Originally Posted by
cyccommute
There are several problems with your statement. All kinds of people ride all kinds of bikes. Some pay lots of money for their bikes and some don’t have two nickels to rub together. It’s not your place to judge.
This would be correct. But the majority of enthusiasts on this forum and many other forums for any hobby...Most are using expensive equipment...Be it cameras, Fly rods, guns, bows, skis,. These enthusiast forums, much like this one, aren't full of people posting about cheap products they bought at a department store.
Even for those of us who have lots of money, using a tube once and throwing it away is wasteful. It’s bad for the environment. Whether or not it is economical also depends on the number of flats you get per year. I’e gone through a box of 100 patches in a year. One hundred flats at $5 to $10 each is $500 to $1000 per year which is a lot of money even if you spend lots on your bike. One hundred patches and the glue for them costs around $40. That leaves $460 to $960 that I have to spend on other stuff. I have had tubes with 30 patches on them in the past. That’s $150 to $300 I saved as well as not contributing 30 tubes to landfills.
Pretty much everything we do is bad for the environment. Just driving to work in your car is bad for the environment. Purchasing all the items from the stores that are in plastic containers or plastic bags is bad for the environment. I could go on and on...But that's a different discussion.
How does one go through a 100 patches in a year? If I have to patch, I've used the Park Tool adhesive patches but I can count on one hand how many I have had to use in the past 10 years.