Tourist in MSN

It is the roadie mentality, have a bike that weighs almost nothing, carry a few things in jersey pockets, and hope you are always lucky. And carry nothing that you do not see racers carry on tv in road races - except of course carry their phone.

Those of us from the touring subset of the bicycling community are more likely to be self-reliant at all times. If we have a flat or a mechanical, we want to get it repaired before one of our friends has an opportunity to take photos of our mis-fortune.

Troul 

CO2 might have a benefit.... if the tire is having a hard time fully seating, then the hit from the cartridge will have a better chance at achieving it vs a pocket E-Pump or forearm action.

canklecat

Yup, I was pressing the valve down against the pump chuck on one side, and rim on the other, against a partially inflated tube. My guess is that pressure on the partially inflated tube gradually leads to separation at the glued joints (or whatever method they use to seal the patch of latex around the tube to the rest of the tube).

So now I usually try to remind myself to either deflate the tube completely before pressing on the chuck, or use a mini pump with threaded chuck to top up a mushy feeling tire.

flangehead

I see that with experienced commuters as well. I have a small pump and I can easily pump enough pressure to reach my destination.

I had a mixed experience. I bought one “to try it” and one dark night log ago a plastic pump shaped object failed so I pulled out the cartridge but hadn’t read the directions and failed miserably.

I subsequently read the instructions.

Recently I had a flat on a remote trail in daylight and found the head of my plastic Topeak frame pump was broken. I had a cartridge and it saved the day.

I’ve found my Chinese metal mini pumps to be highly reliable but I have one cartridge in my pannier just in case. (And yes the removable Presta valve cores are a PITA.)

rekmeyata

While I do carry my phone, but only after my wife twisted my arm a few years ago. But I never ever call her to help me unless it's an extreme emergency, like I called her when I was on my way to the hospital after crash with car, and one time I got diarrhea so bad, that even my 4 Imodium ADs I carry for emergencies did nothing, and it left me too weak to pedal, but I had to use a pay phone that time. But repairs like flats or anything else, nope, I have stuff with me that can fix most problems, because my wife is not my mommy, and I'm not her little boy, so I make damn sure I can either fix something, or walk, or hop a bus if necessary. I have never had to walk or hop a bus yet in 50 years of riding, but I am prepared for such a contingency by carrying cash with me, and if I can't get to a bus I can call Uber nowadays. Back before cell phones the public was a lot nicer to people, if they saw a broken down cyclists they would give them a ride home, today very few people will do that because they expect you to have a cell phone.

I keep my bikes very well maintained, I can count on one hand how many mechanical problems I had in the last 50 years, and those I fixed on the side of the road. Years ago I got a flat, went to use the pump, and it broke, I'm up in the mountains, so I grabbed weeds and stuffed the tire with those weeds, and I made it home. Another time I broke a spoke, but I had 36 spokes, so all it did was make the wheel no clear the brake pads, so I simply adjust the surrounding spokes and rode it home, todays 20 spoke wheels that's not going to happen, that wheel will taco, then you will have to call someone, unless you can do a wheelie all the way home...assuming it's the front wheel that taco'd like mine was.

While, yes we are roadies, but we don't have a team car following us, so we are not afforded the luxury of a mobile mechanic, thus we need to be that mechanic. Keep in mind, that for a long time professional roadies had to fix their own bikes.

downtube42

I've called my wife twice. The first time was in the middle of a 1200km brevet and I was done; over it. I said please drive out to the coast and pick me up. She told me to stop and eat, that my blood sugar was probably low. She was right, and I finished. That's a cyclist's spouse. The second time, I'd broken my C3 and ripped my leg open, and couldn't manage to turn the pedals. She came and picked me up.

Having said that, some amount of good natured ribbing of different types of cyclists is fine. Actually meaning it seriously isn't. If all I did was ride in 30 mile circles near home, I wouldn't carry much either

Tourist in MSN

I have rarely seen any roadies farther out than 20 to 30 miles from the city limits where I live. Most have a tiny saddle bag with a spare tube and presumably a CO2 cartridge. But a few have everything stuffed into their jersey pockets, including an occasional short pump, but I suspect the pump is only a backup.

Week days, they are usually solo riders out for exercise, as am I. Weekends, groups of two or three are more common. A bike with fenders is quite rare, many of them stare at my bike trying to figure out why a bike with drop bars has fenders and a handlebar bag. But small handlebar bags are becoming more common on road bikes in my area.

A friend that I used to work with was really surprised when he saw one of my touring bikes. He said he had never seen a bike with tri shifters on the ends of handlebars. I asked what he meant by tri shifters? He pointed at my bar end shifters on my drop bars and said those were made to use on aero bars for triathlon and time trial bikes, he was surprised that they even fit on my bars. I do not think he believed me when I told him that bar end shifters had been around for a half century or more, much longer than his aero bars on his triathlon bike.

bikezone

yes

downtube42

Hilarious.

Jersey pocket guys are merely following rules 29, 30, and 31.

My new rando bike, a CF Trek Domane, has storage in the DT for a tube, C02, and tire levers. Presumably that's all one would need for JRA close to home. It's kind of an annoyingly sized space to me - too small to meaningfully reduce luggage, but too large to completely ignore.

Tourist in MSN

My rando bike, nothing special. Bought the frame at the end of the season in 2015, steel. I had a touring bike with a defective frame, the frame went into the recycle bin, Surly refused to warranty it, so I had lots of parts looking for a new home. I think some of the smaller Carradice bags are ideal for that sort of riding. But I do not like the bag hitting my legs, so pushed it further back with a stem (with appropriate shim) on the seatpost. If you are curious, a few photos of mine at this link:
https://www.bikeforums.net/electroni...b-charger.html

I have seen a few people try bikepacking saddle bags for brevets, but I think the Carradice is more convenient to access the inside of it, plus mine has side pockets and my spare tube goes in a pocket on a brevet. On that bike I have a low budget plastic frame fit pump but I put a Lezyne Micro Floor Drive or Roadmorph G in the saddle bag on a brevet.