I was the Good Samaritan yesterday. I made myself late (ahem, later) for work by stopping to help another cyclist who had a flat tyre. She had no patch kit, no tyre levers, no spare tube, no pump, no clue how to fix the problem—and a big rusty nail hanging out of her tyre.
The funny thing is that she told me that she'd had a few flats in the last few weeks and the she'd been "meaning to get one of those" (that is, a patch kit). She also had an odd theory that having had a few flats, that she'd had her turn and now she'd be in the clear for awhile.
Don't get me wrong, I was more than happy to help but it reminded me that if there's a repair that every cyclist should know how to do, it's fixing a flat tyre. This means every cyclist should carry the following kit:
- tyre levers: you've got to be able to get the tyre off
- spare tube: if you're in a hurry, it's easier just to throw on a new tube and fix the hole later
- patch kit: umm, sometimes you run out of spare tubes. Yeah, it happens.
- pump: make it a good one—if it don't work, you don't get air back in your tyre
- tools: any tools required to get the wheel off and/or back on
And, of course, the cyclist needs to know how to use this stuff. I can help a bit on that point but really, there's no substitute for having a bash at it.