Bicycle Mechanics - Stranded unecessarily. Lesson learned.

This morning, my heart sank when I heard that distinctive fwppp..fwppp..fwppp... of the air escaping from my front tire. Just had a flat a week ago on the back tire.

The first one I fixed easily. I just popped the tire partway off the rim, pulled out the tube and patched it.

This morning did not go as smoothly. I popped the wheel off, whipped out my new Crank Brothers "Speed Lever" and tried to get the bead off the rim. No dice. Since I had not used the Speed Lever before, I had brought along ONE plastic lever as a backup. Smart thinking, eh. After a great struggle, I got the tire off the rim to the point where I could patch the tube. Getting the stupid thing back on, though, was a huge struggle, which I could not understand, since I had put the tire back on the rear wheel without any tools at all. After a titanic struggle, I finally reseated the tire and tried to pump it up. Forget it. I had pinched the tube the lever and it was now toast. OK, that's why we carry a spare tube, right? This time, though, the tire lever broke when I tried to get the tire off the rim. Rats. At this point, all I could do is stomp my feet, curse, get on the cell phone, and call in the SAG wagon (my wife).

After presenting this problem to the guys at my LBS, I know what I did wrong. The mechanic quickly popped the tire off with a flourish of the lever and proceeded to put it back on with his thumbs. What I had failed to do is to go around the circumference of the tire and squeeze the sidewalls of the tire together to break it loose from the rim before trying to remove the tire. Simple procedure now burned into memory by painful experience.

BTW, after doing this, the Speed Lever worked like a charm.

you must be talking about tubeless wheels and tires right? Because non tubeless tires dont exactly need to be popped off of the rim.

I dont know, after a few weeks mounted on a rim, the tire some what sticks to the side of the rim. I always loosen the tire from the rim before trying to fix a flat, im sure it saves me time in the long run.

Doug, you may want to practice fixing flats. The first time i fixed a flat tire, it took me well over 15 minutes. Now i can fix a flat in under 3 minutes if i try. Practice practice practice! Im sure you wont make the same mistake twice.

the worst thing of all, was trying to put the tubeless tires on my mavic crossmaxxes..............MAN THAT WAS HARD!!!! it took forever, and the tire bead kept feeling like it was going to break....it kept stretching and stuff.....but like they told me I put soapy water and stuff in them and i finally got them on.

That is the great mystery of tires. Some go on hard and some go on easy. If it is raining, sleeting, dark, and absolutely foul, then the tires generally come off and go on the hardest.

No, these were not tubeless tires. They were Conti Ultra 3000's, which are a wire-bead road tire. I did get some practice changing tires last night, since after two flats in a week, I decided that the rear tire was getting pretty worn. The replacements are Michelin Axial Carbons, which have a kevlar bead. I really worked up a sweat trying to get these on. I killed one tube by pinching it, but did finally get them mounted. I understand that kevlar-beaded tires get easier to mount and remove after they have been on the wheel for a while. I certainly hope this is true.

I also realized last night that the shape of the tire levers is not ideal for mounting tires on the front wheel because of the relatively deep aero rim. I am going to look for something different and hopefully a bit tougher.

The best remedy is to buy the srongest levers you can find...Park levers are pretty good, and you should have about three on you so that you can wedge one on either side of the section of tire that wont go in.

My LBS taught me how to pull the tire off and put it back on again without using levers. I haven’t yet learnt it... ;)

My most frustrated ”flat moment” was when I got a flat I think three times in a row on the same spot of the tube. A closer inspection revealed that the LBS (not my new, favourite one!) had left metal filings/chips from the rim after drilling the valve hole bigger to fit the auto valves of my tube. Well no wonder I got three flats in a row!!!

Ive had the same problem with metal shavings... I had random flat for a week before I found a tiny metal pice floating around in my rim