Don't count on a guy for help!

[OakLeaf]

My experience riding with a group of guys is that they will have my tire off and CO2 inflaters at the ready before I've even got my spare tube and my own inflater out of my seat pack.

And they will put my tire on backwards.

They mean well.

[sundial]

I'm the flat fixer in my group. Guess smaller fingers are more nimble and quick.

[txred9876]

I am very new and did lots of research (this site is great) on what to have/not have ect... I carry everything and had to change one flat already. My husband does not ride and he told me if I planned to ride I needed to learn to take care of it myself!!!

I guess I never go into anything with rose colored glasses.....LOL

Tina

.... I not only had to do my first flat but the next day I was topping off the tire pressure and these two young boys came up and asked me for help to inflate their tire... someone had deliberatly deflated it. It was too funny.... I showed them the RIGHT way to do it and they said thank you at least 20 times......

[smurfalicious]

Yep, I was a supply packing fool before I even knew what to do either. I did flat on my first voyage on Candy and since I had no clue to work around my lack of quick release so I angrily hoofed it two miles home rolling her on her back wheel. Wow she got heavy fast!

When I was mountain biking my boyfriend made his son practice changing flats for racing so I joined in. I was good with the MTB, almost fast, but road tires are my nemesis.

Similar story, when I did the Tour de Cure this guy a little bit ahead of me pulled over with a flat maybe two miles in. His buddy pulled over with him and neither had any gear. Mind you we were on the metric century route so I have to imagine they weren't green as frogs. So I stop to help them and start handing them a tube (I brought two prepared for worst case scenario), levers, frame pump. They both fiddled around for a while until it became 100% clear neither had a clue where to even start. Okay, you can't change it, but look at it for a minute and figure out how to remove it at least.

I was getting a little panicky because I already left towards the back of the pack and I didn't want to freak out, kill myself trying to rejoin the pack and burn out before I got to the big climb. Fortunately the SAG came along and helped them out. SAG gave him a tube and I was reunited with my long valve stem tube. Good thing because SAG wasn't carrying any. I didn't end up needing either, but felt better having both.