Why are “traveler” and “rode” in scare quotes?
I’d be afraid of the ends of the blind catching on the tube.
We were not sure he was traveling for pleasure, like us, or having to live that way. I did not want to disparage him with another moniker, since he was a nice fellow. I should not have used the quote marks, since it seems to imply sarcasm. My bad.
Heck, I don’t ride for pleasure, either. My primary reason for biking is that it’s a lot cheaper than a car, and I ain’t exactly rolling in dough.
Sounds like the tube got pinched between the rim and the tyre bead the last time the tyre was mounted. This can be prevented with a bit of diligence when installing the tube: pump it up just enough so it holds its shape; install on the rim and manipulate a bit all round so it sits nicely; fit the tyre bead, taking care not to pinch the tube if using tyre levers; grab two handfuls of tyre and move side to side to seat the tyre beads, rotate and repeat until the whole tyre is done; pump up the tyre a bit more so the inner tube expands to press on the inner walls of the tyre, but still keeping the tyre a bit soft; manipulate tyre as before to properly seat the beads; finally, pump to desired pressure. Go through this faff and the tubes won’t get pinched.
I’d rather get weekly punctures than run puncture proofing strips - it’s extra weight in the worst possible place and the tyre’s rolling resistance goes right up. Lightweight tyres and tubes are more likely to puncture, as are tyres that are old and worn (look closely and they’re full of little nicks that are weak points for spiky-thing entry). Heavier tyres and inner tubes help prevent punctures, and though that saps the performance it’s still not as bad as running anti-puncture strips.
I like latex tubes, me. They’re much more puncture and snakebite proof than standard butyl tubes, but they do bleed slightly so need inflating daily (or at least before a ride). Many fellow MTBers prefer tubeless with sealant gunk (which will self-seal for small punctures) but I like the ability to be able to repair just about any tyre injury in the middle of nowhere. I carry a small pump, two little tubes of rubber solution (one on-the go, one still sealed)*, a bunch of feathered patches, a square inch of sandpaper, a tiny chunk of French chalk, a few feet of heavy linen thread and needle, a 3" section of old inner tube (including valve), and a couple of square inches of old tyre sidewall. It doesn’t weigh much, and can all be stuffed in the section of (MTB) tube.
A couple of weeks ago I had a blowout in the woods - I must have gashed a sidewall and the tube prolapsed and blew a hole in itself bigger than my biggest patch. No problem - I cut off a bit of old tube and applied rubber solution to make a big patch, sewed up the gash in my sidewall with the needle and thread, and glued the bit of old sidewall inside the tyre to reinforce the gash. I later bought a new tyre and tube to replace the damaged ones, but I haven’t had time to fit them yet and I’ve put in a good few hours of hard offroad riding since and the get-me-home fettle is still holding up nicely.
I should add I could have done the same thing with butyl tubes if I needed to, I just prefer latex is all.
- I learned to carry a spare, unopened tube of rubber solution the hard way. Opened tubes do indeed dry up after a while.
Re-inflating daily would be a no-go for me. Most often, when I need my bike, it’s dark and early in the morning, to get to work, and getting up that much earlier to pump up every single day would be too much.
And my Plan B in case of flats is to always carry enough cash on hand for bus fare, and to fix when I get home. I could carry a patch kit with me, but I’m not going to carry the wrench I’d need to remove a wheel.
It only takes a minute to inflate a couple of tyres, but whatever works for you.
Fridgemagnet, if you are running a tubeless setup on a mountain bike you can just carry a spare tube in case of a flat that can’t be fixed by the sealant. It’s no worse than having a normal tyre and tube.
Next time you have cash to sink into your bike, consider moving to quick-release (back before I did, I often had issued with the bolts not being quite tight enough). You can get locking quick-release skewers that need a special tool(small enough to stick on your keychain), to prevent casual wheel theft.
[Though for commuting, my Plan B was also a lock and bus fare, coming back later with a patch kit or new tube]
Agreed - latex tubes are a bit extreme for your requirements. They are very puncture proof though; often I’ll get a flat, patch the tube and remove the offending thorn from the tyre, then I’ll check the tyre for more thorns and invariably there are one or two that have penetrated the tyre but not the tube (my personal record is five thorns, only one of which caused a puncture). If you get a heavier butyl inner tube then that’ll reduce the incidence of punctures, at the expense of higher rolling resistance (though it will make the ride a bit more comfortable). My point was that your inner tube split was undoubtedly caused by being pinched between the tyre bead and rim, so watch out for that when fitting a tube. Also, tubes have a spec that matches them to tyre width as well as diameter and if your tube is too wide then it’ll be all crumpled up inside the tyre and the risk of a rim entrapment goes right up.
You don’t need to take the wheel off to patch a tube, but it does make it a lot easier.
A spare tube won’t help with a sidewall gash, it’ll just prolapse and rupture. Even if it does hold, what happens when the spare tube gets a puncture? I don’t need to carry a spare tube because my emergency kit pretty much covers all eventualities (apart from two failed valves, maybe), and it’s smaller and lighter. I’d be tempted to go tubeless+sealant if I was riding in cactus country, say, but it’s very rare that I get a puncture round these parts and I can’t be doing with the mess involved with sealant. With my setup I can get several punctures, a fair few sidewall gashes, and one broken valve and I still won’t have to walk home. Mind, I wouldn’t be happy if all that happened on the same ride. Latex tubes have about the same rolling resistance as tubeless+sealant, are resistant to thorns and snakebite punctures (pinch flats), and with judicious tyre choice can be a bit lighter too. They do have their downsides though as they can self-harm if not dusted with talc and they don’t like certain hard plastic rim tapes.
