You ever have one of those rides....

Yup...Yesterday (sun am) went for what was just supposed to be an easy z1/2 (mostly z1) ride and I was only 6mi in when I hit the same thing you hit---except I hit it with both wheels......yup two flats.......started the walk back home---my fault for only having one tube and no cell since it was dead when I left the house.........

Did some hill work here in Az and on the way home picked a guy up three miles from his house, walkin, that had two flats. Had a nice converstation on the way to his house and hoped that he passed on the good deed.

a week before my last tri last season, I decided to ride the bike course, because I was unfamiliar with the route. well, when I got to the site, I pulled the bike out of the van and went to air up the back tire. As I went to pull the pump off the stem, the stem came with the pump. tube #1. DEAD

I changed out everything, reset the tube and the tire, pumped up the tire again and went to remove the pump from the stem... (more gently this time.) and again. Here came the stem. Tube #2. DEAD

finally got a tube and tire together, pumped up and the stem stayed where it should and I headed out on the bike course. got out on the bike course reading from the crappy map on the site, I missed two turns, figured I was okay, and continued on and ran back into the course. At that point, I knew better where I was and figured.... Hey, I'm golden from here.... until...

Approaching a very MAJOR intersection of a 4 lane highway (one lane was blocked during the tri, with police support,) I hear a loud thunk, my back wheel jumps like crazy towards the left (toward the car behind me.) I didn't think anything about it, just thought I caught a rock I hadn't seen while checking the car. As I rounded the corner and was wobbly, I wrote it off to the scare, until I noticed that it felt like my butt was riding on the pavement.... nope.. just the bike rim... Tube #3 dead.

Pull out tube #4 from the seat bag and go to put it in and after removing the old one and notice that somehow, there is a shred in the tube. Well that ain't gonna hold air and the patch sure wasn't gonna help that hole. So finally, after the issues earlier I had thrown an extra tube in my jersey pocket. Tube #5. OMG, this was seriously happening. In the course of 2 hours, I had put 5 TUBES on one wheel. The ride the following week was great and I had a great tri, but thank heavens all of that happened in the practice ride or I would have quit the tri for lack of resources.

I don't know what's more amazing.... that you *needed* 5 tubes for one ride, or that you *HAD* 5 tubes for one ride.  

Way to go.   The Boy Scouts ("Be Prepared") would be proud.

Well, I always keep 2-3 tubes in the back of my van. I host rides frequently and not everyone shows up equipped. I usually carry one on my bike, and for a strange reason, I had decided to carry one in my back pocket. I don't normally have 5 tubes, but I did that weekend.

I think right now, I have one in my bento box, one in my ride box in the back of the van and one in each compartment in the 3rd row of my van. for a total of 4.

I had three flats in a HIM a couple years ago.  *And* it was a very hot day, so by the time I got to the run two consecutive aid stations had run out of water.  Love going 4+ miles w/o water...