FredMau

I agree. I can do patches but always carry a spare "new" tube in the bag 'just in case'.

79pmooney

Patchkit here plus two tubes. I don't care if they are new or patched. Plus at least a half dozen bills of any denomination in my wallet. (Those bills are very useful for booting big cuts.)

Edit: Tubes of cement drying up? Do you roll/flatten them from the end and squeeze out all the air and take care t make sure the cap is screwed on tight? I rarely have them dry up but regularly buy the small tubes when I'm in a bike shop so I can add a new one to boxes with opened ones.

sweeks

I also consider a (well-) patched tube to be as reliable as a new one.
I'd rather keep the bills for spending! Luckily, a fair amount of mail comes* in envelopes made of Tyvek, which is an excellent material for booting a cut. Just cut one up into a few bill-sized pieces, and use the currency for more enjoyable things!
(*If you don't receive these, you can find them at the Post Office.)

Inisfallen

Yep. Patches are fine. A properly patched tube is just as strong as a new tube. Although, as PaulRivers notes above, you can't patch a hole right around the valve stem.

I carry a tube, tire levers and a patch kit, and a mini-pump. My routine was always, if I got a flat, to swap in the new tube and patch the punctured tube when I got home. And that became my good tube.

That said, for commuting, I switched to Schwalbe Marathon tires quite some time ago, and haven't had a flat since (other than one where the valve separated from the tube). So I don't think about it much anymore. The spare tube, patch kit and pump are still in my communting bag, just in case, but I can't remember the last time I had to pull them out.

79pmooney

Those bills are just on loan. Might need to be laundered after (I won't get into the ethics and legalities there) but their time on the road doesn't devalue them in the eyes of the Treasury at all.

If I have time, I patch and reuse on the road. Less total time and effort and more important, that new patch serves very well as a marker where the issue is to help me find the culprit on the tire or rim. (Without finding the issue, I might be out my spare tubes also and now walking.) Here in Portland, many of my flats come from very small pieces of tire wire and sometimes thorn tips of roughly the same size. That patch limits my search to 1 square inch of tire. It's the old "needle in a haystack" but if you can reduce the haystack to the size of a box of cereal, you've got a good chance of finding it.

And I carry my secret weapon, the perfect sliver remover; an ancient Leatherman with pliers that have a very square tip. Press in around the sliver with the pliers slightly open, squeeze and pull. Better than any tweezers I've tried.

Inisfallen

All great points. For me, I'd rather do my patching sitting in an armchair in the evening, with two fingers of a fine brown adult beverage on the table at my elbow.

Also, those multitools are great. I've got one in my commuting bag next to the patch kit and pump.

Daniel4

Nowadays I ride with patched tubes installed and carry brand new tubes as spares and a patch kit. If I get a flat, I'll fix it at home and swap the new tube that's installed with another patched tube. Why risk ruining another new tube when I already have so many patched tubes in my garage?

sweeks

Same here. The tires are Schwalbe Marathon Plus, in my case. I've had flats on Marathons and Marathon Supremes. I actually had just one flat on the Marathon Plus... I never figured out what the puncturing object was, but it must have been a doozy!

I've had one instance of a Schwalbe inner tube valve stem de-bonding from the inner tube, leading me to feel somewhat more comfortable with other brands' rubber-coated stems. I still use Schwalbe tubes, but I change them after a couple winter seasons if they've seen a lot of salt.

Like you, I don't remember the last time I took the pump out of my backpack! (I took the wheel home to fix this flat since I needed another tire anyway.)


This is the only flat I've ever had on a Schwalbe Marathon Plus. There was only a small hole in the outside of the tire.



This section of the tire contains the hole.



I never found the object that made this hole. The outside puncture was much smaller than what is seen here.

SpedFast

That must have been tough gluing back together after you inspected it....

79pmooney

The hard part is welding those beads.

sweeks

JB Weld FTW!
(/s)

VegasTriker

Buy yourself a bottle of Elmer's rubber cement at any of the office supply or mass merchandiser stores. It's a couple bucks for a 4 ounce bottle. Even has a brush inside the cap. Sure beats messing with the little tubes of glue that don't last long in my desert heat. I've used it for many years now. I never bother roughing the surface of the tube, just clean off the area where the patch goes with paint thinner on a Q-tip. If it gets too thick, just add some solvent such as stove fuel.

rivers

I carry 2 tubes and keep the patch kit at home. If I get a puncture, I want to sort it as quickly as possible, so that means swapping out the tube, shoving the damaged one in my saddlebag and fixing it when I get home. Though, I'm mostly running tubeless now, so keep a plug kit in my toolkit as well (and 2 tubes).

Pugs2xLove

Two new tubes and sometimes CO cartridge or two - pump of course. Don't know how long you can use a tube without swapping for a new one but I try to make mine last (no holes or busted valves of course.) My past few tubes were replaced due to busted valves.

Darth Lefty 

Every time I've had a problem with my tubeless tires it's because I've let the sealant expire and don't have any more to add. Now I carry sealant. Since I started carrying sealant I've had one more failure where I left the sealant in another backpack - ha! Now I have another bottle. I also have some plugs but haven't ever used them. The tires tell you when they need more - they lose air in a few days or a week where they had been holding it for weeks. It's when you don't take the extra minute to add some, and just pump it up and go, that you are taking a risk. Get a puncture then and you are going to find yourself roadside and better have some sealant in the pack.

Back on tubes about five years ago I had one tire slice that no tube alone could have patched. I patched the tire from the inside with a tube patch and it was bogus but it held. It should have been something stronger - people normally suggest a dollar bill. Not sure if a Dart would cover a similar hole. I've seen them demo'd to patch 1cm slashes but that was at MTB pressure and not in the tread of a commuter tire that's getting faceplanted one every rotation. I suppose in theory you could sew it up. I figure this is rare enough not to worry about. This is commuting, not backcountry bikepacking. If your bike is disabled and you are out of time, you can always chain it to a post and call a Lyft.

I don't get the roadie procedure of "if tubeless fails just throw in a tube," because it seems to me like the goal if you are tubeless should be to fix it without breaking the bead.