If you like to ride farther than you’d like to walk home, consider carrying a flat tire repair kit, a spare tube, or a bus ticket in your underseat pouch. A pump also comes in handy in flat situations, and one I like (and that fits in underseat pouches) is the Crank Bros. pump. It’s got a high volume AND a high pressure mode, so you can change the speed at which air travels into your tires–a cool feature in a compact design that will get you up to the right pressure and on the road faster.

If you’ve got a freakish metabolism, I’d also consider ferreting away a ClifShot or an energy bar in that pack, too. You never know when that feeling of wanting to gnaw your arm off is going to hit, and you don’t want to be caught unprepared. Vitaly Paley, proprieter of Paley’s Place on NW 23rd, whips up vegan energy bars using organic ingredients. They’re available in four flavors. Check them out here: http://www.paleybar.com/

Hope that helps!

Also, this month marks the annual bike-summer celebration of Pedalpalooza, sponsored by SHIFT2BIKES. I made a videoblog entry about it at **CENSORED**. (Why are they censoring Blogspot URL’s here? Perturbing.) Well, I guess you can see the video via VLOGDIR… at http://vlogdir.com/permalink/388 (got to RSS Aggregator tab).

Keep’m spinning, friends.