[freetime101]

What spares / tools do you all take with you on a ride? 

How do you carry it? Saddle bag? Pocket caddy? Loose in a jersey pocket? Other?

Does it vary by ride? 

I carry 2 x CO2 cartridges, a mulitool with built in chain breaker and CO2 inflator, 3 x tyre levers (my wheel/tyre combo is a PITA to remove/refit), 1 x quick link, 1 x spare tube and a couple of glueless patches in a Leyzene Road Caddy saddle bag. Now that I’m tubeless I also carry a tubelsss repair kit in my pocket as it won’t fit in the caddy. 

It bothers me that I don’t have a normal pump so I’m shopping for the “best” one… but that got me thinking about what I should be carrying and how – I figure the best way to determine this is experience, so I’m asking for yours 

I figure some of you will have been cycling since before I was born, and some of you will have started yesterday, so I wonder if we’ll get a wide range of answers…

Topic

[AlanHan]

Normal rides for me will be

Normal rides for me will be anything up to 100km, on these I’ll carry my phone (of course) 2xco2’s, co2 inflator, a multi tool, 1 spare tube plus small park tools repair kit and one tyre lever. 

[bobrayner]

Oh yes! Cotter pins were so

Oh yes! Cotter pins were so frustrating. (Even worse than the square-tapered crank interface). I think my childhood Raleigh had one; the tendency to work loose under load was countered by the tendency of all Raleigh parts to rust until they’re immovable.

[wycombewheeler]

I have a tool can that fits

I have a tool can that fits in a bidon cage, it contains

multi tool

wolf tool split link remover

tyre levers

thru axl 6mm hex lever

valve core remover

valve extender

small cable ties 

tubeless tyre repair tool

[wycombewheeler]

BIGWATTS wrote:

Pump (old Lezene one with flexy tube – valve stem saver)

Do you mean valve core remover? I found the leyzene pumps were excellent at inflating tyres without bending the valve core, and then removing the valve core with the flexible hose and letting all the air out once the tyre had been inflated.

[Chris Hayes]

You’ve just reminded me of a

You’ve just reminded me of a long ride home I had as a kid …. worn cotter pin.  It finally gave way on the incline from Hathersage to Sheffield…and from thereon it was a long freewheel / walk through to Rotherham… Must have been 11 or 12.  At least it wasn’t raining.

Whose idea was it to put a cotter pin in the crank mechanism, anyway?  Any other shit engineering ideas out there?

[mdavidford]

bobrayner wrote:

We’re all infuenced by things that broke in the past – so we go out with tools and spares to fix the last fault, not the next one

I once had a crank arm shear off mid-ride, but I’ve never gone as far as carrying a spare one. 

[bobrayner]

We’re all infuenced by things

We’re all infuenced by things that broke in the past – so we go out with tools and spares to fix the last fault, not the next one, and for most of us that will vary.

In the 1990s I had endless problems with a crap headset, so I always travelled with a headset spanner (bolted under a bottle cage). To be honest, in extremis a loose oldfashioned headset could be tightened enough by hand to get you home, and in retrospect I’m embarrassed by how long I kept on riding with that spanner after I’d switched to a modern headset which doesn’t need it.

I know some folk who won’t leave home without a spare hanger for the rear derailleur, because they were once unlucky enough to have a ride ruined by that, but it’s never happened to me and I won’t carry a spare hanger til it does. Chain breaker tools are tempting in one sense, but in another sense it’s hard to justify stuffing my saddlebag with tools that I personally have never needed outside of a workshop. 

Riding skinny tyres, punctures were always a worry, so I always travelled with a pump, levers, spare tube (or two, on long rides) and a tyre patch &c. About 5 years ago I switched to fatter tyres and they’ve been faultless since then, so I’ve finally cleared out the saddlebag and got rid of most puncture-repair stuff.

Now it’s just a tenner, a couple of zipties, and a tiny multitool with hex bits and screwdriver bits &c. I still carry an oldfashioned mini pump because it’s only a few weeks since another rider on a trail needed help fixing their own puncture (they had some kind of problem with CO2 cannisters).

