Best Puncture Repair Kits 2024 | Cycling Weekly

Get back on the road as easily as possible with our pick of the best puncture repair kits

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The list in brief ↴

Tube repair1. Best glueless2. Best traditional3. Best compact4. Best value5. Best weatherproof6. Best longevity7. Best size

Tire repair1. Great patch2. Best traditional3. Best pre-glued

AdviceHow we test

Punctures are an unfortunate inevitability for cyclists, and they always seem to occur at the most inconvenient times in the coldest, wettest conditions. However, having the right tools and the best puncture repair kit close at hand can go a long way to making the process less troublesome.

Obviously, it's better to avoid punctures in the first place, so have a look at our guides to the best road bike tires, best winter tires and best puncture-proof tires, and if you need to brush up on your patching technique then our how to fix a puncture article will help.

An easy way to reduce punctures is to use properly set up tubeless tires and wheels. The tubeless sealant should repair many little punctures before you even notice them and even larger holes can be encouraged to seal with a tubeless tire plug.

Here are our picks of the best puncture repair kits for inner tubes and tubeless tires, and below that is our buyer's guide to help you choose which is best for you.

You can trust Cycling Weekly. Our team of experts put in hard miles testing cycling tech and will always share honest, unbiased advice to help you choose. Find out more about how we test.

Best Glueless

Best Glueless Solution

With 6 glueless patches and some sandpaper included, Park Tool's Super Patch kit covers the basics. The patches are a little bit thin though, which can allow them to wrinkle up and not seal properly.

Read more below

Best traditional

Best traditional puncture repair kit

Rema's Tip Top puncture repair kit is a classic cycling staple for good reason - it does exactly what it says on the tin. The slim green box is small enough to carry in a pocket and contains 6 patches, glue and sandpaper for permanent repairs.

Read more below

Best compact

Best compact option

The Smart Puncture Repair Kit fits into a slim sleeve rather than a box, so is very compact indeed. The glueless patches are a bit on the small side, so larger holes or snakebites might be an issue. The kit does include a tire boot though for fixing damaged tires.

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Largest patch

Largest tire repair patch

Billed as being for emergency use, we found that the Park Tool TB-2 worked very well, so long as the tire was well prepared. The 3 one-size patches are a bit large for road tires so will probably need cutting down before use.

Read more below

Best traditional

Best traditional tire boot

Probably better suited to home repairs due to its size and preparation requirements, the Velox Tubeless Repair Kit includes 4 patches for fixing tubeless tires. The patches are glued to the inside of the tire in the same way that inner tube repairs work.

Read more below

Best pre-glued

Best pre-glued tire boot

The pre-glued tire patch in the Lezyne Smart Puncture Repair Kit is supplied in an individual sachet, ready to be opened and stuck straight onto the tire. It's a good size, so should be able to fix most roadside holes.

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Our expert review:

The Park Tool Super Patch kit is really compact and comes in a neat plastic box, so it's easy to stash away. There are six patches included, along with a sandpaper square to pre-roughen your tire.

If you get it right, a patch should see you home, although we found that it may not hold at higher pressures. It's also quite easy to get a wrinkle in the thin patches, leaving an instant conduit for the air in the tube to escape to the outside world. They're quite expensive per fix, although with luck you may not have to use many.

Our expert review:

The Rema Tip Top TT04 puncture repair kit is a classic with its little green box, and is a feature of many a bike shed. Inside, you get the usual rubber solution plus sandpaper combo to prep your tire, and we had no problems using the kit to patch up holes.

Rather than an assortment of different shapes, there are six round patches - certainly the most useful shape. The Rema kit is a bit more expensive than LifeLine's but you get more useful patches and the box is a little more compact.

Our expert review:

Even more diminutive than the Park Tool kit, the Lezyne Smart puncture repair kit packs six glueless patches into a thin, wallet-like plastic sleeve, making it super-easy to carry with you.

Like the Park Tool patches, the Lezyne ones are quite thin and you need to take care not to get a wrinkle, which is even more important here as the Lezyne patches are smaller. That also makes it vital to make sure that you've hit the hole centrally so that there's as much patch as possible on all sides, but as long as this was achieved we had no problems in patching the tube.

Rather than sandpaper, the kit comes with a metal scuffer that should prove more durable and less likely to lose its abrasive qualities. There's even a tire boot included in case your outer tire suffers significant damage.

Our expert review:

LifeLine offers a classic glued puncture repair kit with two different patch sizes and the usual glue and sandpaper in a handy rectangular plastic box that's easy to stash away and carry with you. It was simple to achieve effective, safe repairs that allowed the inner tube to fight another day.

As with all glued kits, you need to look out for the glue drying up, or you could end up stranded. The small number of patches means that you may need to buy extra - fortunately, LifeLine will sell you another 10 of the more useful round patches for next-to-nothing.

Lifeline accessories are sold through Chain Reaction Cycles and Wiggle, so it's easy to add this kit to your order to help bulk it up for free carriage.

Our expert review:

The Topeak Rescue Box provides a compact, waterproof aluminium casing (in six colour options!) that helps keep your puncture repair goodies contamination-free. The shape of the box meant that it slipped easily into our pockets or saddlebags.

