To think in 2014 there would be a quicker and easier way to mend a bicycle puncture?

[Sparklingbrook]

My DS has only just learned to ride at the age of 9, he has dyspraxia, hence poor coordination and weak hands and wrists, I think we'll be helping him for the foreseeable with punctures. It will make me nervous once he's off on his own or with friends, but I suppose he'll learn in the end. I find it hard getting the pump properly onto the valve and staying there while I pump, so I imagine he will too.

Some of those are brilliant Lady.

DH is home. 'Sparkling why don't you just buy a new inner tube'. I have put it on the list for tomorrow.

The patch has dropped off.

DD1(16) had one of the very early three wheeled Mountain Buggies.

It was the only three wheeled pram in town and I often ended up in Halfords with them kindly pumping up the tyres. While they teased me about my "baby wheel barrow"

Apart from the punctures it was a brilliant pushchair it went along the canal, across fields, over styles and all round the Isles of Scilly!

Tesco are cheap for spare inners. I usually carry a couple when we go out for family bike rides.

Getting flats is just one of the joys of biking. Some tyres come with a kevlar additive which are fairly resistant. I've had two flats in about five years and I ride a lot daily.
Carry a spare yes, but don't replace with a new one ever time. It's "fun" to work out what went wrong and to put it right at least cost.

Get thee to wiggle.com buy a job lot of inner tubes.
Teach child how to do it himself.

Gator skin tires are supposed to be good.

I worked in a bike shop. We would never mend a puncture, we would only replace the tube ( though we would give you the damaged tube back if you wanted) for the simple reason, no matter how well you put a patch on, the glue degrades over time and the repair fails.

Even now with my own bike I carry spare tubes and a only couple of patches in case I am really unlucky and get more than one puncture on a ride.

Tubeless is utterly awesome, bit expensive and sometimes tricky to set up but really pays off in the long run.

Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres, bloody love them. Even the marathons with just Kevlar are amazing, I got about three punctures in five years and 5,000 miles of road cycling.

Also second the love of Park tyre levers, cuts the time in half!

Just saw that the patch had come off. Did you wait for the glue to dry before putting the patch on? It's a chemical reaction so you have to wait for it to dry before putting the patch on. And there has to be enough to o under the whole patch all the way round.

If you did, you have my sympathy :(

yes I did Cycle, I was following the instructions word for word, but I have no idea how old the kit was, and the glue cap was a bit glued on IYKWIM. I think I am done with gluing and sticking.

I think getting flats may be a joy if I was the one biking (not sure) but mending other peoples' flats no joy at all.

I get 2x26" (mountain bike) tubes for £2.50 from Decathlon; for smaller wheeled kids bikes eBay is probably worth a look.

Do I just need to know the wheel size? Nothing more technical than that? I suppose I could go into Halfords and show the bloke the old one. They have moved our Decathlon and it would be about £7 in petrol to get there. There has just been a new cycle shop opened in town i may ask how much theirs are too.

Find an independent bike shop and see if they'll do it for you, is my tip. I rang to check they did small inner tube for pushchair and they said come down & we'll sort it for you. Took less than 5 mins & just charged me for the tube. £5 or less iirc :-)

I just carry a spare inner tube and tyre levers and mend punctures when i get home.

Poundland have inner tubes, available in 3 sizes: 20 inch, 24 inch and 26 inch.

When I was doing a 40km commute on my bike everyday I got the Marathon Plus tyres after getting 3 punctures in 1 week, had to mend in pouring rain too. No punctures for a whole year! I have many years of experience of patching tubes though and they have very rarely leaked on me. I do carry a tube as it's usually quicker than patching but you still need to check for the source of the puncture in case the glass/nail is still stuck in the tyre, usually is.