Originally Posted by
rpenmanparker
I know what you say is true, but what is there to do? You have the wheels. You have the tires. Are you going to chuck it all and go in search of an easy mounting combination? I share the frustration and have since the early '80s when the Specialized Turbo tires first came out (THAT was a tough tire to mount). It doesn't seem to be getting better. If anything it is just getting worse. So shouldn't all of us in this fix know how to deal with it and avail ourselves of the solution? I know I sound like a broken record, but having the VAR tool (I'm on my third one; the first one wore out and half of the second one got left on the road side - my bad.) since way back when has allowed me to get every tire on and every tire off, every time without fail and without damaging the rims, tires or tubes. I don't know about dark, rain and cold. I'm sure those conditions HAVE been included, I just can't remember when. All I can say is that as long as hard to mount and dismount tires/rims are going to be the rule, I'm carrying the VAR.
When Specialized introduced the first folding clincher, the Turbo, I ran, not walked, to the bike shop and got new clincher rims and those tires because I was tired of the tubular hassle and I never looked back. I got a set of Mavic (can't remember the model, they had a red label if that matters), and I did not have a big deal getting the tires on, the biggest issue I had initially was dealing with the flopping sidewalls! In fact I bought a set of aluminum tire irons that bent pretty easily but never had that happen with those, so I don't recall them being a pain to put on. Other than using Specialized Armadillo folding tire and Pasela TG wire beaded tires I never had to use the VAR, most of the time I can put them on by hand like the video shows, however I found out it's faster using the QuikStik for both removing and installing a tire then it is to use hands only.