Originally Posted by Dirtdrop
I've got to agree with operator on this one.
Yeah......I don't know how many tires I've changed in 25 years of wrenching, but it's a metric buttload...
And as much as I'm known as the guy in the shop with "kevlar thumbs", once in a while you are going to run across an unhappy wheel/tire combo. Some Michelin tires(or Conti, for that matter) on older Campy rims....well, Conan himself couldn't get those things off without the Park steel levers.
I have a pretty good sense of how difficult a tire will be to remove by how much bead slack there is after deflation. Sometimes you need a tool, sometimes you don't.
I think the only unfortunate thing about "rah-rah you-can-do-it" articles like that is that somewhere, someone's got one of those really hard combinations and feels like a loser because they can't just pop it off like the article would lead you to believe you could...
For those that it helped, ain't it
great to be a little more self-sufficient!