Bill Abbey

I put a sock around the spare tube. Yes the tubes wear against the blowout bag, and any tools that might be inside the bag and loose. A sock prevents the wear without adding any tape residue or having to remove aged on tape itself. Also the sock can be used to keep grease off the hands (never works of course), as a pad for knee-gravel contact, as a clean up tool and to fill oral apertures for those helpful bystanders who always give advice and never actually work on their own stuff. My advice? put a sock in it.

WinterCommuter

in my experience (5000+ miles/yr for 30+ yrs), the cost of the tube matters very little, but a patch always affects the feel of the ride and eventually works loose. To each his own i guess.

Cycle Tourist

Wow. Glad I never raced against you. Anyone that can tell they are riding on a patched tube has sensitivity far beyond my abilities. I've had some patches fail to work but I've never had one fail once it's successfully holding air. Lucky I guess.😊

WinterCommuter

funny. Keep the wheels down friend.

2_i 

It must be paranormal sense .

rekmeyata

When a patch works its way loose at any time that means you prepared the tube wrong, I've never had either a glue on or a glueless patch eventually work loose...well, as long as the glueless patch was a Park, I used a few other brands, even the well known Lezyne, those don't stick for more than a few hours, but the Park brand will stick for the life of the tube.

WinterCommuter

i also use park glueless patches. I agree they work better than most. Perhaps you are more meticulous than me. I find that a new tube always works for the life of the tube. ;-)

rekmeyata

A new tube in your case only lasts until the first puncture, then for you that tube's life came to end, my tube's life doesn't end there, I will patch, and patch and patch, the only reason I will toss a tube is if a leak is in an area that can't be repaired like around the stem, or the valve stem fails, or a seam splits, or the tube is getting too old which takes about 7 to 10 years, and during that time period I've had as many as 13 patches on a tube, still working fine till the Presta valve failed.

Patches are way cheaper than a new tube, most people use the excuse of not fixing a tube and replacing it instead is because they simply do not know how to fix a tube and refuse to admit it, so they act all cool like and say they just replace the tube; except it's better for the environment to repair the tube than to keep throwing away tubes.

2_i 

Same here. I buy cassettes or chains well more often than tubes. My tubes might last longer than my tires.

WinterCommuter

I can remove a wheel, tube, replace, and inflate in under 2 mins most times. The time to properly patch a tube takes considerably longer—at least for my mid ride fumbling body. Note, i also use co2 inflators and i’m sure a pump is better for the environment too. For me, it comes down to cost efficiency. Also, when it’s near zero degrees (Or cooler), seconds spent fixing a flat matter a lot. So, I’d rather “spend” my time riding than patching or pumping. I’m not saying you’re wrong, just different. 13 patches is impressive though. Kudos!

cyccommute 

Most people carry a spare tube and patch later. Seldom have I had to actually patch on the road. It happens but just not all that often. Most of my flats I discover when I take the bike off the hook in the garage.

Piffle! 13 patches is a tube that barely ready for a mid-life crisis. I have a half dozen with 5 to 10 patches that I consider to be new. I have a couple that are dragging 20, perhaps 30.

Geepig

The latter is no longer a tube, but a linked set of patches

NJgreyhead

I agree with all of this, especially the last sentence.

pdlamb

Either you have much thicker tires than I ride, or your roads are much, much better maintained. (Unless you're counting repairs as part of tube life.)

Takes me about 5 minutes to replace a tube. I usually quote 15 minutes to fix a flat, because it almost always takes me a lot longer to find what caused the flat and remove the glass shard, wire, etc. Patching the tube doesn't take any riding time, because I save up flatted tubes and fix them when it's too cold, rainy, etc. to ride.

A dozen patches is pretty good. I don't remember my record, but from my recent holiday flat-fixing session, I'd guess I'm riding tubes that average 5-10 patches each.

WinterCommuter

except when you’re on the road with debris, glass, wire, etc stuck in the tire that’s easiest/quickest time to identify/patch the hole. I carry a patch kit specifically for the times that i get more flats than spare tubes—doesn’t happen often, may be twice in a life time but it beats calling for help. Once i get home, it might take 10-15 mins to Identify the hole and properly patch a spent tube. Saving myself $2 for 10 mins isn’t worth it to me. Besides, the patched tube will always make for a funky ride.

WinterCommuter

too cold to ride?! I haven’t experienced that temp yet.

