Quote Originally Posted by Crankin View Post
I would not use a patched tube.
Why not???

I can see not racing on one, as it might throw off the balance of the wheel a little bit. I never noticed any difference in cornering, but that wasn't one of my strong points either. On my old race bike, generally a tube on my "training" wheels got four patches before being replaced (never had a flat on my race wheels). It's the least I can do to not put something totally repairable on the landfill (and buy another thing made of petroleum).

Right now my commuter bike has two patches on the rear tube. The older one is about three years old and maybe 2000 miles. That bike sees daily use in season, but not a lot of mileage.

I wouldn't even know how to count the mileage, but I've been riding on patched tubes my entire lifetime. I probably have more than 30,000 miles on patched tubes on skinny tires, and at least that many again on 25c and wider, and I've never, ever had a patch fail. Back in the day, we never even carried spare tubes, just a patch kit, and repaired the tube on the road. (For comparison, I've had TWO mechanic-installed plugs fail on car tires, and people drive on those all the time.)