Originally Posted by sch
I had a somewhat similar moment of enlightenment when an avoidance maneuver to miss a car ignoring a stop sign bounced me off a traffic island flatting both tires about 500 yds down the road (no fall). Thinking myself well prepped with my standard 3 good spare tubes (a legacy of two century rides in which I had 3 flats each), I quickly found out that 10mo of rattling around loose in the underseat bag juxtaposed to some bare metal tools had worn holes in all three spare tubes. I had a patch repair kit and was getting ready to patch when a good samaritan picked me up. Now all tools and all tubes are wrapped in heavy plastic zip bags.
More recently a flat led to the discovery that one of my clip on pumps wasn't going to cut it above 70#, not very good on the road, so that is another thing to check every few months: will the pump get you up to 100+ psi ?
Steve
I try to wrap my tubes in a cloth to prevent chaffing, and have the bag tightly packed with cloth to try and stop even more. The pumps that I carry on my bikes only have to get to 60psi max-(Mountain bikes) but it is surprising how many of my mates pumps don't work when required. Tyre levers----- I have very tight tyre beads and they are a bugger to get off when at home. I always carry 3 tyre levers, but fitted some new tyres in the comfort of the kitchen last week. I took the levers off the bike as they were handy and they did not work. They had gone soft and bent before the bead came off the rim. Saturday went to my LBS for two new sets of levers and a set of the old style metal ones. I know the metal ones can damage the rims, aso they will only be for emergencies, but we also did not have any spoons- old or new, in the kitchen that did not bend either. (Trip to the hardware store for new spoons next week before the wife finds out)