mike

I have had a couple of folks ask how they can ship a non-folding tire. That is, how to send a beaded tire without using a HUGE box.

I thought everybody knew this one, but apparently this is wisdom worth sharing.

1) Hold the tire in both hands at 3:00 and 9:00 as in the illustration below.

2) Twist the tire into a figure-eight. See illustration #2 below.

3) bring your hands together to fold the tire in half (see illustration #3 below).

There you have it; all ready to ship or carry or whatever.

operator

Haha. Excellent. Nice shirt.

barba

Sheldon Brown has a nice video on his page demonstrating that technique. https://sheldonbrown.com/video/tire-folding.html

mike

I bow to Sheldon again. Sheldon makes his tire into THREE loops instead of two (so it is even more compact), and then he ties the loops together with toe-cage straps. That Sheldon Brown is the MacGuyver of the bicycle world!

Yes, I guess this technique is available from Sheldon's website, but posting it hear hopefully brings some new techniques to folks who otherwise might not have come across it.

rm -rf

I was afraid it would be as complicated as his chain cleaning method.

barba

It is hard to post much of anything that he hasn't written up. I agree, it is a trick worth highlighting for those of us that have wire bead tires about. They are much easier to store when you fold them.

Marlin

I couldn't run the video, but this shows how to fold it with three loops.

https://www.rideyourbike.com/tirefold.html

GRedner

Three loops is actually easier than two. Try it with a rubber band - three loops is a nice stable configuration, while two will actively try to push apart.