McQz

My wife and I ride our road bikes all over rural northern Arizona (somewhat redundant) and road hazards and severe tire damage are not uncommon. My wife cut her tire on a ride on the road to Holbrook about a month ago! As a result we have taken to carrying a spare tire, to supplement our spare tube and patch kit. We currently carry the folders in the seat tube water bottle cage, but it is less than elegant. We strap it in with an Arno strap, which has to be undone and re-done for carrying on the car rack or hanging up in the garage.

Even strapped into the water bottle cage, the tire can still bump around and interfere with the derailleur or rub against a leg.

In the absence of a rack, how do folks carry a spare tire?

prathmann

A friend of mine wrapped a spare clincher tire around his seat tube and it was small enough so there was no interference with his legs. Under the seat was the most popular place when we used to have sew-ups and needed to always carry a spare tire or two.

bmw5nkj

Best solution is not to carry a spare tire. I had a cut in my tire from a razor a while back and it sliced through my tire and tube. What my teammate suggested was to take an energy bar wrapper (powerbar, clifbar, nature valley, etc.), fold it once and stick it between the cut of the tire and a new tube. That method brought me home and I don't have to carry an extra tire. Oh yeah, if you don't have a wrapper, dollar bills work too.

colombo357

Jersey pocket.

If it's too bulky, you can cut it in half. You carry one half, wife carries one half.

Creatre

Most tires cuts can be temporarily fixed without having to put a whole new tire on. The best method is using a dollar bill underneath the cut, and fold it up as needed to make sure you can cover up that hole and seal it up. It should allow you to get home. Obviously some times it is much worse, but in my opinion, it's pretty rare to slice a tire bad enough on a ride to cause you to need a new tire. I would rather carry some stuff to get by on, and do the tire at home.

ls0725

i have seen a biker with a spare tire on his chest carried bandoleer style.

Nachoman

Take one of your old tires, cut a piece of it off and carry it with you as a tire boot, to use for emergency road side repairs.

BarracksSi

Boots (folded dollar bill, energy bar wrapper, piece of old tire) work because they hold the tube inside the tire. The cut itself will pretty much stay as-is.

I tried repairing a cut at home by gluing it shut, but it didn't stay shut too long. Since it was right in the center of the tread, though, I replaced the tire, mainly because I figured that more grit would work its way inside and maybe cut the next tube.

rufvelo

Dollar bill, else if you're really doing some serious touring then you should carry a rack with lots of other stuff

wheelgrabber

I had a couple of older patch kits that contained 1 tire patch as well as the 6 or so tube patches. The tire patch was much thicker and long. I used one to fix my BOB trailer tire while out in the middle of no where. The regular glue worked well. This was about 10 years ago so I don't recall the brand of patch kit.

obiwan kenobi

A piece of cardboard works better than a dollar bill which is prone to pushing out of shape.

Terex

Just buy Park tire boots if you're prone to damage tires. Should work for all but the most severe damage, and in those cases, you're probably going to be damaged too.

StephenH

So get a rack and be done with it. Then you can also throw in a couple of extra quarts of water or lunch or whatever. (And who is fastest, gets the rack!)

The only folks I know of that carry spare tires are doing randonneuring. Some randonneurs travel light, some don't, and it's the ones that don't, that have a spare tire, and that goes in either the trunk bag or the handlebar bag.

10 Wheels

zonatandem

Utilize a toeclip strap and put folding tire underneath saddle between the saddle rails. Strap will hold tire in place. If you don't have toeclip strap a chunk of velcro will do.
That's how we used to carry a spare sewup tire in the old days.