I usually use the same general system as Carbonfiberboy. I carry a little more because I tour with my wife. In my mind this doubles the opportunity for punctures and tire tears.
I carry 2 extra tubes, and have had to use them both on same bike on the same day. When we are running 28 mm tires I generally carry a light folding tire. I like the convenience of putting a high quality tire on the bike, not having to stop and find a bike shop, and being able to finish out the tour with the spare if necessary. I've use it twice so far. Once I just finished the last 2 weeks of the tour with the spare on my front wheel. We had 13 flats on our 3700 mile cross country ride, and I changed out my rear tire with a torn sidewall at about 2500 miles on that trip. We still had a ways to go, and I found the brand and model of tire I wanted in a well stocked shop.
If we are running 32 mm tires, I may or may not take a spare, depending on where we are touring and the duration of the tour. So far I have not needed the 32 mm spare, but we have only toured about 6,000 miles since switching to 32 mm Schwalbe Marathon tire. We only had 4 flat tires with the Schwalbe tires during a 3 month tour. I have some 32 mm Continental Ultra Gatorskins I'm anxious to try. They are lighter than the Schwalbe tires, but I'm not sure of their puncture resistance. I am willing to trade off fixing a few more flat tires for a lighter, livelier tire.
I carry a full sized frame pump and find that by using the pinch test(on the sidewalls) I come pretty close to my desired tire pressure. The full sized pump lets me get to the higher tire pressure easily. I generally run about 100 psi in the 28 mm and 85-90 in the 32 mm tires. I will stop at bike shops every week or so and borrow their floor pump, usually equipped with a gauge, and check my pressures.
A set of plastic tire irons, patch kit (with extra patches), a couple of pairs of latex or nitrile gloves, and a tire boot round out my tire goodies. I have used a mylar candy bar wrapper as a tire boot in a pinch, and it got me home.
I know the ultra light guys will have heart palpitations when they see this.
The 28 mm folder is on the left the 32 mm the right.
It seems like the flats are always on the back wheel and often when raining. Actually, I read somewhere that during wet weather more road debris tends to be picked up by the tire, and sticks to it longer causing more punctures. Who knows!
Why does my wife always get to take the pictures
