I'm not sure why I was thinking about this today, but the thought of fixing a flat popped into my head this morning. It's not something I've had to do yet, but if I continue on my goal of doing more adventure riding, it is bound to happen. Fortunately there are lots of tools to help resolve that problem.

First, you need to have some type of patch kit for your tire. If it uses tubes, then you have to be able to remove the tire, patch the tube, get it back on the rim and on the bike. For tubeless you need to have a plug kit to seal the hole. In both cases you still need to reinflate the tire. I've carried a portable pump that runs off my 12 volt battery, but at the recent Horizons Unlimited rally I went to I learned of another way to do this - CO2 cartridges.

Now this might not be a new thing to some of you, especially those who bicycle a lot, but for me I had only thought of CO2 cartridges in terms of pellet or paintball guns. The cartridges come in many different sizes and are well-used by the bicycle community. For those of us who ride motorcycles, they represent a small and light way to be able to reinflate a tire quickly. If you want to reinflate a tire on a larger bike with one cartridge, you'll want one around 80 grams, otherwise you'll need multiple cartridges. Purchase a regulator valve, ideally one with a on/off knob, attach it to the cartridge, connect to the valve on your tire and inflate the tire.

The purpose for this is to get the tire holding air so you can get to a place and properly repair/replace the tire and inflate it with normal air. It's an emergency operation, not a permanent fix. One of the benefits of using a cartridge is that if you're working on a tubeless tire that you've had to remove to patch, a cartridge can provide a high enough burst of pressure to reseat the bead, something not possible with a low pressure pump.

The downside to CO2 cartridges is that when they're used up, you're done. For that reason many people carry a simple bicycle hand pump. They're light and always work. It doesn't really take that long to pump up a tire and if you're really in the outback and beyond, you have to have something that will always work.

So there are many ways to get that tire filled with air and usable again, but they're only good if you have the tools with you!