Colorado Kid

Before I left for work (Today.), I had a flat. No big deal except there wasn't time to change the tire. Lucky, I had an old tire/wheel combo waiting in the wings. I slapped them on and off I went. My question is this, does anyone else have backups (Of any type.) to get them rolling fast?

caloso

Yes. I have multiple wheelsets for several of my bikes. Of course, I'd probably just grab another bike first.

bikemig 

+ 1. There's a lot to be said for 2 commuters so that if one has a mechanical, there is always another to ride to work.

alan s 

chas58

Bought a single speed for commuting, my mountain bike is my backup. Having one bike is limiting when i ride most every day

Darth Lefty 

mgw4jc

I thought this thread was going to be about riding in reverse.

noglider 

I keep three bikes ready to ride.

DiabloScott

My commuter is fixed gear, and flat pedals so I can ride in tennis shoes. I could ride one of my road bikes in a pinch, but I don't.

I have winter wheels and summer wheels so they make good backups for each other.
On Tuesday morning BOTH of my tires were flat and wouldn't hold air, so I drove.
The backups would be for wheel problems (broken spoke eg) that would take more than a day or so to get taken care of, not just for a flat tire. In fact, broken spokes is why I bought the spare pair.
Winter vs summer is mostly about the tires, not the rims, but I run wider tires on wider rims in the winter.

CliffordK

I usually have a spare bike, sometimes ready to roll.

Sometimes a bike will be down awaiting me to do the next required tune-up. I have borrowed a wheel from one bike to put on another in certain circumstances.

wphamilton

I have two bikes that I regularly use, and a third for really bad weather. I do have a spare wheelset in reserve, ready to go with tires on them, but it's been about 8 years and I've never used it, so it's not as valuable a backup plan as I imagined

pdlamb

The only time I use one of the backup wheels is the second time I have a flat, when I've been riding the second bike for a while because the first bike flatted. :/

Gresp15C

A spare bike is a pretty simple solution if you've got space. In my case, my other bikes are for different purposes, but any of them can serve for commuting if needed.

ThermionicScott 

It's a good idea, but I'm more likely to just take a different bike. None of my extra wheels are set up as hot spares at the moment.

catgita

noglider 

@catgita, I've never seen a goat head. Are you saying they only puncture when your tires are inflated hard? That's a cool discovery.

Leebo

Garage full of bikes, 5 work for commuting. Sometimes my " commutes" home involve 8 miles of singletrack out of 20.

PaulRivers

There are a certain number of things you just can't have a backup for - I've had a frame break while riding it (bottom bracket rusted out on an older steel frame). If you bend your front wheel in a minor crash you can't ride it. Etc.

Uber/Lyft is my backup plan for these kind of emergencies. It's not feasible to carry a spare wheel, a spare frame, or a welding torch with me, lol. I carry equipment to fix a flat as it's often more convenient to just do it myself on the trail.

My dad has an extra bike so if he wants to go riding on one bike is having issues, that's what I would do if I was wholey reliant on a bike for transportation. I already have a bit of space issues with an apartment and different kinds of bikes though (road, mountain, winter) so keeping a backup bike isn't worth it for me.

phtomita

Had a good laugh . Thanks

Hoopdriver

My commuting bike has drum brake hubs, with IGH in the back. Any flat will set me back too long to get to work on time so I have 3 choices: 1) take a back up bike (but they are not set up (and are too nice) to ride in wet weather. 2) Have my wife drive me in with the bike. I'll repair the flat at lunch time, or 3) submit to normalcy and drive myself in (this is a bit of a hassle since I then have to arrange for a daily parking permit.

RubeRad

I have some other wheels sitting around, but none of them all kitted up and ready to go. I could mount tires and tubes on them, but I don't have any extra cassettes anyways.

I do have other bikes (mountain, beater) I could grab instead of my regular commuter, but I can't remember the last time I've had to.

Actually I've developed a slow leak in my commuter's rear tire. At this point, "slow" means I pumped it up to 40 yesterday and this morning it was too low to ride, like 10-20. I pumped it up to 40 again, and I'm pretty sure I'll be good to make it home. But I'm going to have to fix that this weekend or ride something else next Monday.

catgita

cyccommute 

Slacker! I keep 7 of them ready to ride!

megaclyde

I thought about this recently when I was shopping for a new commuter bike. I purposely looked for bikes with 12 mm thru axles so that wheels would be interchangeable with my road/gravel bike. So Now I have 3 sets of wheels in the garage that fit both bikes. They wear 38 mm marathons, 28mm gatorskin 4000's and 36 mm knobbies respectively. Depending on the bike/tire combo I want to run it's a 5 minute job to do the swap. It would be 2 mins, but I run a Sram 1X on one bike and Shimano compact double on the other, so a cassette change is also required sometimes.

noglider 

You REALLY don't like to fix flats.