Open it up and there are six glueless patches and a small abrasive sheet. The box also has a divider that gives you space to keep a spare chain link and a couple of chain pins, so you can make running repairs to your chain too if you're carrying one of the best multitools with a chain tool attachment. At 18g it won't weigh you down excessively either.

Our expert review:

Slime Skabs come in a case slightly larger than some of the others, but measuring 52mm x 38mm x 12mm and weighing 10 grams they still slipped easily into our jersey pocket. The patches are really tacky to the touch and the metal scuffer will undoubtedly last the life of the pack too.

The patches measure 25mm in diameter and applied nicely. After testing it was still stuck firmly and hadn't moved or wrinkled. It felt like a pretty permanent repair. One of the best on test but it is still an unpleasant product name!

Our expert review:

The Rehook Gooeys patches came in a pack that was very similar in size and weight to the Park GP-2's and they were the largest square patches on test (just) measuring 26mmx26mm. This gives more glued area to contact with however, on a narrow 20-28mm width road inner tube, the patch overhung the tube edges. I needed to roll the patch around the tube to get it to stick on fully.

The patch held pressure throughout the test but on checking the inner tube afterwards the edges of the patch hadn't stayed glued. The central section (over the hole) had though, so it did get me home, but would've probably needed another repair to keep it reliable.

Sometimes the body of the tire gets a hole which needs fixing to get you home, and this is where a tire boot can help out. They are applied inside the tire between the tire and inner tube (if used) and can stop that hole or slash from allowing other road debris into the tire causing further problems.

If you have any tubeless sealant inside the tire carcass it must be thoroughly cleaned off first as the glue won't stick otherwise. I used a Clean Streak aerosol cleaner which worked well and all 3 patches stayed put during the test.

Our expert review:

The Park Tool TB-2 are quite large at 45mm x 75mm but I cut one down to roughly 45mm x 30mm to fit it into a 25c tire. It stuck well (after thoroughly preparing the tire) and it held well throughout the test.

It would certainly be a useful thing to carry with your spares while out riding and leave the other two at home. Park Tools say that the "TB-2 is designed for emergency use. A patched tire should be replaced as soon as possible", which is sensible advice.

Our expert review:

The Velox Tubeless Repair Kit uses vulcanising glue and patches to repair the tire. You'll need to ensure that the tire is well prepared and clean before gluing but the patch went on easily and stayed in place for the ride. It worked well.

The pack is quite big so it's more of a stay-at-home repair set I'd say. I would've liked to have had some chalk in the kit as you'll need to dust the repair afterwards to stop the inner tube from sticking to the glue/patch.

Our expert review:

The Lezyne Smart kit (inner tube repair mentioned above) also includes a tire repair patch. It was the only kit on test to do this. The patch measured c. 50mm x 30mm and it applied to the tire well. It was reassuringly sticky and stayed in place for the ride. As with the others on test you must ensure that the tire is prepared well and is clean for the best adhesion to occur.

As the Lezyne kit has both a tire boot and inner tube patches, both of which are the match for anything on test, it comes highly recommended.

The main choice with the best puncture repair kits is whether to go for the traditional patches that need a separate tube of rubber solution or the newer glueless patches.

In our experience, patches which need to be glued on give a more durable repair than glueless patches. But for on-the-road repairs, it means more to take with you, while the rubber solution itself is emblazoned with Harmful notices in big letters. It probably won't hurt you much the amount most cyclists will be using it, but it's something to bear in mind.

The other consideration is that the solvent in rubber solution will dry up quickly. A sealed tube has more longevity, but once opened you may find that it's solid by the time you want to use it again. Even a sealed tube can dry out, particularly if you let it get hot.

Most glueless patches, on the other hand, have almost limitless longevity, so they'll be there for you when you do get that puncture. They're also a lot more compact than kits with glue, so they're much easier to carry around.

Most patches are round, but glued kits often contain oval patches too. These tend to be of limited use - almost all punctures are point piercings of your tube, so a round patch will work just fine.

You shouldn't need a large patch either, provided you get a good seal, although glueless patches tend to be less airtight than glued ones, so some extra material around the point of piercing may be helpful. A larger patch will also help if you don't aim well and the actual hole is off-centre from the patch.

One case where a larger, oval patch might be better is a "snakebite" puncture, caused by the tire bottoming out on the wheel rim. You'll see two parallel cuts a few millimetres apart. Here, a slightly larger patch should work better and cover both holes with a single patch.

Almost all repair kits contain either sandpaper or a metal scuffer to roughen the tube around the puncture before you try to stick a patch onto it. Use it, as it will remove any contaminants on the surface of the tube and the rough surface will adhere much better to the patch. Just don't abrade so hard that you make another hole in the tube.

The puncture repair kits on test were evaluated for their value (in terms of what they included), their effectiveness and ease of use when repairing punctures and the packaging, as that dictates how easy they are to carry. Any issues we discovered fixing tubes at home will be exacerbated when trying to effect a repair sat by the side of a cold, wet road, so it is well worth choosing wisely.

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Paul started writing for Cycling Weekly in 2015, covering cycling tech, new bikes and product testing. Since then, he’s reviewed hundreds of bikes and thousands of other pieces of cycling equipment for the magazine and the Cycling Weekly website.

He’s been cycling for a lot longer than that though and his travels by bike have taken him all around Europe and to California. He’s been riding gravel since before gravel bikes existed too, riding a cyclocross bike through the Chilterns and along the South Downs.

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