2_i 

I ride pretty rough terrain, but I also ride only tough, reinforced tires. Continental tires have lasted for me 7-8k miles and Schwalbe about 4k. I never wore out any winter tire. I say that my tubes might live longer than tires as this is the statistics of small numbers. A tube cycles per year through a summer, late fall/early spring and winter tire. On the buying end, I presumably bought more tires over time than tubes, but on the disposal end they may be about equal. Even after something comes off the bikes, it goes into some buffer zone where it is used as a raw material for projects .

rekmeyata

Heck yeah, I'll go through at least 2 sets of tires before a tube is remotely considered to be replaced. I don't even buy cassettes and chains that often, my chains last an average of 10,000 miles and the cassette will last 3 times longer than the chain. My touring bike is supposed to go through chains faster, but I have about 1,500 miles of loaded riding on it and so far it's showing no wear on my chain checker, and supposedly on loaded riding they get about 3 to 4 thousand miles on a chain, I'm waiting to see on that one.

cyccommute 

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make. I check for what was making the puncture before I put the replacement tube back in. Not doing so is a rookie mistake. I even mark my tubes beforehand with an arrow to indicate rotation direction so that whatever caused the puncture is easier to find.

As I stated a while ago, I have yet to find these mythic $2 tubes.

WinterCommuter

the point? I don’t carry patched tubes with me. I think that was the OP original question. That’s my point.

BTW, i did a quick search for you. walmart, amazon, chainreactioncycles, and merlincycles all carry tubes less than $3. Walmart has a 700c tube for $1.96 with free shipping. myth that? ;-)

cyccommute 

I was referring to this

I just don’t see your point in the above quote.

I don’t see your point about not carrying patched tubes either. Your whole “I can feel the patch” is a level of sensitivity that is beyond most peoples’ abilities to detect.

Well, HelMart doesn’t sell them for less than $3 with free shipping. They are currently on sale for about $2 but you have to buy two and pay $6 in shipping. That not “$2 each”. Shipping needs to be included which makes for $4 tube. Amazon doesn’t list a less than $7 for a 700C presta tube with free shipping. Chain Reaction sells a $3 tube with $16 shipping. That’s a $19 tube. Merlin Cycles sells a $3.50 tube but charges $28 for shipping. That’s a $31 tube.

You have more unicorns for hunting?

WinterCommuter

boo hoo. i’m not your personal shopper. If you only want one, you might have to swing by the store.

rekmeyata

Do you actually ride a bike? I ask because first you mention $2 tubes, now this nonsense about the patches making for a funky ride, nether Rema or Park glueless patches you cannot feel while riding if on a tube. I've ridden on both for many years, even back in the day when 20c tires were all the rage with 120 psi in the tires, and I used Rema patches. Now maybe if you are riding on superthin track tires you might feel them, but even when I was using silk tubulars for racing I never felt the patches. The Park patches are actually thinner than the Rema patches, so I doubt you could feel the Parks in a track tire, not sure about the Rema on a track tire, but I doubt it.

Personally, I think those $2 tubes are giving you a funky ride!

rekmeyata

For some reason I always did things backwards, like flats on the road. Most people swap out the tube on the first flat, not me, ever since I got on to clinchers back when Specialized came out with the folding clincher as much as possible I've always fixed the flatted tube on the road. My reasoning was I can find the hole in the tube faster when it happens, then patch the tube and reinstall. Some people say it's faster to replace the tube and then repair at home, I don't know because I can have the tube patched by the time you roll up the old tube and put into the seat bag, so it's about a draw in the time. Also I don't like doing things twice, meaning I don't want to have to go home, remove the tube from the seat bag, unroll it, fill with air again so I can find the leak, repair it, roll the darn thing back up and put it away.

The other weird thing I do that some old guy taught me when I was a KID! it's been maybe 55 years ago this guy showed me this trick and I use it a lot. I hardly ever have to remove the wheel from the bike to fix a flat, I simply find the leak on the tire, then remove half of one side of the tire with the hole in the center of the half, then pull out about a fourth of the tube with the hole in the center of that fourth, patch reinstall and go. If the hole is real small and you can't find it after you pulled out the section of tube, or locating it from the tire isn't possible then I have to remove the wheel and do the normal way. This can work with steel beaded tires but the tire needs to be pretty sloppy, if it's a tight fitting wire beaded tire you can't do this method.

WinterCommuter

funny. I honestly don’t think we’re that far apart.

I have to admit that it’s been years since i’ve ridden a patched tube very far. I quit riding patched tubes long, long ago. i was riding tubs when i realized how funky a patched tube felt and i did some time track time.

i have in fact found tubes for $2 something recently enough that i quit worrying about the cost of a tube. A co2 inflator usually costs me more than a cheap, spare tube. Does that give me the best possible ride? Absolutely not, but it’s how i roll.

When i mount new tires, i put on new, light weight tubes or reuse the old ones (If it’s a cheapo, back in the kit). After the first flat, i run the cheapo tube until i replace the tire.

I don’t flat often and i prefer cheap, new tubes in my kit. First, they might sit there for a long time. Second, they often end up on someone else’s wheel: stranger need help or friend too. I prefer giving away cheap, new tubes.