+1 to talc. It's not necessary but it makes the tube nicer to handle and install much of the time.
I shake and bake a tube if it getting yucky after patching it at home and before rolling it up tightly to put back into my saddle bag as my spare for the next time.
Usually a tube will get really nasty in storage and stick to itself and be a mess the next time I need it when I get a flat. I wipe off all the excess talk after Shake&baking it with a paper towel and just leave enough on there so that the tube is silky-smooth like new and not a sticky mess. Then I backwards-wrap it in one place with a strip of masking tape followed by a forwards-wrap to cover the sticky side on the outside and so I can write the size on the masking tape. The masking tape can be easily ripped and removed with bare hands when needed and since it was backwards-wrapped at first there is no sticky goo left on the tube.
Once talked, wrapped and labled it goes into a plastic zip-lock bag to keep it dry if it going to be an on-the-bike spare.
Short of the plastic bag I do the above with all the tubes I recover from bikes that get parted out or used-holed tubes friends give me because they are too good to ride on patched tubes. I almost never need to buy tubes and often end up giving away many on the road and don't feel put out because I got them for free in the first place. :-D I've got a big box of
used but like new reconditioned tubes all marked for size/type and ready to go.
Patches are
almost free when you buy them in bulk. Why ever buy a tube? Often the nice older tubes from 70's-era bikes are as thick and nice as even the most expensive heavy-duty puncture-resistant tubes you can buy today. Why would anyone throw these beauties out? Tubes are protected from the UV light and ozone in the atmosphere that kills the outer surface of tires by virtue of being surrounded by the tires themselves. Sometimes I need to ream/re-tap the inner stem threads of Shrader stem tubes off of the older bikes but that is a simple job.
Maybe I'm just cheap
