving them 5.Update…Unfortunately, the rear tube began loosing air again and I wasn’t going to chase anymore thorn tips/pinholes down and try to patch them.So I installed the Extra Strong Slime tubes in both tires and am keeping the Bell that was in the front as a spare.Unfortunately….One of the Extra Strong Slime tubes failed due to a weak spot, shortly after being installed. The bike had seen maybe 2 miles of riding and was sitting in the garage when the tube had a major failure. You can read the review if you look up Slime tubes.So the bike now has one Slime Tube in the front, and the Bell tube that I removed from the front on the back (where the Slime tube that failed had been).***Second Update***Ironically weeks after I wrote the above… The second Slime tube failed the same way the first one did. A major failure, in about the same place as the first one, while sitting in the garage.Meanwhile, the Bell is still doing fine in the rear wheel., where the first Slime tube failed.With the above being said, I will not purchase the Slime tubes again, but would purchase these Bell tubes again.At this point, I ordered a pair of Schwalbe’s to try.The Bell will be my spare when I install the them.Hope some/any of this helps and ride safe.

My freaking bike rubber split but my tube held up! Incredible!
I bought this inner tube for my bike and lo and behold the freaking bike tube was tougher than my rubber was. Unbelievable. It was easy to get this fit and instaleld on my rim and it had the expected quality…Enough for me to ride on compressed air taking my life in my hands. Not much to say other than it works as expected and it was a great price!

Great item!
I used this tube to fix my son’s rear tire on his 20″ bike yesterday. Easy install and the price was very good.I think it will be a fine tube.

Works perfect

Installed two of them with new tires. The stems are a little short, but I have a threaded Lezyne presta pump which works great. No issues yet. The Continental tubes have removable valves which cause me issues all the time as they come out when using the threaded pump. So far no issues with the Bells, they work great. If you have rims which are deep, you may have issues with the stems being too short.