Seriously. Its sad to say, but we never ride anywhere we don't get reception. My pops caught a nail ~15 minutes from the house in the woods where we ride, and I just let him take my bike home to get his truck rather than fuss with changing a tube that close to the house...

He carries tools, he could perform most any basic repair, and I almost exclusively ride with him. If I had a minor mechanical issue, its either use his tools or call someone...

One of these days I'll create a solution for carrying my paperwork and ditch the toolbag. If I rode places further from civilization, I'd carry a ratchet and 8/10/12mm sockets, zip ties, and pliers. Not much I couldn't fix with those 6 things, and any repair requiring more than that, I probably couldn't do in the wilderness, anyway.

 

I wish that was the case for me-hell, I don't even get cell reception AT my house let alone out in the boonies. When I started to get serious about trekking in the back country I put together a pretty serious tool kit along with some replacement parts and first aid items. Some of the area I've been in doesn't get much human traffic so I had better be prepared to fix it or stay out in the woods for a long time.

 

The mountain morph is quite a bit larger. I have one and like it. But it is not really convenient to carry. It might do OK in a backpack, but in terms of just strapping it to the bike the length kinda hampers finding a spot where it's secure and out of harm's way. I've had mine stashed in an 8 gallon Action Packer for commuting, but I'm not sure what I'll do when I take off the extra crap for trail riding.
My other trail pump is a cheap Bell bicycle hand pump. It has worked fine, and very compact. The problem was no 100 psi capability for running tubliss (which I haven't installed yet anyway).

I personally would never rely on just CO2 for trail repairs. I have seen it fail to seat a bead on the trail side, due to running out of cartridges (including one dud cartridge). It's nice to have CO2 for a quick top off, but it can and does run out.

 

I take along another rider **** enough to carry all the tools we might need...

Light and cheap for me.

 

I think I'd take a page from the ISDE riders from the past and weld some kind of handle on the axle. Bikes like Pentons used to come with a sort of T on the axle end. Something that I could put a cheater bar on like a breaker bar (aka a piece of decent steel tubing about 10" long that could be strapped on a frame tube) to do wheels.

Fact is you could slip a box end wrench over one end of the T to lever it, so a box end with two metric boxes could cover the wrench and the breaker bar service. Drill the axle bolt insert good steel rod that won't bend at 60 ft/lb in the hole and you have your T. Carry the wrench or cheater bar tube (maybe your side prop rod) that will serve two purposes. Heck, a piece of tubing welded on a tire iron in the right way could be a breaker bar. Break out the MIG or TIG and compound tools! A spoon end on a ratchet or short breaker bar instead of a single purpose tire iron... and on and on.

I don't ride in situations where I need a lot of tools. We can get out, get a truck and do it in the garage. I guarantee you if I did more I'd either do what I said previously or I'd be doing some serious thinking and looking back at what ISDE guys did. You can go overboard if you don't think about some short cuts. These types of discussions give some good ideas though.

I'm still liking riding with the guy who carrys the Snap-On truck in his tool collection though. Keeps my bike light and agile...

 

It works well doesn't it? Its pretty effortless too.

I noticed a lot of times even if I don't have reception, even WAY out in the desert, its not hard to walk 5 to 10 minutes up a hill and get a signal to send a text or make a call. There are some spots in the woods where you'd just be F'd. I'd rather sacrifice extra tools and spare parts I may or may not ever need for survival supplies I know how to use and I know can save me. Thats my mentality, be it right or wrong. I've been thinking of getting a Spot or that Delorome Inreach GPS texting thing. I saw a nice GPS phone at REI the other day but at 500 bones thats WAY to expensive for me...and I'm the king of random useless gadgets.

On a side note, I rode to Desert Bar in Arizona two weeks ago. OK, I didn't RIDE there...I drove a truck to Lake Havasu but I did enjoy a 30 mile paved ride to the trail head then 5 miles one way on a semi technical rocky road to the bar. It was pretty cool. Dropped my bike twice and the Motion Pro tool was really handy to adjust my hand guards and levers. It was a good time but I didn't get to explore as much dirt as I would have liked, maybe next time.

 

It was a lot less effort than I expected. I pumped for a while before I bothered to check the pressure, 21 psi. BINGO!
Considering how "puny" a pump it is I was surprised at how quickly and easily I got the inflation I wanted!!
The Topeak site shows spare parts available in case they're needed.