Good, inexpensive portal bike pump and tire repair kit

[Vic99]

MMM gave me the push I needed to bike more.  I have summers off and have been biking around town to do errunds.  What portable bike pump and tire patch kit have you had success with?  I'm skeptical of reviews on places like amazon prime, but of course I will take your advice seriously.

[Mrs. PoP]

My kit contains with approx prices:
~$2 - a pair of plastic doohickeys (I forget what they're actually called) that take you use to take the tire off.
~$8 - an extra tube in a ziplock with a little baby powder to keep it from sticking to itself - if we want to patch, we can do it later, but on the road I just want something I know is good.
~10 - a CO2 cartridge pump with 2 cartridges (tried hand pumps first but could never get them to work right)
~$5 - rim tape (since I'm paranoid b/c my very first flat was due to a spoke poking through old rim tape.
$40 cash since I often don't ride with my wallet on me - on the off chance I'm truly in a rush and need to call a cab and get to work asap.  My bike'll fit in the back of a cab and I can deal with the flat later in the day when I'm not crunched for time.

By far the best flat prevention, though, are the kevlar tires we put on about a year ago.  Not cheap (~$100 for the pair?), but I haven't gotten a flat at all since and I was starting to get them pretty often from construction debris in the roads! 

[RyanAtTanagra]

I carry one of these miniature patch kits:

http://www.amazon.com/Park-Tool-VP-1-Vulcanizing-Single/dp/B000JF2ZB8

I don't bother carrying a spare tube.  The hardest part of changing a tube is getting the wheel off the bike, prying half the tire off the rim, and pulling the tube out.  Actually patching the tube once it's out is the easiest and fastest part.  And I've had flats where I missed something small but sharp still in the tire, and put everything back together and re-inflated only to have it go flat again, so I had to go through the process a couple times with more patches.  I'd have f'd myself with only having a spare tube.

Small bike pumps are trickier, I've yet to use one that has impressed me.

[zoltani]

Topeak Road Morph pump, the best

[hyla]

I just buy patch kits (varying brands) at whatever local bike shop I'm closest to when I need them, and my general impression is they all seem to work fine.  Same with tubes and tire levers, all of these are fairly basic products that are hard to mess up, although you may want to consider the size of tire levers and a patch kit to make sure they fit if you plan to carry in a small seatbag.  I think good pumps are worth a bit of extra money, inflating a tire with a bad one is no fun.  I have a lezyne road drive that I like, if you are set on cheap your best bet is probably to check out used gear shops. 

Personally, I only carry a pump and patch kit on my road bike, when I'm likely to be 10 miles away from help.  For town bikes used for errands I just run tires which are unlikely to flat (not even kevlar, just thicker rubber) and figure if I do get a flat it's not a big deal to either walk home or to a bike shop or get on a bus.  In the past three years that's happened twice. 

[zoltani]

Here's the thing, I do not want to mess with patches on the side of the road. I want to change out my tube quickly and get back on the road. For this reason I carry a tube, with a few patches for backup. When I get a flat I'll just change to tube for the new one, throw the flat one in my bag, and patch it at a later time. Much more fun to dink around with patches with a cold beer in hand after the ride than sitting on the side of the road. I usually get impatient by the side of the road anyway and put tube back before patch is fully adhered, leading to another flat down the road.

Speaking from experiences bike commuting and long distance touring.   

[Heather in Ottawa]

It's nice to have even a small hose on your pump: the kind that attach directly to the valve can cause a lot of tugging on the valve as you re-inflate, causing a whole other, much less easily fixed,  problem guess howi know. A flip-out foot also makes pumping much easier... More like a mini floor pump

Also, I'm not a big fan of co2. Expensive if you ride alot, or, if you rarely flat, you're that much more likely to screw it up when you try to use it and strand yourself. Air from pumps is free and unlimited.

[TooManyGuitars]

I went many years with a portable pump only before I bought a floor pump.  My advice - BUY A FLOOR PUMP.  You can keep your tires so much better inflated (and much more easily), that your chances of ever needing a portable pump go way down.  And good tire pressure is a key ingredient to bike running efficiently.  And a good one will last you 20 years. 

I seriously regret all those years I rode tires too soft. 

Something like this would be great:  http://www.amazon.com/Topeak-Blow-Sport-Floor-Pump/dp/B002B7LTBY/ref=sr_1_1?s=outdoor-recreation&ie=UTF8&qid=1439282065&sr=1-1&keywords=floor+bike+pump

[Vic99]

All good advice.

A hose on a portable sounds like a good idea.  So does carryng an extra tube.

I do have a standard size floor pump like too many guitars links to.  Its not very portable, though.  My tires say the max pressure is 80lbs, so I try to keep them between 70-75 lbs.  However in the last 200 miles I got one flat in the front (late last summer) and one flat in the rear (last week).

[mschaus]

I really like the $20 Lezyne Sport Drive -- it has a tube and definitely works to fix flats on the go.
http://www.rei.com/product/846483/lezyne-sport-drive-hp-mini-pump-small

Check out this outrageously thorough set of reviews. They don't always recommend the most cost-effective item but you can figure out which it is. I agree with actual patches.
http://thesweethome.com/reviews/best-bike-patch-kit/

I highly recommend the Crank Brothers Multi 17 tool, but I'm sure others are good, too.
http://www.rei.com/product/768257/crankbrothers-multi-17-tool

For a wrench (if needed), just go to Menards and get a 6" crescent wrench for $2 - no need for fancy 15mm wrenches with bottle openers.

And make sure you know how to use the patch kit since they don't really come with instructions.
http://mschausprojects.blogspot.com/2015/06/how-to-correctly-use-bike-patch-kit.html