Essentials please, what to carry for emergency.

[Pinhead]

YEY! collecting my serviced Sanderson framed bike tomorrow.

Back in the saddle after three weeks on the trainer indoors.

Now................ question

Essentials please, what to carry for emergency.

Puncture repair
Pump (I use compressed air)
Spare inner tube ???????
Tyre levers

Am I missing anything

I do NOT go miles just say Cors Caron Nature reserve and similar routs but will do gravel etc

Thanks again

[gaz]

Sounds like a good start.

I'll suggest looking at it from a different view point. What's your plan for an emergency that your essentials cannot deal with?

What types of incident might trigger that plan? What would you need with you to tackle such an incident? How do you feel about the trade off?

I have-
A reasonable set of maintenance skills but poor maintenance routines, which sometimes leads to roadside adjustment and repair.
A strong likelihood that a bike usually used on short trips will be taken on a longer one without thinking.
A fair chance that the toolkit is going to end up helping to sort out a fault on somebody else's machine rather than my own.

I rarely set off with less than two tubes, tyre levers, two multi-tools, a few spanners, cable ties, odd bolts, cash, credit/debit cards, mobile phone. For me travelling light would mean travelling anxious.

[Jupestar]

Tool to get wheel off... If needed.
Alum keys Incase anything work loose - sounds like a new build ..

[DurableAce]

Before you learn the advantage of doing so the unfortunate way, swap the compressed air for a pump, unless you're racing.

[rjb]

Credit card. Will usually get you home even in a taxi.
We are in a not spot so I don't have a mobile. Nothing stopped me getting home yet in 60 years of cycling. Basic tools, pump and tubes cover most problems.
Apart from a broken collar bone.

[PH]

I'll suggest looking at it from a different view point. What's your plan for an emergency that your essentials cannot deal with?

This is my approach, it's lead to the following:
Utility and work riding, quite a lot of miles but never more than five from home - a cannister of inflate and seal which might fix a puncture.
Local rides of a couple of hours - a tube, levers and pump. plus a lightweight multi tool
Any longer day ride, another tube, puncture kit, better multi tool
Longer than a day, add some tools and spares depending on what and where.
I always have some emergency cash, separate from that in my wallet.

Best thing you can take is a well maintained bike, there is an element of luck, but apart from punctures and accidents, most roadside repairs I've seen have been avoidable.

[Psamathe]

Not so crucial at this time of year but maybe helpful in winter - I once in winter got a puncture and my fingers were already cold to the point they wouldn't work properly to fix it (was lucky that a pump-up got me a mile so repeated pump-ups got me home). So I now carry a Vittoria Pit Stop (alternative brands are available - Vittoria is the one I've used). It's a sealant & re-inflator. When you get a puncture you just push the thing over the valve and it squirts sealant and compressed air into the tyre and a few minutes later all sealed and re-inflated.

https://www.vittoria.com/ww/en/bike-acc ... oad-racing

I've oinly had to use it once and ot worked well to the point that as I got closer to home I had enough confidence in it to detour for a longer ride.

It's a temporary emergency repair and you need to replace the inner tube after using it but with cold slow fingers massive help to me.

I carry it as an "as well as ..." rather than "instead of ..."

With the Vittoria brand there are two sizes so make sure you get the correct size for your tyre.

Ian

[Pebble]

Stuff I have used;
a chain breaking tool, so if you have a disaster with the gears, (assuming derailleur) you can make it into a one speed to get home.
pump, tyre levers and inner tube
a sharp blade
cable ties
ten pound note
couple of allan keys
small pliers
small screwdriver

some things I have carried for years but never used
a long bandage,
string,
a piece of rubber
puncture repair kit

[andrew_s]

You don't need to be able to fix every problem, just those that make the bike unrideable, well enough to be able to get directly home.

Punctures -
I'd take a pump, tyre levers and a couple of inner tubes, and maybe a pack of Park self-stick patches. I'd also take a couple of bits of old tyre or something to use as a boot in case of a sizeable cut to the tyre.
CO2 is a good timesaver, but it's limited. You should always find whatever caused the puncture before putting the new tube in, otherwise it's likely it will just puncture the new tube too. Finding the sharp by searching the whole tyre is slow, and a small fragment of glass can be very hard to find, so it can be necessary to inflate the punctured tube to find the hole in it, then line the tube up with the tyre to tell you where to look. If you use CO2 for hole finding, it can use most of a cartridge.
Standard butyl tubes are also somewhat porous to CO2, enough so that a tube inflated with CO2 on Sunday can be too soft to ride on Wednesday. It's best to let it out and pump with a track pump when you get home, but just being aware of the leakage potential can stop you treating a soft tube on Wednesday as a puncture.

Spokes: If you've disc brakes you can just carry on riding, but a bike with rim brakes may need a spoke key to get the rim straight-ish.

Transmission: a chain tool and a couple of quick links to rejoin the chain.The tool is for getting the broken outer link off, rather than rejoining the chain, so multitool chain tools are generally OK. Derailleur cables can be dealt with by a pebble, as noted below.

Brakes: I wouldn't normally bother with spare cable or pads - if one fails there's always the other, but if you do end up on one brake, ride carefully, and slowly down hills.

