Attending the 2015 Absa Cape Epic has opened our eyes to the popularity of tubeless tyre plugs. These sticky ‘worms’ are forced through a tubeless puncture to quickly fix common flats without removing the wheel.
The Sahmurai Sword is the first cycle-specific option and is the brainchild of three-time Cape Epic winner and Team Bulls rider Stefan ‘Sahmurai’ Sahm. Tyre plugs were first used in car tyres – marathon racers have been known to carry small automotive kits with them, taped to their bikes. This is not considered the safest way to carry such sharp objects.
The Sahmurai Sword tubeless tyre plug kit provides a solution. It is made up of two components that are built into a pair of expanding bar plugs. These sit inside the bars to provide a much safer way to carry the kit. One plug hosts the reamer, which is used to open up the puncture, the other holds a plug fork to push the gummy worm through the hole.
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Video: Stefan Sahm demonstrates how the Sahmurai Sword works
The plug sits quite flush with the end of the bar, but there is enough of a roughened surface that you can unthread it from the bar by hand.
From the outside, the Sword looks like a normal bar plug
The plugs will work with any handlebar with an inside diameter of 17mm and up, but won’t fit bars with reinforced rings for bar ends.
We weren't able to weigh these ourselves, but Sahm says the pair weighs roughly 40g – the mostly injection-moulded plastic construction keeps the weight to a minimum.
Global distribution of the Sahmurai Sword is in the pipeline. The puncture repair kit currently sells in South Africa for R350, so we expect it to cost around US$35.