Granite Design Stash Tubeless Flat Tyre Repair Kit review

Granite Design’s Stash Tubeless Flat Tyre Repair Kit completes the Stash system, offering a flat tyre solution that sits neatly inside your handlebar. It’s nicely made and packs quite a punch, all in a mighty small package, for a very modest asking price.

• Everything you need to know about tubeless repair kits
• Ruzer Pro Tubeless Repair Kit review

• Trail Essentials – Kit to take on a mountain bike ride from the bare minimum to safety essentials​

This kit packs a fair bit of tubeless repair strength into a tiny and invisible package, depending on how you set it up. Just like Granite Design’s Chain Repair Kit, it hides inside the end of your handlebar and can be used with either open- or closed-ended grips.
 

That’s made possible thanks to the inclusion of two end caps in the pack, 22mm in diameter and 30mm. Bolt the small end cap on, and the whole kit can fit underneath a closed-ended grip. As you might have guessed, it’ll happily work with open grips with the larger cap installed. Of course, there is a downside to running the kit with the former grip, as you’ll have to remove the whole thing to get to it.
 

Granite Designs has done well to claw some efficiency back when it comes to removing the tool with closed grips. It’s secured into the handlebar with a 3mm Allen bolt, just like you’ll find on most grips. So you’ll only need one Allen key to get the tool in and out.

The kit itself is rather comprehensive, and what you get inside such a compact little case is pretty awesome. You’ve got the insertion tool and a very pointy reamer, the tip of which is super useful, but we’ll get onto that later. You can easily fit a number of the included plugs in the case, despite its small size. All of that weighs 36g. Granite claims 35g – what’s a gram between friends?

The kit doesn’t have to sit inside your handlebar, though. The pack includes a slightly bigger bit of expansion rubber, allowing you to stow it inside your crank’s spindle.

Using the Stash tyre plug is super simple and an absolute pleasure. Unlike other kits, the reamer and insertion tool is completely separate, and there is a point on the reamer. This makes it really easy to locate a puncture and get to roughing it up.

Once you’ve found your puncture, it’s then an easy case of popping a plug into the hole – but this is where I found a small issue. The fork tool isn’t particularly open, so it can be tricky to pop a plug in before repairing your tyre. I found the fork pierced the plug, so some care must be used when setting the tool up. Despite this, any repair I’ve made has remained secure, and you could prise the fork open a little more if you needed to.

Against similar tools, Granite Design’s offering stands up rather well in the value department. One of my favourite kits is Muc-Off’s Stealth Tubeless Repair Kit, but that one fills both ends of your bar and costs £35. However, it does come with a knife to trim down the ends of protruding plugs.

Another example is Lezyne’s Tubeless Tyre Insert Kit. This one’s simpler, including an insertion tool with a reamer built-in and a case for it to live in. It costs £26, and the reamer looks pretty small, but what’s good about this one is that it can be run with a plug pre-installed into the tool.

However, neither of those kits can be installed underneath a closed-ended grip.

Whether you’re looking to complete the Stash setup or you’re looking for an impressively comprehensive bar-stowed tubeless repair kit, the Granite Design Stash Tubeless Flat Tyre Repair Kit is one of the best on the market. As we’ve come to expect from Granite Designs, it’s well built and thoughtfully designed; it’s just a bonus that it can be used with all kinds of lock-on grips.

• granite-design.com

You might also like:

• Range overview: Bombtrack Bicycle Co.
• How 26″ wheels are still turning out the fun​

• The best glasses for mountain bike and gravel riding – top glasses reviewed and rated