i couldnt change a flat in 3 minutes if my life depended on it

It usually takes me about a half hour. I was just going with the estimation of someone who sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

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"People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

carry a spare, I carry one no matter what and I'm pretty up there locally at least. First off you can change a flat if you're fast in under 2min and that'll still keep you up there in the rankings at a lot of oly tris. 2nd, it really really really sucks to have to walk your bike in or wait for a sag wagon and if you flat and it takes a while to change it, just screw the "race" and have fun the rest of the course. Imagine how shitty you'll feel if you train this whole time for a race and then don't even get to finish! Plus a spare is NOT going to slow you down at all. Maybe in a pure cycling TT with hills, yeah then maybe no spare...

<Three minutes is a lot of time, and if you were racing seriously to start with, you aren't going to make it up- it's time lost. But it might or might not affect your placing.>



Many of the OD races are draft legal for the pros. If you flatted,you would pop off the back of the pack. Between changing the flat and having to ride the rest of the race without a draft,You would probably lose enough time to keep you out of a top 3 placing.

I used to race this way -- no spare, no pump, not even an empty water bottle cage. But how much space does this actually take? The spare tube goes under the saddle (between the rails and the saddle shell), levers too, and if you're using CO2, then that can probably go up in there too. I carry a spare tube, two Quik Stiks, and a mini pump (Blackburn Airstick), and can change a flat in under 2 minutes.

But I wonder how many of the "pointy-end" folks are running Slime...

So far, I've never flatted in a tri. Bike race? Sure, but there's a wheel car following the peleton.

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Very good dicussion since I was going to ask about the Oly distance race and spares. I have done two HIM's and carried tube and patches. I have done at least 20 sprints and never taken the tube. I do like to compete, and I don't consider "finishing" a sprint tri a big accomplishment. Therefore I recognize that I am not going to finish if I flat more than a mile away from the pit. I don't think I have ever placed in the top 3 in ag where a 5 minute (yes that's about how long it takes me to change the back, maybe 4 on front) penalty would have allowed me to place. It's not that I don't want to finish if I flat, it's just the fact that I gambled for a faster bike split with no extra weight. If I don't flat I win, if I do I loose. The odds are heavily in my favor that I won't. So after listening to these guys I have my answer for the Oly dist. No tubes or CO2 for me!