What am I looking at?

[clabberty]

Just to let you know I am total newb. I've owned my Raleigh Portage for about 20 years and haven't touched it for 18. I'm getting it ready to give to charity. It has been inside all these years and, except for giving the appearance it has grown cat hair, it is in reasonably good shape.

I am working on the flat tires. Getting the front tire off was easy but getting the rear one off took me three hours. Now both are off I notice something different about the front and back rims when I take off the old inner tubes. The back tire seems to have some sort of rubber gasket lining the inside of the rim but the front one doesn't. Should I be getting a gasket thingy for the front tire and if I need one what is it called?

Thanks for your help.

[clabberty]

I've been doing more research. Is this a rubber rim strip to protect the inner tube from the screws for the wire struts on?

[xerxes]

That's right, it's called rim tape. It's there to protect the innertube if the spoke holes, spoke ends or nipples are sharp.

You should be able to buy rim tape at most bicycle shops, or on-line, but you could also just go around the rim a couple of times with some fairly thick electrical tape. I've used it on a couple of my rims when the original rim tape perished and fell to pieces and it's been there for a good few years and several hundreds of miles with no problems.

[clabberty]

Thanks for the confirmation. When I got this bike, many years ago, I kept having tire leaks and flat tires on the front tire. I guess that would explain the problem if they only put the rim tape on the back tire and not the front. I think I'll get some rim tape tomorrow and put it on before I blow up the new inner tubes. I don't want the next person to have this bike to have the same problem.