If you can find and extract a tiny little sliver of wire from a wheel in five minutes, I'm truly impressed. Especially if its dark, raining, 37 degrees, numb fingers......

It's fun to fantasize about the worst case, no fun to actually do it, but if you are honest those things are not huge challenges nor frequent. And you have lots of ways to ditch on a commute you would not have on a tour (taxi/ride share, transit, call your SO, just walk)

My worst case was a flood the week of our Winter concert (I'm a music teacher). A bike has an impressive capability to re-route around flood water by cutting through various places. But there was one spot, close to my house, where the road was closed and I couldn't get around. I ended up putting the bike on my shoulder to keep it dry and carrying it down the center of the road through the flooded section. The show must go on and it did.

I've never seen the movie Quicksilver, but a photo from it shows Laurence Fishburne's character with whistle in teeth, racing Kevin Bacon's character, I think Klammering* down a fast incline. I assumed the whistle was used like a bell or horn.

* a late-'70s expression for a tuck to achieve max speed, a la Franz Klammer, world downhill ski champion.

These days, I'd never ditch a bike by locking it somewhere to take a subway or cab, etc. Mine is a relatively cheap folder, a Dahon Speed, and would get ripped in a heartbeat; I've set it up nice, so a lot of folks think it's a Bike Friday, and due to the frame shape, others think it's electric. The most I will do is lock it to chairs in the doctor or dentist waiting room to keep someone from wheeling off with it in a second, and no one is going to grinder-cut a chain in front of the receptionist. Any place else, I walk the bike with me, or leave it at home. It'll walk fine on a flat if not heavily cargoed.

Those who break their chain during a ride and do not have a master link, it is not a big deal to get home. Flat fixing and master linksing, I do that at home.

However, always carry a multitool, similar to Crankbrothers M-19, that comes with a chain breaker and installer tool.

Courtesy of the great Tony Marchand.

I have a short commute and only carry a few basic tools. I'm not too worried about repairs. I figure as long as there is air in the tires, I'm getting to work one way or another. That said, I do run 700 x 32c Schwalbe green guard tires on my commuter.

This is my thinking too. My commute is 2 miles one way. If I'm closer to work when I flat, I'd just walk to work, then walk home that night, get the car, drive back to work and get the bike.

For your situation, I think I would go with urban commuting tires that don't flat. Check out Goodyear too; they might be cheaper than the German Schwalbe & Continental now, with tariffs. Continentals went up recently.

I figure you'd be carrying the weight in the tires in a convenient form factor instead of the repair kit in your luggage. Yes, you'd be carrying it all the time and it will slow your acceleration a bit, but flats in the middle of the commute are a REAL pain. It just ruins the whole day.

Another option: Sealant for your current tires/tubes. https://us.muc-off.com/products/inner-tube-sealant

Last thought: build a repair kit at work, in case you flat closer to work, you don't have to subway the bike home; just fix it before the commute home.

oh... in that vein, I keep a cheap Walmart floor pump at work.

I did find something out that's kind of funny/weird. One pump I bought at Walmart wound up being like 7/8 scale. I knew when I ought it that it was a skinny high pressure / low volume pump but not that it was a few inches too short. The hose is short too. I got it for work but got another taller/fatter one and brought the subscale one home for the kids, who have a harder time.

ScottCommutes yeah when it's cold and damp, it's very hard to fix things. I remember taking a long ride in New Jersey and getting flats, and they were damned hard to fix. Painful. Congratulations on making sure the show went on. Music teachers are absolute heroes. My JHS choral teacher was my most influential teacher, and he's one of the reasons I became a good singer. I still perform, and in fact, my concert is tomorrow.

Darth Lefty this thread has helped me "think out loud" and it's an important point that I have various ways to ditch. It wasn't long ago that I did lock my bike up along my route and continued. I was in a hurry, and I knew I would have more time to fix the problem on my way home. Duragrouch you wouldn't do it, and largely I suspect it's because of the neighborhoods. It definitely depends on that and other factors. Another factor is the time of day and the duration of the lockup.

And yes, whistles were used exactly as you suspect from that picture. Not a good idea in light of the fact that only police are allowed to use them, though I can't remember the last time I've seen or heard it. But survival on a bike is sometimes best done by breaking a minor law. These days, bells have finally come back into common use, and it's good that people know who makes the sound.

Smaug1 using puncture-resistant tires is very sensible, but as I said, I'm not going to do it. Maybe it's my old joints but bumps on a bike seem to bother me more than before, and I can only firt32 mm tires, and the ride is already harsh. I'm not willing to make it much harsher. As I said, I'll eventually replace my GP 5000 in the rear with an Ultra Sport III, and I'll see how that goes. It should be a bit tougher and probably not much harsher or slower. I'm a bit crazy with tires, and I fully admit it.

It's the Walmart way. They pioneered the practice of squeezing suppliers to reduce costs to absurd levels, to the point of selling a thing that looks like a thing but isn't quite what it seems.

The other companies pull this nonsense, too. In fact, it's a very old story that replays over the generations.

