How many times do you patch a tube before........
 

Throwing it away

I might not be the best person to answer that because I don't get a ton of punctures. My short answer, however, is that I'll continue to patch an inner tube until I get a cut that's too close to the valve stem to patch.

I just threw away a tube with 13. It was far too young.

@ LBS we sell you a new tube and a Patch kit ..

Spare out of the seat bag , patch the punctured one when You have the time and a comfortable chair.

As a Child with a tiny allowance, advantage; learn How to make a good patch every time .

I was a Kid A Long time ago..

First of all, I never patch and ride. I'll pull a tube out of my rescue, install and go, then patch at my leisure sometime later. Desperate roadside patching is for newbs. More directly to your question; it depends on the puncture. How big? Where on the tube? Was AirLock or Slime involved? I've thrown away tubes rather than waste a patch. I have tubes with 3 or 4 patches that get mixed right back into the rescue supply rotation. All depends. I don't think I have any with more than 5 or 6 patches.


-Kedosto

Until it can't be patched, of course.

Ditto for until it can't be patched. But I haven't gotten a puncture since I switched to puncture resistant tires.

0.

http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/...84/529/e65.gif

Zero. Unless I'm out on the road/trail and my spare tube fails.

until the valve falls off

A patch goes on the spare tube if the spare tube gets a hole. When I get home, that tubes goes in the trash and a fresh tube goes in.

Because I carry pencil-thin Cannondale tubes in the saddle bag for emergencies. I treat them as temporary spares. That, and I pay $3-5 for tubes, so while I'm running tubes, patching them seems to be a waste of time.

Back on tubeless by September, can't wait.

Patch it until the next patch would require overlapping an existing patch.
(Tried that and it didn't work.)
Or if it gets a leak next to the valve stem which cannot be patched.

Usually up to 3. If it is a snake bite forget it, the holes often are too large and too close together for a successful patch.

Twice, but I don't throw it away, I just retire it. I keep it at home for emergencies.

Twice for me as well. It then gets retired to the emergency pile if it's a high quality tube. If not it gets thrown away.

It's a Tube... Throw it away. They are cheap.

a patch is way less expensive than a tube.

if it's patchable, it gets repaired.

and there are a lot of uses for unrepairable tubes, I don't throw them away.

Boring troll needs better material.

I pay $2.5 for a tube here in Cambodia, to cheap to patch a tube.

Stop and consider the statement "too cheap to patch" for a moment. I just threw away a tube that had 13 patches on it. That's 13 punctures or, using your experience as a guide, 13 tubes. At $2.50 each (US I assume), that's $32.50 that you've spent.

I buy patches in boxes of 100...Colorado is deep within the goathead zone of the US which means I get a lot of flats. With glue, it costs me less than $0.25 to fix a flat. I have 9 bikes in my garage and each wheel has tubes with patches on them. I also have a backup stock of tubes for each wheel size I have in my garage. And I have 3 different wheel sizes. So, roughly, I have 36 tubes in my garage. Most tubes have, on average, 3 patches on them with a few having many more. So I'll just say 5 patches per tube. If I could get tubes for $2.50 each, that's $450 in tubes for 180 punctures I would have had to shell out instead of about $45. Tubes, however, usually cost me about $5 per tube which means nearly $1000 in money spent on tubes.

I can buy a whole lot of bike bling for $1000.

+1


(For the quote, not for the number of patches!)

Zero.

I throw it away and buy a new tube.

Some people value their time more than $$$.

Use your spare and then throw the bad one away when you get home.

same here. I have a few tubes in double digit patches.

I also find it much cheaper to patch. I have 2 bikes (1 commuter and 1 road bike) both take the same tubes. I carry a spare tube or 2 on the bike and swap when I get a flat. when I get home I hang the punctured tube on a hook with other bad tubes. Then when I feel like it I patch all the bad tubes at once (normally this is only 3 or 4 tubes). Double the seat bag on both bike to make sure they have their spares tubes. it is a good system that works for me and cost me very little in both time and money.