Not to hijack the thread, but this has me thinking about the etiquette of lending and borrowing tools and tubes on group rides. There are multiple scenarios. One is surrounding tubes.
Someone double flats and needs a spare tube to get home. You have two $25 Tubilitos in your saddle bag. You don’t know them well, but see them most weeks on the ride. What do you do?
A) Gladly unzip your bag and hand them your spare.
B) Pretend you’ve got an urgent text on your phone and ignore them.
C) Stare at the other dozen plus riders and wait for someone else to give them a tube.
D) Tell them you’d loan them a tube but you ride tubeless with Silca sealant and you don’t worry about flatting so you don’t carry a tube. Best of all if you do flat Josh will personally cut you a $500 check and call you an Uber.
Let’s say you are the recipient of the tube. What do you do?
A) Gladly accept it, make your repair and once home remove it, fold it up nicely and return it on next weeks ride.
B) Gladly accept it and buy them a coffee and pastry at the cafe stop and never return the tube.
I carry RideNow TPUs with me and even though I have never deployed them on my own bike - I run tubeless - I have given them to three complete strangers. I have never asked for anything back. I just consider that as paying forward. In my case, it’s probably easier because they were strangers.
I’ve moved this to be a topic on it’s own! My first bit of advice is to carry cheaper TPU tubes. I carry (and run constantly) RideNow tubes which are $6-10.
If no-one else has an option I’d give the tube to the person who is stuck.
If I was the recipient of the tube I’d pay them back somehow. Either returning the tube or some other compensation like a coffee or similar.
I once needed to borrow a tube from a complete stranger in a fairly remote part of Scotland. When I asked them for an address so I could reimburse them they said that instead of paying them back, just pay it forward to the next person who needs help. So I do that and always insist that person pays it forward instead of paying me.
I’m pretty sure on my deathbed I won’t worry about being a net gain/loss on inner tubes but I’d certainly have regrets about not helping folk if I could.
I carry butyl tubes as spares. They are typically patched. Butyl tubes are easier to fit roadside, with lesser chance of pinching and leaving you stranded. Yes they are 0.4% slower than TPUs but you’ve already lost 10 minutes so who cares?
I stop if I see a rider in need. Changed a flat for a beginner once; they tried to pay me. I don’t want cash—just hope someone stops if I’m stuck. Pay it forward.”
I’ve given (butyl) tubes to random strangers on the road. I probably wouldn’t be carrying a $25 spare in the first place, but I’d let the other rider have it…perhaps after giving other folks on the ride a brief opportunity to be the generous one.
I carry one spare tube and one spare CO2, and if I saw someone in need, I’d spare both of them; the chances of my needing them during my ride are extremely small, the chance that they need them is 100%.
If I used someone else’s spare tube, I’d immediately offer to pay them back (it would be insulting to offer the used tube back later). If I were offered, I’d decline, and I expect many riders would, but you have to make the offer (and I would never be insulted if someone accepted the offer).
My honest answer is probably C then a begrudging A if no-one else steps up. Partly because I’m a cheapskate, and partly because I feel irrationally vulnerable without a spare tube of my own (despite never yet resorting to putting a tube in after thousands of Kms tubeless).
As the giver, I would not expect any form of compensation, beyond paying it forward. But if I was the recipient, I would certainly consider it polite to offer something, whether it be the cash value of the tube, returning/replacing the tube, or paying for their coffee at the café stop.
If it’s a lone rider offering help, the best compensation you could offer is “Where are you going? Oh, great, you can ride in my slipstream the rest of the way”
Funny you should ask… I was at the receiving end of this today. Pinchflatted going up a curb at the Yarra boulevard (Melbourne). Had some tubeless slugs but they wouldn’t seal the hole (the sealant in the tyre may have been… a little old). No worries I have a brand new RideNow tube on me… tried to pump it up and somehow it had a cut in it near the valve. By the time I’d realized that, I’d ofcourse pushed the tyre off the rim on one side to fit the tube and thus couldn’t reseat the tubeless tire with a small pump… luckily a kind gentleman named David who rode past handed me a trusty buttyl tube. I insisted on paying him but he didn’t want payment. In the end we agreed I’d pay an animal charity for the tube. As soon as I got home I paid several tubes worth to the RSPCA.