Tyre Guardian to Seal Punctures | MC Tested

Flats are no fun, and unlike cagers, motorcyclists can’t carry a spare in the trunk. Plug kits are great, but wouldn’t it be nice to seal punctures as they happen, _before _the tire goes flat? With a couple ounces of Tyre Guardian goop injected into your bike’s tires, that’s exactly what you’ll do.

When one of our long-term testbikes was in the shop for a tire change, I took the opportunity to put Tyre Guardian to the test. The pink latex-based mixture can be poured in at the time of tire installation or injected through the valve stem after the fact.

Squirting half a bottle of the stuff into the used rear tire through the valve stem took all of 2 minutes, and was accomplished without mess. After inflating the tire and riding the bike to distribute the fluid, I put the bike on a rear stand and armed a cordless drill with a quarter-inch bit—the maximum claimed pluggable puncture diameter. With the tire spinning in first gear the opening was immediately reduced from a whistling puncture to a sputtering hole, and within 30 seconds the leak was stopped. Tire pressure had only dropped 2 psi. The test was repeated, except this time I simply rotated the puncture to the 6-o’clock position. The hole was sealed almost instantly with no registered pressure loss.

Changing the tire afterward proved messier than usual, but it wasn’t anything a few paper towels couldn’t clean up. One 8-ounce bottle treats both of your bike’s tires, unless you’re running a crazy Bike Night-size rear.