Remounting tight tires

[spudslug]

The tires on my bike were a very tight fit and are now even tighter after I added Tuffy liners. In 20 years of cycling I've never experienced tires this difficult to remove or remount. I needed metal tire irons to get them back on while using a vise-grip to prevent the bead from slipping off as I worked my way around the rim toward the vise-grip. The tires are fairly new so I don't want to buy different ones. Carrying a heavy vise-grip on the road is not appealing. I ride alone so won't have help available.

Anyone have a solution to prevent the bead from slipping off one part of the rim while trying to leverage the rest of the bead on? Is there a lightweight, compact gizmo made for this problem? I suppose a hose-clamp might work but don't want to scratch the rims. (Using metal tire levers and not scratching the rims is a challenge.) Has anyone ever cracked a rim while using metal levers?

[aggie]

A tool I use to mount and un-mount my tires is the Crank Bros Speed Lever.  I've used it on some pretty hard to mount tires.  However you may want to look at getting a different brand of tire.  Not all tires are that difficult to mount even wire rim ones.

[biske]

as aggie said the Crank Bros Speed Lever works great. I use one as well. I too had a set of tires that were diffacult to get on. There are a couple of tricks that I used. First make sure your tube has as little air in as possable while mounting tire to wheel, second, warm the tire in the sun or by hand friction. or, when I posed the problem at the bike shop I was told to get tires that fit. Having trouble while working on your bike at home is one thing, but do you really want to go through this while on the road. I found it worth the money to get a tire that fits.

[paddleboy17]

You would think there would be standards so that tires would easily mount rims, but there do not seem to be.  I had a bike with WTB rims that I could not mount Continental tires on.  It took two men to get tire on and off, and I destroyed one of those Speed Levers trying to get a tire off.

Perhaps you should try another brand of tire.  Others have given you that advice, and I agree with them.

[Successor to the Professor]

Depending on how wide your Mr. Tuffy tire liners are, you might want to give them a trim and see how that works.  Just make sure that you sand down the sides of the Mr. Tuffy strips after cutting them so you don't have any edges that can wear on your tubes.

[spudslug]

Thanks for the replies. These are Continental Ultra Sports and came with the bike. Sounds like a different make or model is the simplest solution.

[waynemyer]

Now that is interesting because my Kona Paddy Wagon has Conti Ultra Sports.  I can remove these tires with my hands (I'm not very strong).  As previous commenters have stated, not all tires (and rims) are the same size given the same ETRTO measurement.

An aquaintance of mine would stretch such difficult tires by hanging the tire from hook with a shaped piece of iron (to prevent the wire beads from getting kinked) and putting a lot of weight "in" the tire.  There would similarly be a piece of iron between the weights and the tire in order to prevent kinking.

[spudslug]

This is the first I've heard of stretching a tire with a bead. The bike was stored upside down with the tires deflated for the past year. Perhaps the rubber shrunk and will stretch somewhat now that they're inflated?

[whittierider]

This is the first I've heard of stretching a tire with a bead. The bike was stored upside down with the tires deflated for the past year. Perhaps the rubber shrunk and will stretch somewhat now that they're inflated?

All clincher tires have beads, whether wire, kevlar, or other material.  The strength of the tire is not in the rubber itself, which is why I don't concern myself with any age-related apparent problems with the rubber (cracking, etc.), and have never had any resulting problems in the 200 or so tires I have bought and maintained over the years for myself and my family.  In fact, all of the serious problems we've had with tires were with ones that were new or nearly new, meaning there was a manufacturing defect.  If they make it past the first few hundred miles, we wear them out down to the strings.  If a tire gets a cut, we boot it and put on another thousand miles or two or however many it takes to finish wearing out the tire.  Those have never been a problem, and we've probably ridden 50,000 miles on booted tires that other people would have thrown out in fear of the unknown.

The worst problem I've had with getting tires off and on was when our tandem's original rim strips were splitting at the spoke holes from the pressure so I added a cloth tape rim strip over the originals.  I wasn't able to get the same tires back on after that, so I had to remove both rim strips and put only the cloth one back on.  Tire liners didn't affect the difficulty in installing or removing tires.  Some tire-and-rim combinations are more difficult than others.  Briefly explaining why, in text, is not easy, but has to do not just with the outer diameter of the rim but also with the depth of the rim between the bead seats.  Even a larger-diameter rim won't be that hard if it has a deep area between the two sides' bead seats.  The two layers of rim strips above effectively made for a larger diameter between the bead seats.

I can usually do it by hand though.  With the air out of the tire, I push the valve toward the tread so the bead can go farther down in around the valve, then stretch the tire to the side opposite the valve so it kind of bulges there, then pull it off.  To put it back on, I put the valve side in first (one bead at a time), and again stretch it toward the other side so it will go over the rim, finishing oposite the valve, then pulling the valve farther through the hole and towards the hub.  I worked at a bike shop for a few years in the late 1970's and installed and removed thousands of tires.

[RansRider61]

I carry a small bottle of dawn dish soap with me and when I have trouble remounting  a tire I just take a real small amout of soap and rub it on the bead and this usually helps to slid the tire on . It also takes the grease off your hands too . I even used this soap on a squeaky pulley after I got rained on as a quick fix . Bob

[spudslug]

Thank you everyone for your input.

[Westinghouse]

I was buying tires at department stores and sports stores that were marked 27 by 1 1/4, but they were actually 26, and almost impossible to get on the rim. Once on they pinched the tube. I had to cut them off. You have to be careful where you get your tires. A well made tire fits just fine.

[spudslug]

I've never bought tires at a dept or discount store but that's good to know because when I'm touring I might have to buy a replacement at one of those locations.

I bought this Trek 520 used. The tires are new Continentals and are clearly marked with the make, model and size. The rims are also clearly marked with the diameter and original Trek stickers. I measured the inside diameter of the rims and checked the Sheldon Brown website to confirm that the tires are the proper width for the rim. The tubes are normal, not thick heavy duty. Although I added Tuffy liners, that's never made a difference in the fit on my other bikes. Everything checks out ok. That's why I'm perplexed by the tight fit.

[whittierider]

I was buying tires at department stores and sports stores that were marked 27 by 1 1/4, but they were actually 26, and almost impossible to get on the rim

If you could get them on a 27" (ISO 630mm) rim at all, they could not have been 26" (which is a maximum of 597mm, for the Schwinn 26x1-3/8 S-6 rim, or as little as 571mm for 650c and 26x1-3/4 for the Swhinn S-7 rim for cruisers).  The difference in bead diameter would be anywhere from a little over 1.25" to over 2.25".  Even a 700c tire (ISO 622mm) won't go on a 27" rim, regardless of how much effort or lube you use, and that's much closer, being off by a little over 1/4".  If it was marked 27" and was ultra-hard to put on, the manufacturer probably had poor tolerances and it really was a 27" that was perhaps 2mm shy of the 630.  For tire sizes, see http://sheldonbrown.com/tire-sizing.html .

[johnsondasw]

Since I started using foldable tires, I never have to use tire tools--just bare hands.  Also, if necessary, you can carry them in the back pocket of your jersey or wedged over the wraparound strap of many seat bags!  Surprisingly, I have not had a lot of flatting problems with them.