Motorcycle tyre repair kit essentials

The vast majority of modern road motorcycles are fitted with tubeless tyres, and if you have ever been caught with a flat you know full well just how smart it is to carry a suitable motorcycle tyre repair kit.

Even a lightweight, low-capacity commuter bike with a flat tyre is a pain to push for more than a minute or two, and as for heavy touring bikes – forget it. So unless you have cleverly coordinated your flat tyre to occur right outside a tyre shop, you’re going to need a motorcycle tyre repair kit to get yourself mobile again.

We’re focusing on tubeless tyre repair kits here; if you own a dirt bike you can take a look at our advice article on how to fix a flat in a tubed tyre and how to change a dirt bike tyre. But really, the basic components in a motorcycle tyre repair kit are pretty simple, and comprise the following items:

• Plugs (usually a long-ish strip of synthetic material)
• Vulcanising fluid (which reacts with the plug and the surrounding tyre to form an airtight seal
• A hook tool (with an ‘eye’ in the end, used to insert the plug into the hole in the tyre)
• An awl (a sharp pointed instrument used to make the hole big enough to accept the plug)
• A sharp knife or blade (used to cut off the excess plug left protruding from the tyre)
• CO2 bulbs (used to reinflate the tyre to a usable pressure – three or four bulbs should be sufficient to achieve a useable pressure)
• CO2 bulb adapter (to connect the bulb to the tyre valve)

To that list we’d add the following:

• Needle-nose pliers (to help remove the screw or nail etc that punctured the tyre)
• A basic bicycle hand pump (which can be used to add extra pressure if required, or instead of CO2 bulbs)
• A tyre pressure gauge (to check your pressure before you ride off again)

Plugging a puncture in a tubeless motorcycle tyre is a relatively simple process. Here’s how to go about it.

1. First, find the puncture. For a rear flat, this is more easily done on a bike with a centrestand, where you can put the bike on the stand, ensure the bike is in neutral, and simply rotate the tyre slowly until you find the suspect screw, nail, or hole. For front tyre flats, or if you don't have a centrestand, you'll have the push the bike forward a bit at a time while stopping to inspect the tyre.

2. If there’s no obvious protruding metal, but you find a suspect cut, hole or damage, you can always smear a bit of water (or even spit, at a pinch) over the area. If it is indeed a puncture, you will see air bubbles form as the air slowly escapes.

3. Use the needle-nose pliers to extract the offending screw or nail. Don’t be alarmed if the tyre deflates fairly quickly, making a loud hissing sound, if the foreign body was of a reasonable size.

4. Insert the awl into the hole and work the tool back and forth – this will actually make the hole large enough to accept the plug.

5. Remove a plug from its wrapping and insert it through the eye of the hook tool.

6. Coat the plug liberally with vulcanizing fluid.

7. Ensuring the bike is stable, insert the hook tool with plug into the hole, forcing the plug deep into the tyre. This can take quite a degree of physical force to achieve.

8. Remove the hook tool from the tyre, leaving the plug in place.

9. Using a knife or blade, trim the excess plug left protruding from the tyre.

10. Reinflate the tyre using the CO2 bulbs or hand pump, and check the pressure with the tyre pressure gauge. You might not be able to achieve the tyre’s recommended pressure but should have sufficient pressure to ride slowly and carefully to the nearest service station, where you can then use a professional air pump to inflate the tyre to full pressure.

There are a heap of different motorcycle tyre repair kits available, both online and from motorcycle accessory stores. Some are highly compact, others less so, and if you have room on your bike you might even like to complement the kit with a small 12V air compressor. As ever, you generally get what you pay for – so go for reputable brands and companies that can also supply individual replacement items, like extra plugs and additional tubes of vulcanising fluid.

Prices vary, but most tubeless motorcycle tyre repair kits cost between $40 to $75 at the time of publication.

NB: These plug-type tubeless motorcycle tyre repairs are generally viewed by tyre manufacturers as temporary fixes: something to get you home, where you can then seek out a professional tyre specialist to inspect the tyre and judge if it needs a professional repair or replacement.