Not the point but..
I ALWAYS have those to avoid a flat(s) potentially making me push my bike 5 miles :)

If I know my pump is broke before hand, worst case I'll carry my $8 Walmart frame pump and a presta adapter if I had too.
My Cannondale badged frame pump failed and I got it going with water on the seals (spit).

Less flats vs heavier tires & wheels .. its a trade off.. lighter = more vulnerable to flats..

I would never venture out on a ride without a pump unless I'm going around the block with grandkids. I have 2 mini pumps and a frame pump, so if one were to break I would just use one of the others, but I would never ever go out with none. Even though I haven't had a flat in about 6 months I can almost guarantee you the day I decide to ride a long ways without a pump I'll have a flat! Just for the sole purpose of teaching me a lesson! LOL!!!

Yeah, I'm pretty sure the whole reason I had the flats was to teach me a lesson for not replacing the pump right away.

No I will not remove it, if you don't like you remove it.

Does everyone on this forum have an attitude? Dude, I never mentioned you, I was referring to myself, I even used the word "I" meaning me, myself and I, understand? probably not. Quit taking things so personal, the world doesn't evolve around you and nor did my statement.

The Park boot comes in a three pack for only slightly more than the cost of three dollar bills. And it is better suited to the task. They take up no appreciable amount of space in my saddle wedge bag. I bought a three pack and that gave me one for each of my bikes plus a spare that stays in a zip lock on a shelf in my garage waiting for the day it needs to replace one in one of my saddle bags. I don't think I have ever needed a boot yet but carrying the Park boot is cheap insurance. The one catastrophic tire failure I had was more than a boot could have covered (a wreck that necessitated replacing the wheel too).

I agree with you. The one thing which I'm not sure of is the life expectancy of the self adhesive backing, I just make it a point to throw mine out every season and buy another pack so I don't find out the hard way that the adhesive no longer works when I need it say 5 years after I bought the boot. Not only do these patches not take up much space I actually put mine into a Altoids tin that I built similar to something I saw on the internet, and store all sorts of small stuff so that crap doesn't go flying willy nilly inside the bag.

How to repair flats correctly







.Schwalbe Marathon

this might get you started ...

I understand how frustrating flats can be.

I think tires are the most important part of a bike, so I tend to get good ones. For me, that means light and supple, not the heavy duty flat protection kind. Riding 28-32mm slicks, flats are very very rare for me. I am more likely to get flats riding 26" tires with deeper tread, because the front tire throws debris at the rear tire, and tread is more likely to catch and hold onto debris.

The rare flats I do get may be from pinch flats or sometimes spokes poking through the wheel with old rim tape. Slime tubes and heavy tires do nothing for that.

I have gone to tubeless and its pretty much eliminated any flats. Just need to refill the sealant roughly every 6 months.

I hardly get flats any more either, and I'm not really sure why. I don't like puncture protection because of the effects on a tire's ride. I wonder if I'm able to avoid bits of glass by steering around them. I do try to do that, but one can never know if one is really successful at that, because so much relies on luck.

I hardly get flats much anymore either I run in areas where goatheads tend to live sometimes. As far as avoiding glass typically it's a sliver that punctures the tire that you would have never seen, obviously if you see broken glass you need to avoid it, but you do have consider the possible danger if you swerve around something and get hit by a car-not a good thing at all! I'll risk a flat vs risking being hit by a car! Sometimes you'll find that a thin very short piece wire made it through and you wonder what the heck did that come from, well it came from people who have worn out the edge of their tires reviewing the steel belt and the wire from the steel belt shreds all over the road as they drive. Todays tires are a lot better than the use to be against flats and cuts.