In my experience A LOT of people are clueless on even the most basic of mechanical skills, not sure why. Maybe some feel it is beneath their station in life, scared to learn, or just never did learn. We have a guy at work that has no clue how to change the tire on his car, other than to call AAA and wait. I don't know what he would do if he owned a bike, probably call his wife or walk.

Aaron

I'd venture to say that most people don't even have the tools to put a new tire on a car wheel.

Many people can swap in a wheel with a tire on it that holds air for a wheel with a tire that doesn't hold air, however

Umm.. not really. The guy sorta had an attitude though.

Attitude is not good. But, did you ask him for the money? Or did he dig and then make the statement?

I would have given him the tube, a-hole or not. I don't want to let a jerk ruin my day, and (selfishly) it would have been best for me to have just tossed him the tube.

A friend of mine had a rattling FD on his bike, it rattled enough to annoy me and I wasn't the one riding it. But he knew how to fix it, he just never got around to it. Then he talked about taking it to the LBS to be fixed but never did. Eventually after a ride I asked him if he wanted to deal with it, and it took me 5 minutes with a screwdriver.

The dialog went like this:
Me: Need some help?
Him: Got a spare 700 tube?
Me: Yeah, I do
Him: Got change for a $10?
Me: No, I'm not carrying any money.
Him: I'm not paying $10 for a tube.

I shrugged and rode away.

FWIW, by trade I'm Mr Fixit. If I see somebody broke down on the road, whether car or bike, I stop to see if they need help. I've been helped by complete strangers more often than I've been able to summon help from "friends". In this instance, we were less than a mile from a Walmart so the guy probably decided to walk a bit instead of wasting $4.

When I got into cycling, I tool a summer school class where the instructor was adamant about cyclists being cycle mechanics as well. Essentially he was saying: How can you trust your bike, and have confidence to go far far away and be able to make it back home, without knowing everything about a bike and how to keep it going? I very much agree with that philosophy.

Dude your avatar is hilarious. My daughter is a My Little Pony supremicist.

Sounds plausable.

To be honest, I don't know what I would have done in your place. In most cases I would have given him the tube and told him to pay it back the next time he passed somebody who needed help. If, however, I felt like he was getting huffy with me when I was just trying to help him, I'd probably just shrug and ride on too. That doesn't happen very often which is why I was skeptical of your original post.

In the interest of full disclosure, I've been on both the giving and receiving end of that help on the road thing. I've had lots of nice folks, some of whom who weren't even bike riders, give me various kinds of help and I can't remember any of them accepting anything from me in return. You should have seen how many total strangers helped my wife and me in various ways when I broke my hip on a bike ride last Labor Day. I'm going to have to give away a BUNCH of free inner tubes if I'm ever going to get even.

All of this implies the fellow you were helping elected to make this a transaction. Unfortunately he was unable to complete the deal due to his inability to have the correct change.

From your narrative it appears that the outcome was just what the buyer, er, the fellow with the flat could have expected. If he had to have the change for the money he proffered, it is unlikely he would anticipate you giving merchandise away.