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A place to ask bicycle repair questions, and for bike shop monkeys to share advanced non commercial wrenching resources (no YouTube self promotion). This is only for repair related topics.

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What are the benefits of presta over Schrader valves? (slrpnk.net)

submitted 1 day ago by nocturne@slrpnk.net to c/bikewrench@lemmy.world

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My son recently got a really nice specialized bike used. It came with presta tubes on it, and a few extras. Last night he called me in the middle of the night to come pick him up because he had a flat and he could not get the pumps on campus to work with his tubes.

He said he could have probably ridden home on the low tire, but he was trying to fill it up but instead the pump kept releasing more and more air.

I personally see no benefit to presta valves, but there has to be some... right?

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[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 16 points 1 day ago

https://sheldonbrown.com/brandt/presta-schrader.html

In the past, sports and racing bicycles used Presta valves because they are slender and enabled racers to inflate tires with a simple pump with attached chuck (pump head) and no hose. Presta valves are easier to pump than Schrader, because they have no valve spring to overcome. Although a valve depressor for Schrader valves can alleviate this, it requires a check valve, impractical to house in lightweight pump heads.

The small diameter of the Presta valve requires a smaller hole in the rim, whose size is important for narrow rims where cross sectional strength of is significantly reduced by a stem hole. In narrow rims, clincher tires also leave insufficient space between tire beads for larger Schrader valves.