What I Should have Learned as a Boy Scout

Be prepared! They aren't kidding, and neither should you. I left home the other morning with the idea of getting in a short ride before work. I always keep a couple of tubes in my big bag, along with a patch kit and frame pump (empty CO2 canisters don't help much). So I got a flat. Not your everyday, garden variety pinhole, but what looked, upon extraction, like a two inch segment of stiff (aluminum?) wire. I check and there are two holes that I can see on the inside surface of the tube, so probably at least one more on the other side.

I replace it with the brand new one from my bag, and pump. And pump. And pump.....One would think that minimally, a tube ought to hold some air, but not in this case. No worries, I have another. Only it turns out that I hadn't checked carefully when I put it in the bag and it turned out to be a 26.0x1.25 mountain bike tube!

As it turns out, one can stretch this onto a 700c rim and get it to work - at least long enough to get five or so more miles. This brings up a point about bike parts as commodities. I buy tubes in large batches for the best price I can get and manufacturers make as many as they can as cheaply as they can. But this ain't a BIC pen. If my pen doesn't work I won get stuck out in the middle of nowhere sometime walking home in cycling cleats.

SO, I say check the tubes you carry as spares. Always carry some cash, and paper money makes a decent tire boot.