Something about growing up with limited resources that teaches you important habits, when we were kids we were tought to patch flats, wherever it happened, that stuck with me , if it can be fixed it will be ,although I don't fix them on the road I will fix them when I can,,

I bought a box of 100 patches a few years ago and intend to keep using them. I have a couple of tubes with 8 or so patches in them. I will keep on patching them until I get a hole too close to another patch or the valve fails.

I passed a guy a while back with flat and stopped. He was waving a $10 bill in the air and begging for a tube. I stopped and pull one out of my saddle bag. When he unrolled it and saw that it had like 6 or 7 patches on it, he was shocked. He still used it and I declined the $10.

On my MTB I run tubeless and have not had a flat in years. I am thinking of switching my road bike over to tubeless this summer.

I just replace the tubes. Tubes are cheap and my time is precious.

I save them for some undetermined craft project in the future or to make some kind of crossbow in the event of apocalypse. They do pop more often than I would like so I should patch the ones I have lying around.

Some pointers: https://youtu.be/Ia0wYvmEGkU

Patch. Till it can't be patched no more.

Toss them.

New tires used tubes...really, why buy new tubes just because you got new tires? Tubes can last 5 to 8 years and longer depending on thickness of the tube and the quality of course. I also patch, alway patch, in fact I patch on road instead of replacing it with a spare tube, I can patch a tube just as fast as I can replace it so why use the spare except in cases where the tube gets destroyed or I can't find the leak. Of course I am a tightwad, but it's way cheaper to patch than replace. One time I had as many as 13 patches on one tube before I was unable to patch it again.

Puncture Kit has a New Tube , after I Get Home I patch the other one then It goes in the bag ready for the Next Time.

Patch

Also fatbike tubes are huge (lots of room for patches) and expensive (lots of incentive to patch)

I path the tubes that are repairable.

Does that mean you just throw them on the path? :rolleyes:

I carry a spare tube and replace the tube if I have a flat. If at that point I have some time I patch the tube, otherwise I patch it when I get home.

Patch.

Well, that's not true. I hang them on a hook in my garage where I intend to patch it some day "when I have time." Then I stick a new one in my wheel because I don't have any patched ones ready to go. I've probably got 6 tubes sitting there still waiting for patches.

But in my mind I patch.

Patch at home.

Decent tubes are what, about $5? And patching one takes no more than 5 minutes. That's quite an hourly rate.

Plus, I dislike waste. There's no good reason to send usable stuff to landfill.

Where in the world do you find hot patches these days? I haven't seen them for sale in years. I think I still have a vulcanizing clamp around somewhere gathering dust.

Patch once.

If it holds, good karma, and I'll patch it again.

If it doesn't, bye-bye.

I've had plenty of new tubes fail: Yaw, Cheng, Bontrager.

Patch is for my emergency 2nd tube. Ie. I carry one new tube. If I flat twice, I'll patch one of the tubes that flatted. Generally though I won't keep a patched tube on the wheel going out fresh either way.

Why is that?

In over 40 years I can't recall ever having a patch fail except with latex tubes which I rarely used. Like I said earlier I had one tube I rode on as my main tube that had 13 patches on it before I got another flat that was in an area next to another patch that would have made it difficult to patch. Every tube on any of my bikes I have now have at least one patch (except for the touring bike and the rear tires that have a flat liner, those haven't gotten a flat yet to be repaired) So I often wonder why some cyclists refuse to ride on a patched tube that when patched correctly are problem free.

Simple answer is because why would I? I always reserve the right to possibly patch a tube incorrectly, so my preference is to use a fresh tube heading out. Not that I throw out my patched tubes, but I'll soon be at a point that I wish there was a secondary market where I could sell my patched tubes.

OTOH.. I can see how a tube, fully covered in patches, is probably thicker and more flat resistant overall than an original tube made of only a single layer of thin butyl rubber.

I've only used glueless patches for the last 20 plus years and those are thinner than even the Rema's, but I doubt they offer anything in the way of extra flat protection since they're almost paper thin.

I was just wondering why some people prefer to ride on brand new tubes with no patches that's all, no malice intended. Thank you for your answer, others may have been wondering too...or maybe just me! LOL

Honestly, I have so few flats that patching is a non issue. The last inner tube I patched was for my mountain bike almost 2 years ago, and the inner tubes were a 2 year accumulation

I use to get a lot of flats living in California but since moving to Indiana my flats have gone way down, I get about a flat once a year, but I do use a Panaracer FlatAway liner on all my rear tires so the flats I do get are on the front which statistically is less than the rear anyways.

Thorn = patch
Cut = toss