I'd carry an allen key capable of reaching the brake lever clamp bolts, plus others (multitool?) to tighten up the majority of bolts that may come loose. A small roll of electrical tape can be handy.

a chain breaking tool, so if you have a disaster with the gears, (assuming derailleur) you can make it into a one speed to get home.

If your disaster is cable or shifter related, and the derailleur is still there, you're better off wedging a pebble into the parallelogram so the deraiileur is somewhere close to being aligned with a central sprocket (or the inner/middle chainring).

If the derailleur has been into the wheel, and is mangled, converting to single speed is the only option, but with most modern bikes it doesn't work very well. There's no dropout/chain tension adjustment, so the chain will be up to 2 links longer than tight, which, when combined with cassettes that have teeth designed to allow the chain to shift easily, means that the chain will be continually coming off the target sprocket. It won't stop you getting home, but it will take longer than you'd expect from just singlespeed.

[Nearholmer]

To avoid worrying the OP witless, it might be interesting if we gave rough estimates of frequency of events in units of miles/years per incident or something.

My personal super-approximate estimates would be:

- puncture requiring roadside change of tube, 1:6000 miles (this was over the years when I was using puncture-resistant tyres; so far with tubeless all penetrations have sealed without needing a plug, even some monster thorns);

- total tyre disaster requiring more than a simple change of tube, 1:20 years (I’ve had two incidents of that kind in all the time I’ve been cycling, both caused by riding over chunky, sharp-edged things that I didn’t see coming);

- broken chain or rear derailleur mashed into spokes ,,,,,, fingers crossed, but it hasn’t happened so far.

In short, these are not daily occurrences.

[Psamathe]

To avoid worrying the OP witless, it might be interesting if we gave rough estimates of frequency of events in units of miles/years per incident or something.
...

Just done the calculation and for me, 1 puncture every 6500 miles. Only fixed one by road and that was using the emergency seal/inflate Vittoria thing (where you don't have to bother to find whatever caused the puncture). Rest I've managed to get home with frequent stops and re-inflate. I run Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres. And my main cycling area is probably bad for causes of punctures - lots of thorny hedges beside roads plus lots of flint shards (had punctures from both).

Had a single cable break (in 26000 miles) but managed to ride home fine. I'd expect cable breaks are something that frequent visual checks for fraying should reduce a lot.

Ian

[deeferdonk]

One thing i have added in recent times is a pair of thin work gloves, ( the woven type with a rubberised palm).

The extra grippyness(?) really helps getting tyres off on, if you need to reseat a chain they protect you from getting oily and can also just be put on if you have cold hands.

[interestedcp]

Essentials please, what to carry for emergency.

Puncture repair
Pump (I use compressed air)
Spare inner tube ???????
Tyre levers

Relying only on CO2 cartridges carries a certain risk. If you carry two cartridges and two spare tubes, your puncture repair kit becomes mostly redundant, since you will lack the capacity to pump up repaired tubes. In other words, the third puncture will leave you stranded.
So what to do after the first puncture? Continue as planned, or cut the route short?

Personally I would carry a good pump like the a Topeak Morph. While three punctures in a row is very rare, it has happened to me before. It is also easy to fumble a CO2 fill, since releasing it without a broken Presta seal may waste it.

If you want to go light and compact, skip the traditional patches, and only carry self-adhesive patches and a piece of sandpaper to remove the mold-release on the tube.

I would also recommend a tyre-boot. I use a commercial self-adhesive one from Park Tools; it is light and practical. The only time I have had a tyre sidewall cut up, was on a gravel path, and without a tyre-boot I would have been stranded. Freshly broken and wet flint is razor sharp.

A multi-tool with a built in chain tool; being able to repair a broken chain, or fixing a stiff link, or shortening the chain if the derailleur breaks is a good thing. While the new gravel-specific derailleurs allegedly are much less like to throw a chain, chain suck is still a thing, and sticks and flying plastic bags etc. may still end up in your drive train causing havoc.

Spare reusable chain links weighs nothing, and can be very useful when having chain problems.

Long zip-ties can also be very useful, but it depends on your bike configuration.

I also carry some nitrile gloves. While they aren't essential, they can be very convenient, and they don't take up much space nor weight.

[hamster]

Punctures depend a lot on local conditions - it's flinty round me and they are common.
For me:
multi tool inc. chain tool
puncture kit inc tyre boot
spare tube - not least in case you damage the stem or rip the valve out of the tube - this seems to go in phases over the years
chain joining quick link

In addition I always carry a rat tail of gear cable: it's 15cm long with the swaged end. If you break a rear cable, you can thread it into the adjuster and tighten (the head sits in the adjuster body). Then you can set the mech to somewhere in the middle - or even in bottom gear.

[ANTONISH]

Like several contributors to this thread I find that my tools - chainbreaker etc. are usually of benefit to others.
I've repaired several chains but never my own - helped removal and refitting of tyres even pumped up tyres for those who can't use a pump .
If I'm on a long ride or tour I usually carry a spare folder - normally unused but given to another rider on an audax.
The CO2 inflator IMO should be kept for racing - it's only one use unless you are carrying spare cartridges - I can't see that there is much benefit over using a decent pump.