Flat tire finally fixed

I have spent the past month wrestling with patching my bicycle inner tube.  Or I should day: tubes.  It has been frustrating.

I've had:

• value stems come out of the tube  (unrepairable) 

• tires that hold air until you put them in the tire, then hours later they were flat.  Removing the tubes, filling them with air, putting them underwater to find no leaks, putting them back in the tire to have them go flat - frustrating.

• old patches come loose and leak again,

• new patches not hold tight.  I've tried glue-less patches and they don't have a good success rate.  The local bicycle shop still hasn't got a new shipment of kits with patches and glue.

• a tube get ruined when I roughed it up prior to patching.  One time I used a new metal 'rougher' and in thoughtlessness/absentmindedness/frustration pressed too hard on the tube.

• tubes get pinched when putting the tube and tire back on.  This is because the tire fits incredibly tight on the rim that often I had to use a tire iron to put the tire back on the rim and then I accidentally punctured the tube.  *augh!!!*

• One time I was drying a tube over the wood stove after I had tested it underwater only to have the glue on an old patch melt and then leak.

In addition to my bicycle's bad tube, I had four old inner tubes that had been problems in getting patched in the past.  With all I've been doing this month I haven't devoted my full attention to patching my tubes.  Instead I fit the work in here and there.  Over the month I have been working on this problem I was down to my final tube when I finally patched it.

It has been three or four days now, and 20 miles, so - cross my fingers and knock on wood - the tire is holding air.  Good, as I hate to think my streak of riding at least one mile each month would be broken.   The last time I did not ride any miles in a month was way back in June 1983.