Yeah but but but........how they're going get the new wheelset home?

That's what the school-bus sized SUV is for, silly!

That's still less stupid than paying someone to ride an exercise bike.

On topic:

I flat just infrequently enough that I'm not terribly fast at fixing them, i.e., I'll just walk the bike the rest of the way if I have less than a mile to go.

Only one flat so far this year, though it took two patches to get it fixed--saw the cut in the tire and everything, but somehow missed noticing the small sliver of glass embedded in it the first time I patched the tube. And I had to patch the tube, because my flat kit still had the tube for my winter bike (wrong stem).

Once a tube gets more than five patches, it is eligible to be a hand-out to other stranded cyclists.

But not a lot of folks have presta valves.

Wheels are removable?

With one LBS and very few other cyclists, I definitely fix my own flats. I think I would anyway. I decided to ride the bike. I better know how to do basic repair and maintenance in case of emergencies.

Ah, a very good reason for keeping the supersized SUV and not trading it for a super bike! (on a serious note, I have consider posting one of my older vehicle on CL bike sale trading it for a Surly, but after some thought, who the heck will trade a Surly for a car?...Duh of me)

Dude! Eight bucks is enough for two happy hour highballs, and $16 is enough for three pints, or a pint with lunch.

Priorities, man! Priorities!

when i see someone on the side of the road or trail i stop and offer to fix THEIR flat

My first Schwinn sat idle for several months with flats in the 60's. I don't think I had a flat in 4 years during my teens in Germany. I've had a few flats during my commutes the last three years. The worse one took close to 30 minutes in 33F temps in the dark outside a 7-11. I swap out the tube. I've had mixed success patching tubes at home. I carry a pump, sometimes a CO2 pump, tube(s), levers, and a 5/8" wrench if the current bike has a bolt wheel.

On the faster side I did fix a flat and get back on the road in under 5 minutes while trying to beat a big thunderstorm coming out the west one hot summer afternoon.

I fixed some guy's wheel chair flat a while back. I didn't even realize they had pneumatic tires, before that!

not all of them do

I took my Girl Guides to the local bike co-op so they could all learn how to fix their own flats. They also helped tear down the scrap bikes for recycling... there is no destructive force on earth that can rival a bunch of giggly 14 year olds with wrenches.

I have fixed more flats for other people than on my own bike.

Why wouldn't you? It would suck a lot to walk to the nearest bike shop and wait. With most folding tires you don't even need tools after they've been mounted a couple times.

I fix my own flats. I rarely patch, however. I roll with 2 spare tubes and a spare tire most of the time.

This lends itself very well to a "poll" on here....

I fix my own flats and a lot of other people's too. I absolutely can't stand having to have someone else work on my bike - so I apprenticed at a shop a few years ago, got some tools, and now I do all my own work.

I fix my own flats also, always with a new tube, & I don't patch, CO2 and quick release levers make it easy...

My oldest daughter got a flat the other day... all I gotta say is thank goodness for little sisters.

The only time I haven't was last week. I just had a flat and bought the tube from the LBS. He put it in and then we went for a ride. 4 miles later I flatted again. I let him change it out, since he messed up the first time. Actually, the tire was worn out and he had ordered one. We used an empty GU gel packet to get through the ride.

I got back into biking last year after a long time. My GF and I have both gotten flats while riding. Each time we brought them to the LBS. We didn't have tubes, etc.
Over the winter I watched a bunch of stuff showing how to do basic repairs.
Earlier this year she got a flat just as we were getting home. Which worked out. No pressure of being 15 miles away from home. Was able to take my time with it.

We did the Tour De Cure charity ride earlier this month, and 15 miles in.....flat tire. 10 or 15 minutes later, I was back on the road. My GF doesn't tease me about watching all those bike videos now.

I carry a tube, levers, a spanner and a pump. I fix them when I get home.

Students at my school have to do some sort of activity from 420 to 550pm every afternoon. Some of this is P.E. but some do cooking class, I taught International Chess last year.

I mentioned that I was thinking of doing a bicycle class, including how to fix the bike, I will have more students than I can deal with I think, especially if we are going to go riding afterwards.

I am thinking that I will get them to bring their bikes in for the first week, and tell them what they need to bring in the next week, like new brake shoes etc. We can spend some time finding them on Taobao (the Chinese version of eBay). Then they can fix their bikes

However after reading this thread, I am thinking I will need to teach them how to change a tube first. Few of my students have had any chance to develop any mechanical aptitude.

z

My next door neighbor came up to me asking if I had a chain breaker. I had to ask what he was going to do with it. He said "Fix a flat". His hipster son told him he'd need to take the chain off to get the wheel off. I walked up to the bike, pulled the quick release and took the wheel off in one motion. Duh.

I can't imagine people can't do this themselves, at least anybody that rides with any regularity.

Some people just can't get their mind around it.
My brother has his PhD in BioChemistry and an MD, both from Johns Hopkins. I love him to death, but he doesn't have the common sense to change a flat car tire.

Well, I'm going to throw this one out there again, since the topic of flat repair seems to come up pretty often.

If you see where the debris has caused the hole, it is often faster to patch than to replace the tube. The key is that you see the debris - glass, metal, thorn - and instead of taking off the wheel, just take off a 10" section of tire, pull out the tube, remove the offending object, slap a patch on that thing, put it back in, reseat the tire, pump and roll.

If you don't want to deal with glue, get pre-glued patches.

Yeah that's like me I have been working on bikes most of my life, I even had a stint in the local bike shop as a bike mechanic , but I would always replace the inner tubes and rarely if ever use those horrible little patches