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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on April 6, 2012 at 1:20am

+1  to good karma from a good deed.  

Ever had someone turn up their nose at a free roadside tube donation because it had a few patches on it?  

-OK, you can walk then.  Beggars can't be choosy. 

Heh, I never throw a tube away, just keep patching them when I get home and rotating it from my spare as I flat on the road -Until I give it away, of course :-D

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Permalink Reply by Dave Jacque on April 6, 2012 at 2:34am

Great catch!

I'm always buoyed by the number of cyclists who stop and ask if I need help when I have a flat or I'm just making an adjustment. Never fails to end my fuming about bad luck, drunken morons breaking bottles in the street, etc.

Really? "I wouldn't put that crappy patched-up tube on *my* rim"? Wow.

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Permalink Reply by Dubi Kaufmann on April 6, 2012 at 6:44am

in the subject of cyclists on google maps. I wonder if any of these two local cyclists know that they are in google maps? http://g.co/maps/m55fa the car is passing them as go north on Lincoln by Martyrs.

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Permalink Reply by Tony Adams on April 6, 2012 at 7:04am

I've never kept track, but I know that I've had tubes with at least a dozen patches on it.

Earlier this week I dug an old patched up tube from the parts pile and found that while the tube was fine, the patches themselves were dry rotted. The were mostly Rema patches. I've never seen that happen on a tube in active use.

James BlackHeron said:

+1  to good karma from a good deed.  

Ever had someone turn up their nose at a free roadside tube donation because it had a few patches on it?  

-OK, you can walk then.  Beggars can't be choosy. 

Heh, I never throw a tube away, just keep patching them when I get home and rotating it from my spare as I flat on the road -Until I give it away, of course :-D

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Permalink Reply by Kevin Mulcky on April 6, 2012 at 7:35am

I counted 7 patches on the last tube I installed.

To think there was a time when I'd buy a new tube after every flat and throw the old tube out!

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Permalink Reply by Far'arned Retrogrumpalunkus #63 on April 6, 2012 at 12:11pm

The things that kill rubber are heat, ozone gas, and UV light.   I bet that the patches are more susceptable to all of those than the tube rubber is itself.   Almost none of those will get to the tube inside the tire, or inside a container.   Tubes last forever -outlasting a tire that will rot around it while it is still OK inside for years more. 

I keep a patch kit for each tire size inside a plastic parmasean cheese bottle.  It's the perfect size to pop into a saddle wedge bag.  In that I carry a spare tube, 15mm wrench, multi-tool, stickum patches, small square of 150-gr. sandpaper, and some regular patches/glue with some denim or other boot material in case I slice the tire.  Sometimes I carry a chain-breaker too.  The tube is pretty safe from the elements in that little case.

When I get a flat I swap for my spare.  When I get home I patch it carefully in my shop doing a neat job at my leisure.  Then I check the patch, wash & dry the tube, roll and de-air it, powder it in talc, shake it off, and then fold up neatly and use masking tape wrapped-backwards to secure it and then wrap forwards over that to cover the sticky.  Finally I mark the tube for size and put it back into the Parmesan bottle for next time.  

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