Wogster

A flat repair kit would be a good first place to start, this consists of a patch kit, tire levers, pump and spare tube. Flats are the most common repairs that cyclists make. It's a good idea to practise swapping a tube, a couple of times, so that you know how to do it, flats don't often occur on bright, sunny, warm, days when you have all of the time in the world (strangely enough this years flat did). They occur on a cold, dark, rainy night when your running late, and wearing your good clothes. The recommended way to fix a flat, is to swap the tube, this way you can properly repair the tube at your convenience. Some folks, like me keep 2 or 3 spares, and when I have a couple to repair, I'll repair them all at once, using a glue based patch kit. Then put them in the cardboard tube boxes on a shelf labelled "good" tubes. This way I know that as long as I have at least one on the shelf, I'm good. When the shelf is empty, then I know I need to fix a few. Because I don't use a repaired tube right away, the patch and glue has a good amount of time to properly set nicely.

There are two pumping technologies, manual and CO2. Manual consists of a mechanical pump, that you attach to your bicycle, you grab each end separate them a short distance, then push back together, repeat until the tire has enough air. There are Mountain bike pumps, which are good for lower pressure (below 6 bar ~90PSI), and road bike pumps, which are good for higher pressures. Lower pressure pumps move more air at a lower pressure, high pressure pumps move less air at higher pressures.

CO2 pumps consists of a compressed CO2 cartridge, and an inflater that moves the CO2 into the tire. The big advantage, no mechanical pumping, but you need to carry enough cartridges. It's not uncommon to forget you used your last cartridge, until you go digging through you bike bag looking for one, and don't find any. Best to buy a box of cartridges, and keep a certain number in the bike bag, then when you use one, you replenish your supply from your box. The number of flats that can be dealt with, with a mechanical pump is ∞ + 1. Some folks will carry both a mechanical pump, and a CO2 inflater, if you run out of cartridges, you can always use the pump.

Also a good idea, is to buy a floor pump with a gauge on it, before every ride, you check that the tires are at the proper pressure, this is typically the maximum pressure marked on the tire sidewall. Don't worry that you might be a few pounds over, the maximum pressure is a balance between what the tire engineers know, and the tire manufacturer's lawyers think. It's not uncommon for a tire to be engineered for 180PSI, but marked 120PSI. Also don't worry if you pump your tires to 120PSI, and 2 or 3 days later you go to ride, you find it's 80PSI, that's perfectly normal, rubber tubes are not completely air tight.