Save money, take your punctured tubes home and patch them after your ride.
Here is a quick tip on tube patches. The patches included with most kits work ok, but the patches are needlessly oversized for a road bike tube. Most the of the patches I have encountered are large enough to wrap around more than half the diameter of the tube - it can make getting them to stick difficult.
99% of my punctures have been very small, why not use a small patch? The best patch I have found so far are REMA F0 (16mm) patches. They work great. They are the best patches I have found thus far.
Save money, take your punctured tubes home and patch them after your ride.
+e. I have quite a few inner tubes that I circulate. When I get down to 1 or 0 good tubes left, I patch all the punctured ones in one sitting. It's not bad at all patching tubes while watching a movie and drinking beer. I used to do the same things with tubulars: when I was down to what was on my bike, I'd saddle up with beer and a movie, rip open tubies, patch 'em, and then sew 'em back up. I only throw out inner tubes if the damage can't be patched. I have had inner tubes with patches partially over older patches. The only reason I would patch an inner tube on the road would be if my spare was already in use from a previous puncture on the ride. Another reason for patching inner tubes all at once is because you get the most use out of your tube of glue. As experienced riders know and new riders sometimes unfortunately find out, once the glue tube is opened, the glue can dry out over time. This dry-out can be slowed by keeping an opened glue tube in one of those very small (2" x 2" or summat) ziplock bag. [quote=maypuppy]Here is a quick tip on tube patches. The patches included with most kits work ok, but the patches are needlessly oversized for a road bike tube. Most the of the patches I have encountered are large enough to wrap around more than half the diameter of the tube - it can make getting them to stick difficult.[/quote I generally don't have this problem, but I do use a generous amount of glue w/ each patch to ensure a good patch job. There's no real downside to being generous with glue since, as mentioned above, it can dry out fairly quickly and so long as you ensure the glue has dried before applying the patch. One tip: I use a silver Sharpie to circle the offending hole. Silver shows up so much better than any other Sharpie colors.
I purchased a set of 100 on ebay shipped from the UK for under $20. Amazon and Jensonusa also have them available. The patches are nice quality slim, with tapered edges.
This came to mind this week after I ended up getting 2 flats on different bikes after months of flat free riding.
My best tip for flats: I throw one of those moist towel package thingys [we get when we buy Chinese take out] in my saddle bag. The little square is perfectly sized for cleaning up after changing the tube so I don't get my kit or handlebar tape dirty.
