patching the patch kit and a related story

I've been carrying around a little patch kit, inner tube repair kit, for a while now, maybe a year or two - I've pretty much always carried a patch kit, actually, but that's how long this particular kit has been in my seat bag. I haven't needed to use it much. I haven't had a flat tire in about a year. I can say that without being superstitious because there actually was a flat incident a couple weeks ago but I'm not counting it as a flat tire because when you're hopping a curb on your road bike to avoid a crash and your rear wheel doesn't quite lift up high enough and so smashes into the curb and snake bites the inner tube along with tweaking and gouging the rim, well, I can't count that as a flat tire, you know, I mean, you've got to have reasonable expectations of what your equipment is capable of withstanding beyond which failing is not really failing but just misuse. So I haven't used that patch kit. But it's been in that seat bag getting smashed and crammed around long enough that the little plastic box it came nicely fitted into has now shattered on one end - right wear the allen wrench set butts up against it. Two slips of duct tape later and it's fine for another years-long ride. 

There's this wheeled cart I've been pushing around for about a year, goes by the name B.O.B. I never thought I'd have to fix a flat on a goddamned stroller! but that's just what my life has come to. Somehow we managed to roll home with three holes in one tube! So I've been doing a lot of patchwork in the garage. And yes, I got out that little crushed up patch kit I mentioned earlier. But I didn't want to use up its nice little orange-and-black patches - I wanted to save them so that I could carry them around under my seat for another few years and never end up using them. But I'd heard that you can cut up pieces of old inner tubes and use them as patches. I tried this and it works okay. You have to be a little more careful with the whole process of patching the tube. Some say it's best to cut the old tube patches into circles although I didn't find that to be particularly helpful and have decided that a rectangle works just as well and/or perhaps better. Of course, as always, you'll want to shave off any ridges or irregularities on the tube and the patch. And I do mean shave. Most people say sand using that tiny little piece of sandpaper supplied with the patch kit. But a small knife blade shaves those seems of really well. And wipe off that inner dust from the old inner tube/patch. And for icing you can take a scrap of plastic bag or something to apply on top of the patch and vulcanizing fluid. This will keep your hands a little cleaner/healthier (carcinogenic?) and keep the inner tube from bonding with the tire when you've got it set back inside.