Originally Posted by
chaadster
the cost of manufacturing and recycling just to carry air for a single use seems excessively indulgent, particularly given the general ease of carrying and using a multiuse hand pump. I'm not against the use of CO2 cartridges absolutely, but they should be used less regularly IMO.
i get flats so rarely that i'm not really concerned about that. in the past year of daily bike commuting i've used one CO2 cartridge. i clearly hate mother earth.
hand pumps can certainly get the job done, but their main disadvantage is that they're slow compared to CO2 (particularly for high psi tires). if i was getting flats every other week and going through cartridge after cartridge, i'd probably go back to hand pumps. but for the 1 or 2 flats i might get in a year, CO2 is perfect because it can get a road tire up to 100+ psi in the blink of an eye (and i'm always on the verge of running late as it is because that's just the way i am).