eBay & inner tubes

[Gattonero]

My view is that the unskilled cyclist that would walk to the shop to have a puncture fixed, is mainly because being unable to remove or refit the tyre, whether fully or part of it: it's closing the last bit that people mess about

[mjr]

I doubt it because you see many with tyres like Continental Twister or Michelin Trail that you could almost lick onto the rim if needed. Maybe I'll ask some when I see them when I've time.

[MikeF]

MJR.
I think we prefer different ways of mending punctures, and we'll continue what suits us and our bikes.

[mjr]

MJR.
I think we prefer different ways of mending punctures, and we'll continue what suits us and our bikes.

Aye, that's fine. I'll be happy if people at least acknowledge the other way of mending and not keep telling new riders they should remove wheels or should find removing wheels easy.

[Gattonero]

Given it is a simple operation, I think that new riders hsould be teached how to remove a wheel nevertheless, then to use one or the other way to mend a puncture according to the situation.
The more simple knowledge you get, the better it is.

[PJ520]

I have to tell the story of the one and only time my bike had a puncture fixed without taking the wheel out. I had my arm in plaster (long story) and was pushing my bike around downtown Valence Fr. looking for somewhere to eat. I felt a touch on my elbow and this scruffy little guy, he was shorter than me and I'm all of 5'6", points out that I've got a flat back tyre. Now what? I've got my right arm in plaster and being right handed it's going to be a hell of a job fixing it. The little man takes my levers out of my hand and gets the part of the tube out that had the flat and asks me for a patch. I give him my patch kit. He slaps a patch on, puts the tube back in and reinflates it for me. Obviously he'd done this many times before. I was so grateful I reached for my wallet to give him my few remaining euros. My wallet had gone! "I've seen it" (Je l'ai vu) says he and takes me round a corner and there's my wallet lying on a doorstep. Everything was in it, credit cards etc., except my last few euros. By the time I'd checked all this out the little man had vanished. I can only presume that this chap had picked my pocket, tossed my wallet, and then taken pity on me when he saw the flat. All rather odd.
BTW I always take the wheel out even when fully loaded.

[Sweep]

Something i'm missing?

Why do you need to fiddle with gears?

Brakes? Minimal bother.

[mjr]

Something i'm missing?

Why do you need to fiddle with gears?

On derailleur bikes, it's easier to remove them with the chain in the outmost (smallest) cog and even then, on many bikes, the derailleur will hold the wheel in the dropout unless you push the top part of the pivot backwards (maybe not if you've a lot of clearance in front of the tyre, but that's rare with 700s).

On hub bikes, you're either undoing a quick-release (some Shimano) or unhooking the cable (Sturmey Archer).

Brakes? Minimal bother.

Depends on bike. Bizarrely, the easiest seem to be the hub brakes that have QRs, followed by calipers that have QRs that actually open wide enough to clear the tyre.

[PJ520]

Even though I'm a wheel remover the rod brakes and absence of QR on the first bike I ever had a CWS (as in Co-op) would have made removing a wheel a bit of a production. It's so long since I can't remember what I did.
In this part of the world a major cause of flats are tiny slivers of steel wire from disintegrated radial truck tyres that are very hard to locate, the slivers that is. Often you can barely feel them even inside the tire and can only find them by turning the tyre inside out. These fragments tend to get in your tyre and work their way through long after you run over them and can be totally invisible from the outside. Hard to see how you could fix this without taking the wheel out. Don't you have this problem in the UK?

[mjr]

In this part of the world a major cause of flats are tiny slivers of steel wire from disintegrated radial truck tyres that are very hard to locate, the slivers that is. [...] Don't you have this problem in the UK?

Not often. It may be because truck operators here are punished for leaving debris on the roads so their drivers sweep it up - I see them doing it fairly often, as there are more industrial units in my village and our side of the next than you might expect. By far the most common causes of punctures here are flints, glass and thorns. I think it's been some time since I found anything else in my tyre - possibly part of a spring the winter before last?

[Vladimir]

buy cheap buy twice indeed.
on my Xmas stocking filler list every year I place Schwalbe inner tubes. (yes they're somewhere in the region of £4-£7 EACH!)
I rarely need to swap them out, so last I checked I had 5 Schwalbe inner tubes in my spares box.
Meaning that I last had to ditch one of the aforementioned Schwalbe inner tubes - 5 or 6 years ago.
YMMV

[PJ520]

Not often. It may be because truck operators here are punished for leaving debris on the roads so their drivers sweep it up - I see them doing it fairly often, as there are more industrial units in my village and our side of the next than you might expect. By far the most common causes of punctures here are flints, glass and thorns. I think it's been some time since I found anything else in my tyre - possibly part of a spring the winter before last?

You're lucky. They are Hemorrhoid City when touring. It took me a few mishaps to learn to avoid tyre debris. It's something anyone planning on touring over here should be aware of especially on freeways which you sometimes have to ride on. On freeways, particularly on bridges, the shoulders are thick with the stuff and you can't ride round it without risking your life.