When I was a child, a puncture meant leaving the bike in the shed until the following summer when your dad got around to buying a puncture repair kit and fixing it. The procedure included basins of water, chalk, sandpaper, patches, glue and talc. It usually took up an entire Saturday morning. Eventually I learned to fix punctures myself, and even bought my patches on a roll. I could skillfully rough up the tube using a kerb instead of sandpaper, and I didn't dispose of tubes until they resembled a patchwork quilt. I had patches on patches before the tube was eventually binned.