I tore the sidewall on a tire on my first cross country bicycle tour. The inner tube was protruding through the torn sidewall. As I inflated the tube more it protruded more. Clearly the bike was not usable, since I would get an instant flat tire. There were no bike shops around, so how could I fix it?

I recalled reading an article about someone inserting a piece of cloth between the tube and tire, to keep the tube from protruding, as in the below picture.

However I was on a tour and did not have any cloth, so what to do? I took the only cloth I had, a $1 bill and folded it up small enough to cover the tear. I used that tire for about 1,000 with the $1 solution.

This trick works on wider mountain bike tires, however I was never successful at getting it to work on skinny road tires. There just isn't much space with a narrow tube and tire.