On road inner tube repair

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In this weather I always carry 4 tubes, and a proper patch kit. If you carry a cloth with you, you can usually get the tube dry enough to take a standard patch / rubber solution, then put that tube somewhere to set ( bag / saddle bag / whatever). Hopefully, by the time that tube is the last resort necessity, it will have set adequately. I’ve only had 1 ride in all my time road riding, where I started to use the patched tubes, having used all 4 fresh spares.
 
Location
London
With a Brompton it's not just the hub gear control rod - which you just screw up to where it was before - it's all the gubbins that goes with the chain tensioner and various other special bits of Brompto-complexity that makes me fear having to remove the back wheel. I did it once at home just as a practice run, with a youtube video as a guide. I woudn't fancy doing it in the wild.

As noted above this isn't an issue for urban rides, you just get off, fold it up and get a bus. But if I'm doing a longer ride it becomes a bigger worry.
I have done it in the wild. I always make sure when on the brommie that the bag contains the instructions. No way i could do it without. Agree that in town i would just hop on a bus.
Not an option here,

 

Jimidh

Veteran
Location
Midlothian
That's a great advert for cycling supposedly being an environmentally friendly means of transport. Just like landfill-fodder carbon frames.
You are quite correct but I’m the same. £2.99 for an inner tube not with the effort of patching up.

as for the original post -always carry 2 tubes plus I have Parks self adhesive just in case. Only once had more than 2 punctures on a ride -
Luckily was on a club ride so was saved by a mate.
 

Moodyman

Legendary Member
That's a great advert for cycling supposedly being an environmentally friendly means of transport. Just like landfill-fodder carbon frames.

Agree in principle but of late, I have not been able to repair a single tube successfully. All my recent purchases have come with protruding swipes which makes it near impossible to sand the area completely flat. Hence the patch doesn't get a perfect bond and starts leaking in a day or two.
 
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Moodyman

Legendary Member
By the way, does anybody have any tips for repairing across these sipes i.e above, below and to the right of the white cross in this picture.
 

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PaulSB

Legendary Member
That's a great advert for cycling supposedly being an environmentally friendly means of transport. Just like landfill-fodder carbon frames.
I certainly take your point and it's not one I have considered before. How do I feel about it in regard to myself? It's obviously a big question and one we were discussing in the cafe just yesterday. At what point are individuals prepared to make lifestyle changes in response to global warming issues?

Personally I've used one tube in the last three years but of course that fails to account for every cyclist. My household does all it can to reduce waste, we take it as far as we possibly can. For example every bit of waste which was once organic is composted for garden use - even individual tissues get composted. Our general waste bin is rarely more than a quarter full over a fortnightly collection. The culprits for this are supermarkets.

I'm not prepared to find myself stuck in the middle of nowhere with a tube which has failed because it's been repaired. Some like to replace and then repair at home using the repaired tube as a spare. It only takes two punctures to mean one is riding round with spares which have already failed at least once. From an overall safety view I don't think this is responsible.
 

I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
takes two punctures to mean one is riding round with spares which have already failed at least once. From an overall safety view I don't think this is responsible.
What utter tosh! A punctured tube has not 'failed'. There is nothing defective with the materials or manufacture of a tube that has been punctured by a foreign body. The materials that constitute a tube have not aged, fatigued, perished or worn simply due to the fact that a puncture occurred and a cheap, easy repair, if done correctly (it really isn't rocket science) returns the tube to the same condition it was in before the puncture happened. There is nothing unsafe or irresponsible about using repaired inner tubes, that is just an awful excuse to try and justify the obscene wastefulness of throwing away something useful so needlessly!
 

I like Skol

A Minging Manc...
I have innertubes with several patches on them and the tubes last for years. The thing that usually condemns them to the bin is age (i.e the material or old patches start to perish) or a puncture immediately next to a previous repair. I don't overlap patches (unless it is an emergency) but don't mind if they are almost touching.
I estimate that in the last 15-20 years i have easily done 100 puncture repairs to my bikes and the bikes of my wife and children. That is 100 innertubes saved from landfill!!!!
 
OP
OP
Dogtrousers

Dogtrousers

Kilometre nibbler
Some of us actually enjoy the ritual of repairing tubes properly. We use the problem of landfill to give a noble sheen to something we do anyway.

Others see it as a tiresome chore and buy replacements. They may use the economics of replacement or make up a spurious safety argument for something they were going to do anyway.

The decisions aren't made rationally. We just tack arguments on afterwards to try to rationalise our behaviour.
 
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