[Ihatecheese]

Living and riding in the city

Living and riding in the city I don’t really bother carrying spares as I’d hop in a taxi or walk to a station if a got a puncture. 

Never broke a chain or other ailments read here in the decades thankfully. 

If I head further afield or dedicated long trip Vs commuting then prob an inner tube, small pump and my crankbros tire lever thing with a multi tool. 

[BIGWATTS]

I’m diving in here and being

I’m diving in here and being a dork not reading other comments first…

I carry:
Pump (old Lezene one with flexy tube – valve stem saver)
Inner tube
Park tools quick patches
Tyre levers
Leatherman (for pulling teeth and cutting trees up)
Topeak mini ratchet spanner thing
 

These, along with fooood, phone, keys and dosh all fit nicely in the jersey pockets.  If I’m on the commute I carry a CO2 inflator simply for the speed of inflation – really wasteful and the CO2 leaks out, so it’s an emergency tool for me.  

[IanGlasgow]

All my kit is in a £1.99

All my kit is in a £1.99 Planet X toolbag that goes in the bottle cage (or in my rucksack when commuting) so that everything’s in one place and doesn’t get forgotten.

In addtion to the usual patches, mutlitool, etc, I also cary a pack of Migraleve and a £10 note – it used to be a £5 note until I got a migrane watching the European mountain bike championships at Cathkin Braes, cycled half blind to the nearest phamacist and discovered they charge £8 for Migraleve, don’t take credit cards and there isn’t a cash machine in the village.

There’s also a small backup battery for my phone.

My pump is a Topeak Ninja P which fits inside the seatpost. It’s a shit pump but it’s always with me and has proved good enough to get me home in an emergency. I’v taped a couple of self-adhesive patches to it. Now if I could just work out a way to keep the tyre levers and multi-tool with it…

[matthewn5]

Reading this has made me

Reading this has made me rethink my tool packing.

I used to have two tubes and house keys in the left pocket; a soft zip up first aid kit with a mini tool, CO2 inflator, tyre lever, chain links, puncture kit, latex glove (for chain repairs), sterile wipes and a few plasters, and an M4 and M5 bolt, in the middle pocket; and then phone, cards and energy bars in the right pocket.

I’ve now packed up a Lifeline tool bottle that I had kicking around to hold two tubes, a mini tool, chain links, puncture kit, tyre lever, latex glove (for chain repairs), sterile wipes and a few plasters, an M4 and M5 bolt, and bunged that in one of the bottle cages, so I can keep much less in the rear pockets. Well, it’s a change, anyway, I’ll see how it goes. It’s nice not having so much in the back pockets, certainly.

[Grub]

For what it’s worth: spare

For what it’s worth: spare tube, 2*tyre levers, multitool with chain tool, quick link. Mini-pump in the jersey pocket. I run tubeless. Plus will always carry a gel, whether needed or not (and keep the empty wrapper if used), as an emergency tyre boot.

[Pilot Pete]

I think it’s more your riding

I think it’s more your riding style rather than the actual chain choice. Like you, I get no chain issues, other than them wearing. I clean mine after every ride – less than 50 dry miles, a wipe down and re-lube. After any wet ride, degrease, rinse, dry thoroughly and re-lube. Once I get to 150 dry miles, or earlier if I can see the chain is getting gunky, the chain gets the full treatment again.

I run Shimano 11spd chains. I back off for every gear change, especially front shifting and always plan ahead for gradients to get in the right gear before I need it, never just after.

I have di2 on my two best bikes, and 105 on my winter bike. All are setup exactly as per the Shimano Dealer Manual guidance, which means end stops and indexing are always spot on.

I change the chains when they get between 0.5 and 0.75 wear, never later. I change big chainrings once the teeth reach the point of starting to visibly hook. I spend 90+% of my time in the big ring on flat/ undulating rides, and only about 50-60% of my time in the little chainring on hillier rides. Thus my big chainrings wear out well before the inners.

