A bicycle inner tube that instead of forming a sealed torus topology in the factory, is a tube that has connectable valves at each end. The standard valve, to the outside of the wheel, acts as a bridge component between tube ends.

When a puncture happens the connecting valves can be undone and a strong sheath repair can be applied.
-- wjt, Jan 12 2011

Linear inner tube http://cgi.ebay.co....a8057#ht_1312wt_972
Baked simpler [MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 12 2011]

And you don't have to remove the wheel or chain!
-- lurch, Jan 12 2011


How do you make the connection strong enough and flexible enough?
-- Twizz, Jan 12 2011


If the 'bridge' component is inflexible plastic, and the tube is rubber (i.e. just like a normal inner tube) with the ends finished with a ridge which is pushed past another ridge inside the opening of the 'bridge' section, then air pressure, when the tube is inflated, will keep the junction secure and sealed.
-- hippo, Jan 12 2011


Those valves are gonna prove awfully bumpy as you roll over them, and if they're plastic, you'll end up cracking them through cyclical loading, causing extra punctures.
-- Skrewloose, Jan 12 2011


I am pretty sure I've seen "linear" inner tubes, favoured because they can (like this one) be changed without removing the wheel.

They are basically just tubes with one valve and closed ends which are long enough to wrap once-and-a-bit around the wheel. This means that there is a region where the ends overlap, but this doesn't seem to matter (the pressure, after all, is the same all around). No need for two valves or a connector.

[Edit] found'em. See link.
-- MaxwellBuchanan, Jan 12 2011


Is this so the air can go all the way around? Here's a [+] as clearly the linear tubes oppress the air by making it go back and forth rather than round and round.
-- saedi, Jan 12 2011



random, halfbakery