Tyre valves, why are most now Presta?

It is true they are smaller and lighter but much less robust so maybe the conspiracy theory is right - they just want to sell more and make more profit. Personally I hate them, it is far too easy to bend the little brass nozzle and snap it that is why I use a Lezyne pump on my road bike with a screw on adaptor. The whole point of them is to enable higher pressure inflating hence often called high pressure valves. Seeing as most MTB's use between 30-50psi it is pointless whereas 120psi is more like it. You can also get a locknut on Shcraeder but some do have a rubber sleeve on just to annoy you and make it difficult to fit through the rim. As for the hole making the rim weaker yes on a narrow road rim there isn't much room but an MTB no problem as they are wider. 15 years in the industry I have never seen a rim fail at the valve hole yet.

Simple in my day [70's/early 80's] tyres blew up to 35psi about 3 Bar for the sake of hand held pumps, later were changed to 60-65psi so are now about 4 Bar. Road bike tyres take about 85-90psi which is about 6 Bar. Older tubes had the valve held in with a lock nut and washer with a hole in the tube nowadays it's thankfully sealed. Also Schwalbe do the same tubes both in Schraeder and Presta valves for most bikes so you can fit road bike tyres and tubes to a hybrid using a Shraeder valve. The idea is Schraeder valves struggle with anything above 5 Bar so Presta take over as the core is designed for extremely high pressures. Schwalbe Schraeder tubes can take 6 Bar as they are better quality cores. It's all down to what the valve core can handle so with modern high pressure tyres the default valve is Presta.

Actually, there are FAR more bikes currently built using Schraeder valves than Presta.

More than 70% of the 19 million bikes sold in the U.S. are sold by department stores. Not for the lack of looking, I have only seen 3 or 4 department store bikes with Presta valves, and I would say 50% of the bikes sold in bike shops are still Schraeder. So, that would mean that about 10 million out of the 19 million use Schraeder (2.8 million bike shop models, 6.2 million department store models).

Presta valve inner tubes are easier to pump to high pressure, they are lighter, the smaller hole in the rim is better structurally. The smaller hole is also necessary on narrow rims. Aero deep profile rims are too narrow for Schrader valves. Presta valves were designed specifically foe bicycle tires.

The smaller size makes them lighter. The smaller hole in the rim adds strength. The pressure is lower on the valve because the area is smaller. I carry a valve adapter just incase my dual head pump fails.

It's a conspiracy by the petrol companies, they don't want cyclist using the air in petrol station for free, so they have cornered the Presta adapter valve market, blame the French!

Since nobody else has mentioned it, the Presta is a better valve because it has a locking nut (for the want of a better explanation) which stops the valve from sinking into the tire while trying to pump it up, along with what they said. http://practicalbiking.org/wordpress/files/2010/05...

Smaller, lighter, better for holding higher pressures. Smaller hole through the rim does less to hurt structural integrity of the rim.

Adapters to allow them to work with Schrader pumps are cheap and readily available if that's your main issue.

For those of us with aero rims, Schraeder valves are too short. I've only seen them in one length, way too short.

HTH

smaller

lighter

simpler

cheaper

higher pressure

easier to pump

smaller hole in the rim == stronger rim

what;s not to like?

wle

Damn you French!