My older summer bike is 5yrs old, the other and my winter bike (well the groupset on it) are newer. All three of them on original cassettes which show hardly any wear. I use Ultegra cassettes with either Dura Ace or Ultegra chains. Usually Ultegra, only Dura Ace if they are on offer at a similar price to Ultegra. To be honest, I think the Ultegra chains last a bit longer. There is no noticeable difference in shift performance between them.

Preventative and ongoing maintenance and more than that, correct gear changing technique in my opinion mean no chain failures. I still carry a spare quick link though, just in case!

[dabba]

Interesting reading the
Interesting reading the comments since my original post. My bikes are all 9 or 10 spd cassettes with triple up front. I wonder whether this is a contributing factor in my so far relatively trouble free chains! I use KMC or Shimano chains with links rather than pins and lube my chains with White Lighting Clean Wax ~300kms and cleaned ~900kms. I’m able to avoid riding in the rain in Oz. I’m a spinner rather than pedalling under load all the time. I usually get ~6000kms out of a chain when I replace it before I need to.

[Pilot Pete]

I mean not maintaining a

I mean not maintaining a chain and running it beyond its wear limit – which will increase the likelihood of an unshipping in normal use, and potential jam causing a bent link.

Or putting excessive force on it, say by shifting whilst standing up mashing the pedals. You must have come across riders who do that? I recall when Di2 came out a mate was saying how brilliant it was because you could shift whilst standing and climbing! Holy cow, can you imagine the strain that puts on a chain – a servo driving a front shift with you putting several hundred watts through the pedals?

You must also have heard those awful clanging and graunching sounds from someone who has no idea about proper shifting technique going into a steep climb? You know when people fail to back off momentarily when shifting? The guy who is in way too high a gear as the road rises up and then panics and tries to force his shifts before he comes to a grinding halt? Have you seen someone drop a chain doing that? Or getting a chain jam? I have.

Another issue is from a poorly set up derailleur, either front or rear causing the chain to unship. Riding in groups it is not uncommon to come across someone who has a bike that shifts less than optimally – a guy just a few weeks back had awful front shifting from a really badly fitted and adjusted front derailleur. He had no mechanical knowledge and had just kept riding it like that. I offered to adjust it for him so he brought it round – the derailleur was mounted about 1cm too high (definite potential to twist a chain excessively causing it to jam and bend a link), cable tension was wrong and the end stops weren’t set correctly. He claimed it was supplied by Mike Ashley 😉 like that, and indeed there were no witness marks where it had been clamped to the frame showing that it had been moved.

Also a lack of maintenance regarding chain rings and cassette cogs – excessive wear of these can lead to miss-shifts and a jammed chain. I have seen several bent links caused by jammed chains – something which in my experience is more prevelant with thinner, lighter, more modern chains than it ever was with older, heavier chains.

I have seen several chain failures where one plate has managed to detach itself from the pin on one side leading to the chain snapping. It’s purely my speculation but the importance of correctly fitting a joining pin cannot be over emphasised and I reckon many of these failures are because of incorrectly fitted joining pins, or people breaking and joining their chain using the same pin they pushed out. The article I linked to earlier shows why this is not a good idea and can lead to chain failure.

I suspect this is why Shimano eventually adopted quick links and started supplying them with a new chain – it is less likely to be incorrectly installed by a ham fisted home mechanic than a pin. However, the downside to these is that they say they should only be fitted once (well they would, wouldn’t they?) and many will ignore that and break and refit their chain regularly using the split link which will eventually lead to wear and potential failure. I’m sure they are fine to be reused a number of times, but under a microscope I bet they can show the damage caused each time it is fitted/ removed.

Several studies have shown a scrupulously clean chain, with a good quality lube is the most important factor in extending chain life. I linked to an article showing just how much more life you can get from a 10spd (or greater) chain which demonstrated that. However, no mention was made of damaging a chain, the study was purely from a wear in normal use perspective.

Thats my take on it anyway.

[Author]

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