I think I’ve hit the big time in terms of weight-loss-for-the-euro with my latest payday purchase.
As the tagline says, Tubolitos are ‘not your normal tubes’. First of all, they are not even made of butyl or latex, but something intriguing named thermoplastic elastomer. They had me at ‘thermo’.
I haven’t received the tubes yet, but I’ve done my due diligence. They are supposed to be ‘hard’ and therefore easy to chuck inside a tire. There is virtually no chance of getting a pinch flat from bad installation because of this rigidity, not to mention the orange color that would give away a blob of tube sticking out from the rim.
They are also tiny when rolled up, which will make room for another banana in my pouch. 
But these tubes also cost a fortune in tube terms – over €20. I bought three (2 for the bike, 1 for my pocket) and racked up a bill of €72. Luckily it’s a business expense.
But check this out: when compared with the 3 ‘normal’ tubes I use at the moment, I’m going to save a relatively whopping 195 grams. That’s about how much pasta Shoko and I eat for lunch. I’m sure this will end up in a PB on Ventoux my next time up.
And finally, I’ve been told by those in the know that weight lost on stuff that rolls, and in particular the wheel area, is the best kind. It has to do rolling resistance, but that’s as far as I go.
I’ll get these tubes in a week and try them out when the rain stops. If worse comes to worst and they do nothing for my segment times, at least the stem color will go with 44|5’s logo.
The Vicious Cycle 
Talk about coming a long way from thst conversation we had a number of years ago. “It went something like this”
Hey Ger. Have you tried going to 25’s from the standard 23’s yet?
Cheers Pierre
Still on 23s though!
Gerry: I’ve been using Tubolitos for a year and they’ve been great. No flats on road bike. (I did have a thorn into my CX bike wheel and the only downside of Tubolitos—aside from the price—is that their fix-kit does not hold. And I did the fix carefully and put the patch even in a clamp.) But think about the cost of reducing wheel weight by 60g compared to a Tubolito…
That’s great intel, Jan. I was hoping someone out there was using them.
Do you mean I should think about looking for lighter wheels? Any suggestions? I’m on Conti 5000s right now.
No, I meant that $20 for saving 70g of weight on the outer parameter of the wheel—the most important part for rotational inertia—is a great deal. (Compared to buying wheels to reduce 70g.)
We’ll see. It doesn’t very much financially, so there’s little risk!
The typical ratio is $1/g, so Tubolitos are way above that = great deal. (I bet that’s why they can charge $30 for a tube vs the usual $5-10.)
I had never heard of the $1/g ratio. What does that mean? For example, I paid 4 times that much for my C59 frame, but like you said, way less for the tubes.
By the way Jan, my next potential move will blow this out of the water:
https://www.bike24.com/p210786.html
For €10 I’ll save 112 grams over the Deda bar tape I have now. No Paris-Roubaix on those things, though!