Drewhigh

Some guy who's been riding for about 2 years now, told me to always have some safety equipment in my bag incase of injuries or accident, is this common knowledge? What items do you guys typically carry around?

dabac

Depends on where I’m riding.
On my commute, I usually don’t bother. On a longer MTB ride, I carry a decent first aid kit. Some stuff to clean and bandage the most likely cuts and scrapes, and one of those military style compression bandages (not tourniquet)for bigger injuries.
Longer road rides can be either. On those, help is never more than minutes away, so being self-reliant in any situation seems less important.

CrowSeph

On my bag i always have, trust me they are a life saver!
- paracetamol (pills) in case of severe pain related to some crash or hit.
- betamethasone (pills) in case of puncture of insects or any allergic reaction.
- patches , in case of little bleeding.
- anti-bleeding gauze , is case the bleeding is excessive.

i have almost everything on my bottlecage tool bag , it weight more than 700g but i'm never unprepared.

BobbyG

Been cycling most of my 60 years with rides up to 7 hours, including 28 years of daily bike commuting...never carried first aid; however that is in and around urban areas. If I were bicycle touring well away from help, then yes, I might take some bandages and disinfectants.

Juan Foote

I would say the most effective safety/emergency equipment I have carried is a burner phone with some minutes on it. Aside from that, I carry a small 'kit' that has bandaids and swabs.

Inusuit

I ride with an experienced cyclist (coast to coast, across Alaska, etc.) He's on ebike and oxygen 24/7, blood thinners, etc. He doesn't carry a damn thing, so I have aspirin, bandages, bandaids, disinfection wipes, etc. I keep very close track of where we are, especially when we are riding in new area, in case I need to call in medivac. I don't change out the kit when I'm riding by myself in case of a spill.

dedhed

I think there's a band aid or two in my bag and some rollaids

I know there's a bandaid in my commuter bag.

roundypndr 

As short as my commutes were, I just carried the emergency basics in tools, such as tire patches, a tire pump, a folding hex key set with a built in chain breaker, a master link, and some bandages. Though moot now, in the last few years of my commutes, a cell phone.

zandoval 

At the very least ya need a Road Rash Owie kit: Bandaids, Compressed Gause Roll, Betadine Pads for mixing with water and cleaning, Petrolatum Based ointment, Military Cravat, Tape.

Note that road rash even in small patches can be a real bugger!!!

CliffordK

I don't really carry a first aid kit. There are few accidents I could get into that a bandaid would fix. Either a little local pressure and the bleeding stops, or I'm in deep enough that a band aid won't fix it.

I generally have enough tools and supplies to keep my bike on the road depending on how long of a ride it is. I have considered carrying a down coat that would be able to be used like a mini sleeping bag. Perhaps also a space blanket sleeping bag.

A clean rag or cotton T-shirt might suffice if I needed to cover a really big wound.

Troul 

One each of small tube of super glue & triple antibiotic ointment (both annually replaced) , a sterile cloth in a small waterproof pouch, few extra wide & long adhesive bandages.
If I need more than that, I might require EMS... That is kinda hard to stow though, so i hope to never require such additional aid.

UniChris

What I found most useful when I had a road-rash type crash was the bit of clean cotton fabric I had folded up in a bag buried in my first aid kit, and my water bottle, to try to do some initial cleanup and get the grit out. Though actually I didn't even really do that until I'd made it the mile out to the road and could put my leg up on a guardrail and get at it without just pouring the water into my shoe.

After I made it to a train station, on the platform I used a coban type self-stick wrap to try to put a non-adhering bandage over it, but that was more to avoid freaking other people out than for my benefit.

Went through a lot of large store brand non-stick sport band-aid type things the next 10 days or so, mostly to keep trouser legs from bothering the healing process on the days I had to show up at work in person, it was summer so generally it was easier to just wear shorts that left the area exposed.

I figure there's at lest a 50% chance what I'm carrying gets used on a person rather than me, so I also have nitrile gloves, and I think sometime this past year I jammed a couple folded up masks in there, too. My emergency info is on a slip of cardstock in there too, as well as quite a few other places.

UniChris

This is one of the reasons I often appear guilty of overpacking - I want to be able to be okay for an hour or two not moving while waiting for help.

In the era when I did a lot of rides that had long train returns, I often ended pulling out a lot of that stuff and putting it on, either while waiting for the train, or (for the lesser degree I carry in summer) surviving the train car's oppressive air conditioning while my post-exercise body largely shuts down. A knit hat is a big part of it. For the train returns I'd also duck into the restroom once we were rolling and replace wet kit with dry stuff, all the way down to skin.