I was thinking the same. That repair kit is wild. I have an 80 mile round trip commute and I take;
1 small pump
1 dynaplug pill

I leave at 0530 to make sure I’m not going to be late. I can always do something useful with an extra hour at work. Never commuting on tubes (and I don’t mean the London underground although that too) again. Way too flakey and repairing a puncture / putting in a new tube in bad weather sucks beyond all reason.

I don’t even bother with a multitool and I just maintain the drivetrain pretty well.

Ooh, I forgot the pump. I will need a pump if I'm going to change a tube.

While I agree that changing a tube when hands are cold is a royal pain, my risk is low. In NYC, we do get real winter but not every day is horrible, and the chance of having a flat during horrible weather is worth risking. That, plus I'm already very good at changing tubes quickly. I am not about to learn how to do tubeless and change my equipment to do it. I've reached an age where I frequently say I won't do things or won't learn certain things.

Also, I really dislike multitools, and I've had many. The only one that is kinda-sorta OK with me is the Park MT-1.

May I recommend the Lezyne Pocket Drive?

I think it's my favorite of the three portable pumps I have. It's really small & light, but really well-engineered too. To use it, a tethered rubber cap pops off one end, which lets us unthread the hose that's stored inside. One end of the hose is threaded for Presta, the other end for Schrader.

[...]
Amazon tells me I've bought three of these Topeak Hexus X. One was stolen with my Ride1UP Portola eBike in Colorado Springs two summers ago. I only have one left. What's cool about it:

• It has a chain breaker implement, and one of the handle scales/tire levers has the matching Allen wrench to drive it
• The handle scales double as tire levers
• Spoke wrenches and a Presta valve core wrench are also built into the removeable handle scales
• The tools all have a nice chrome plating, so you won't find it has rusted when you need it
• You might notice there are three bits stored in the main body of it. They didn't want to make it three layers wider, so those bits attach with a magnet onto the end of one of the allen keys to drive them.

I really dislike pumps with hoses. I had one recently that was highly recommended. When I removed the hose from the valve stem, it unscrewed the valve core, letting out all the air I had laboriously pumped in. I replaced that pump with the ZEFAL Air Profil Micro Aluminium Mini Road Pump. I think Amazon had it shipped from France. I think it's now available here. I haven't given it much of a workout yet, but it looks like a micro version of the Zefal HP pumps I had a hundred years ago.

Your multitool looks like it sucks less than other multitools, which, of course, is faint praise. I'm fine with bringing real tools, wrapping them in a rag, and binding that bundle with a rubber band. Sometimes I can't get a multitool in a tight spot or whatever. I just want real tools.

I think next time I have to buy a pump it will be an electric one, to test my skepticism

I've bought two from Amazon, admittedly less expensive ones. In my experience, they use very low grade Li-Ion batteries that don't hold a charge well. The result is that when you need them, they're dead unless you're constantly topping them off. We already have too many rechargeable batteries to keep track of in life, so I don't use them any more.

If you DO buy one, get a name brand one, as they're more likely to use a decent quality battery. They're making them quite small now...

it gets important to check your tires before every single ride. Not with a pressure gauge, just squeeze them. Every single ride. For all the various other hazards out there, pinch-flats, at least, are 99% avoidable

Two excellent pieces of advice here. Squeeze the tires at home before you have to leave and you still have time to change a tube. Otherwise, have a spare bike or a spare wheel to swap in. Regarding the second point, simply paying attention to not riding over junk in the road can save you a lot of flat tires.

Yes, HardyWeinberg is right. I've had the check-my-tires habit for so long I do it with barely any thinking. It's reinforced now because I discovered I like lower pressure, and that puts me at a dangerous edge. Inflating to the ideal pressure means it runs down to an unsafe pressure soon. So I over-inflate but only slightly. This approach requires more frequent topping up. I top up about once a week. This is with 32 mm tires. With narrower tires, you have to top up more frequently for two reasons: narrower tires require more pressure and they also hold less air.

@noglider Tom, that sounds crazy to me. As a fellow teacher, I want to make sure that I can fix a flat on my commute so I'm not late. A small repair kit and pump doesn't weigh that much or take much room (I only include a spare tube, allen wrenches, spoke wrench, tire irons, tubular sealant, and a small tubular patch kit). In the past 8 years since I started teaching, I've only flatted on my way to/from work about a half-dozen times, but I'm always prepared. I typically ride Paselas on my commuter, but also have a couple bikes with tubulars I also use for commuting. I get the desire to have performance tires, even on commuter. I can typically change a tire within 3-5 minutes, slightly less with a tubular. My commute is only 4 (uphill) miles, but changing a flat is almost always going to be quicker than walking.

I took a look at the repair kit I was carrying. I removed 5 oz of stuff I don't need, and I'm carrying the kit again.

I took pictures and weights, and I'll post them later.

Here is what I had:

Here is what I removed, saving 5.2 oz:

On such a short commute, I don't need the allen keys for adjustments or the spoke wrench. The lightning cable is for long rides. I have a battery in my saddle-mounted bag and run the cable to the handlebar where the phone is mounted. Not needed for commutes.

I'm keeping the rag, tube, pump, and patch kit. You could argue I don't need the patch kit, but it's light. And ya nevah know.

BTW the pump is a Zefal and it looks like a micro version of the model HP we loved many years ago. I haven't given it a good test yet.

I'm not such a weight weenie that I carry a scale along