Fleck wrote:
8. Some combinations of rims and tires are a P I T A. Other combinations combine effortless. This.
My regular go-to wheels that I ride the most on are now almost ancient, but with Conti 4000's and now 5000's they go on easy with very little effort - so I'm reluctant to give them up simply for that fact.
Some wheel/tire combos are absolutely brutal. Others require a bit more finesse and knowledge - as an example, the HED, extra wide rim bed on the Ardennes and other HED wheels, if you don't know what you are doing will seem like one of those impossible combos. Here -
you need to get the rim beads from both sides of the tire down in that little trough in the middle of the rim on the section. This reduces the circumference of the wheel, by a few mm, and enough to take the putting on of the tire, from impossible, to will go with a bit of effort!
I ride a moderate amount - and typically average 1 - 3 on-the-road punctures and tube changes each year. For me on the side of the road, it's at most if I am really pushing it a 2 - 3 minute process, and I'm on my way.
Familiarity with the CO2 Inflater is key. Some of them are tricky to operate - others more straightforward. As others have mentioned, get a few extra CO2 cartridges and practice at home to become comfortable and confident.
Fleck wrote:
Innner tube is already in.
It's good to have a lighter colored rim tape, so you can see where the inner tube may not be fully in. Where it's not in, I go to the spot(s) on the wheel and see if I can kneed the tube in under the beads and into the actual tire. If this does not work, last resort and being REALLY careful, I take a plastic tire iron and VERY GENTLY see if I can poke it, under and up and into the tire.
Sometimes, if you are at home, and you have a hand pump handy - trying putting a SMALL bit of air in the tube - often this can suck/pull the tube up into the tire. Obviously this is next to impossible on the side of the road with a CO2 unless you are REALLY familer and confident with the regulator on your inflator
Just wanted to thank you for this tip. It's not immediately intuitive to understand from the description, but in the end it helped a lot. I've been changing tubes for more than ten years and never needed to do it (even when installing tires on tubeless ready rims), but your tip saves a lot of headache and anguish.
Basically, I did the following:
-place one of the tire beads (call it first tire bead) into the trough;
-slightly inflate the inner tube, and place it in the concavity defined by the tire. I also did my best to have the bottom of the tube (as in, the portion more radially central) between the rim, and I did this by stretching the tube somewhat;
-starting from the position opposite of the valve hole, I then placed the second tire bead inside the rim. This fully envelops the corresponding section of the tube into the corresponding concavity of the tire. It should be noted that during this, the first tire bead might shift in position, so that not all of it will be in the trough;
-which means that when about 3/4 of the second tire bead is placed on the rim, this is when I needed to go around the wheel to make sure that all of the tire beads on the rim (both the first tire bead and portions of the second tire bead) are located in the trough. Basically did this using a tire lever (Pedro's) and ran it around the rim to make sure that the beads are sitting in the trough. I can't stress how much additional slack this generated
-place the last bits of the second tire bead onto the rim; I used a tire lever to do this.
Compared to when I didn't do the step as @Fleck suggested, I was able to get a lot more of the second tire bead onto the rim without using the tire lever. Without doing the suggested step, I could no longer seat the tire by hand with still a good 1/5 of the rim left, and I could never get the tire bead seated. Doing the suggested step, I was able to seat the tire by hand until there was 1/10 of the rim still to go, and I was able to flip the tire bead over the rim with much greater ease (two applications of the lever did the trick).
So, thanks again for this. Only took me three hours to learn :)