CliffordK

Most of my riding has been self-support, and no trains.

I started thinking about warmth when I did a "day trip" century ride that crossed over from the Willamette valley to the McKenzie valley. It got a little late, and I think there was about a 20 mile segment where I wasn't passed by any cars, there were no houses, and not much but empty road. Quite likely no cell phone reception either. A small failure like a flat tire could change dynamics enough to be problematic. But, a critical non-repairable failure or crash, and I could have been in trouble.

Iride01 

Something to drink and a cell phone. If I was going to be alone and in remote unpopulated areas with no cell-reception, then I'd probably have a Spot Tracker or similar device so I could be found if I became injured and not able to walk or ride out.

Otherwise, I know first-aid and expedient ways to use what is available at the moment with out having to take a pharmacy with me.

However depending on the actual conditions being ridden in and what type of ride for what duration, then I might add some other stuff.

Kat12

Yes-- I would think I'd carry the things that would keep me on the road with minor injuries. Not being a long-distance rider/commuter, this is just me guessing, but I'm thinking I would encounter two kinds of injuries on the road: the kind where I go to the hospital, in which case nothing I carry (except maybe a cell phone) will help; and the kind where it's not severe enough for the hospital so I need to patch myself up enough to finish the ride home. Someone who has a fleet of people they can/want to call to come pick them up if they get a scrape (or whose route includes a lot of drugstores to buy first-aid things) might need less or nothing.

I'd probably have band-aids for the minor things, gauze pads and tape for the bigger ones, some kind of painkiller so a nasty headache doesn't either derail my ride or make it completely miserable, and probably something with which I can clean gravel and dirt out of a wound if needed.

UniChris

That may be a mistaken view in principle, though of course there are limits of the practicality.

Although commonly co-opted to refer to band-aid type things, the actually idea of "first aid" is that it is the first intervention to stabilize a situation, not that it would be the only intervention needed. So for example, stop or at least moderate the bleeding.

Granted, a lot of vehicle - involved crashes are going to be in terms of their most severe result more blunt trauma than cut and bleeding type situations, but those are still possible, so having something that can be used facing the wound, and something that can hold it there like a self adhering wrap bandage sounds good.

So yes, I'd agree with this part, but as the first intervention for major things and not just the only intervention for minor ones:


The more common things like landing on the ground and getting scraped up can still benefit from some sooner rather than later intervention - I'd really prefer to wash road grit out sooner rather than later, and while a water bottle is a key part of that, having something other than your hands / gloves / jersey to wipe with is useful.

Kat12

Well, yes, but I'm assuming people are wanting to not carry an entire trauma kit with them. The truth is that I could sustain a serious injury just about anywhere (or could see someone else who does and try to help), but I don't carry a ton of stuff with me "just in case." I'm assuming what we're going for here is whatever line we each feel comfortable with between "carrying everything we could possibly need" and "keeping the kit light and small enough to be practical/realistic."


Hence the part about "and probably something with which I can clean gravel and dirt out of a wound if needed."

merlinextraligh

Tools, tubes and air, to deal with mechanicals, a phone cash and a credit card

First aid, not so much. What injury are you going to have on the road that needs immediate treatment, that you could actually address in the field? Superficial, physically debreed it, wash it with water, then ride home.

incapacitating, use the phone, cash, credit card, and thumb.

A band aid is not going to move the needle.

Kat12

*shrug* If nothing else, blood trickling down my leg from a scrape all the way home would probably drive me nuts (and maybe ruin my sock). (Plus might look pretty gnarly to certain drivers, and I wouldn't want to field "are you okay?" all the way.)

merlinextraligh

Good grief. there’s no crying in cycling. If you can’t ride home with a boo boo this sport may be too hard for you.

Besides you can wash off the blood off with a squirt from a water bottle.

I-Like-To-Bike

As a suspenders AND belt first aid solution for treating such horrific boo-boos, carry a water bottle AND an extra pair of dark socks socks.

Kat12

Um, my solutions were to make it so I COULD ride home.

Who is crying?

Who mentioned "horrific"?

Y'all overreact much? A person mentions that they might want to cover a wound and you act like it's the end of the world and pull out all the stops on the nastiness.

merlinextraligh

Watch many movies?

SteveInConverse

I carry a small first aid kit in my bag. Myself or someone else on the trail may benefit from some help at one point.