Back in the day (30+ years ago) I used to road race on tubular tyres (tubs). These were sealed units, with a very thin integral inner tube, stitched up underneath and glued to a special rim. I had to carry a spare tub in case of a puncture, and if that happened then there was no contingency in case of a second puncture, unless you carried two spare tubs. Which I didn’t. They were fixable if you could locate the hole - you had to rip off the cloth tape underneath and cut open a few inches of stitching to expose the tube which could then be patched before sewing the tyre up again and re-gluing the cloth tape. I never had a tub die a natural death from old age - they all went violently. The kids today with their Stans sealant will never know the joy of spending an evening performing tyre surgery to fix one little puncture 
IME, some tube brands have worse quality control than others. I stopped buying tubes from one local bike shop after realizing that every tube they sold me for my mountain bike quickly failed.
How do you find the puncture? When I started doing longer rides a number of years ago, it became apparent some sort of contingency plans were required. i.e. a patch kit - which I did once.
When the time came, I spent god knows how long in the blazing sun trying to find the hole, then mucked about with the patch, only to have it fail immediately upon resuming (either the patch didn’t take or there was more than puncture).
I now carry two spares, and fix them at leisure.
Same. I learned that lesson on my very first flat tire, where I broke the valve stem off the spare tube when pumping it up. Patch kits just require too much fussing to be useful on the road. I’ve even botched one or two patches at home under controlled conditions with good lighting and a marker to circle the area of the hole so I would still be able to see it after roughing up the rubber, etc. A patch kit won’t do you much good in the dark, and especially not in the cold and wet. I also keep both a CO2 cartridge and a frame pump on me, using the frame pump to get the tire about half way to pressure, after which point it becomes too much work anyway, plus it’s easier to keep an eye out to make sure you don’t have a mis-seated bead. That allows the CO2 to be used twice. In cold weather, even a full CO2 cartridge by itself may not get your tire completely up to pressure before it ices up, and the last thing you want to do after changing a flat in the cold is try to warm up a frozen metal cartridge.
I do keep a couple strips of gorilla tape (thicker duct tape) in my saddle bag in case of a catastrophic tire puncture from something like a sharp rock. The dollar bill or energy bar wrapper trick some people suggest doesn’t work because you can’t keep it in place either when re-seating the tire or while riding. They move around and you blow out your spare tube(s). The tape keeps the patch in place where you want it to be, and it’s strong enough to hold against the pressure of the tube trying to push through the cut. I’ve had two blowouts where the tape got me home, and it doesn’t take up any space in the saddle bag either.
I’m commuting on tubs at the moment - bit of an experiment. Bought a bike a couple of months ago with a tubular wheelset, so thought I’d see how it went. Been flawless up to now - I’m rolling into work like a boss. Early days, though.
Carry some tubular sealant and a patch kit as an emergency get-me-home fix in case of a puncture. Commute is an urban 6 miles, though, so easy. If I take it out on anything serious in the Spring I’ll take a taped spare tub with me.
From personal experience with an 11 km ride home on singletrack I can tell you the energy bar wrapper does work well enough when I had to patch my sidewall. Granted I was riding like I was balancing an egg on the handlebars, it was a small tear and on the front wheel but it did work.
I’m curious. Are you planning on removing the stitching, patching the tube and re sewing the tire as you would need to use the patch kit? No snark. That always seem unreasonable to me and I’m glad I’ve never had to do it.
I had two tubular failures, both cyclocross tubies. One sidewall gash that would not have been repairable either on a tubular or clincher. I walked home that day.
The other was a partially rolled front tire. Not sure if I went down or not on the single track. I just rolled the tire back on, maybe aired it up a little more then gingerly finished my ride.
After the sidewall gash I always carried tubular sealant (tufo latex) and a glued spare. Of course I never had to use them. Not going to invoke the flat gods, no longer using tubulars, considering trying road tubless on my 650Bs.
If the sealant didn’t work I’d glue a patch on the outside as an emergency get-me-home measure. I’m on tufos, which are meant to be excellent with sealant - they’re a bit different from trad tubulars as they have a butyl tube adhered to the outer tyre so you’re sealing the outer wall just like a tubeless set up. An exterior patch would prob do the business in the short term for the same reason.
They’re training tubs so wouldn’t be economical to fix the old fashioned way, so I’ll need to see how I get on long term. If I’m binning a tyre every few months then I’ll switch back to clinchers. I’ve heard good reports on the tufos, though - people putting 1000s of miles into them.
I did two challenge tubs in a CX race this season, double puncture, and couldn’t get them fixed with sealant afterwards. Don’t know why, holes weren’t that big, whether it was the structure of the tub or a bad sealant choice. That would defo have been nice to fix - didn’t have the time / skills and ended up shelling out £110 for a new set 
Fair enough. My MTB emergency kit is just a tube, a pump, and some stick on patches. Tube swap is first choice, then patches are used if subsequent punctures occur. That said, I have had one puncture in the past year of mountain biking so it’s not really a big consideration for me. Worst case scenario is that I have to walk the bike back to the car. Commuting is different of course, you need a reliable way of getting to work. I don’t commute, just road cycling and mountain biking. The mountain biking is usually not a huge distance from the car and for the road I carry a phone and a credit card in addition to a spare tube and CO2 canister.
I have a set of tubulars on my race wheels but have lost interest in road racing over the last few years to the point that when I do race I don’t bother with 0.001% faster wheel set anymore and just leave the clinchers on.
For what it’s worth, the last time I had a flat due to a hole in a tire, I patched the tire with duct tape (which is, of course, the solution to all of life’s problems). It held up for a few days, at least, and I didn’t test it further because I got a new tire at that point.