I took my CL find, a Schwinn Peloton, to my overhaul class last night and couldn't get the tire off of it. The instructor said it was the worst tire/rim combo I could have. I'll have to go look, but I think it was some kind of early 90's Mavic (700c) and the instructor said that they made them slightly oversized to help keep the tire on the rim.

There is no way I could have taken the tire off on the side of the road. In fact, it took 2 of us students to get it off, using 3 tire tools.

My question: does anyone know if there's a better 700c tire I could get for this rim? I'm female and don't have a lot of hand strength, so it's important to me. I recycled the tire, so I don't remember what brand it was.

Barring a new tire, how do I assess rims for their ease of changing them? There's a big swap meet here in the Twin Cities next weekend, but I don't really know what I'm looking for.