cmh

I am new to tubular tires and I am having a heck of a time with my first experience of removing a tire from the rim. Any secrets here? The tire is still good, so I don't want to use any solvents or anything that might harm the casing. I used Mastik glue.

Thanks in advance for the advice.

Sheldon Brown

DiabloScott

Get a tire lever under there somewhere (the thin flat steel ones work best) and then you can work it around the rim. Pulling too hard on the tire could separate the base tape.

Remember this when you glue the next one on.

cmh

Ha! OK - I'll go at it some more.

Thanks for the advice. I feel quite honored to get such a quick reply to my question from Sheldon Brown!

cmh

Thanks for the tip. I certainly want to err on the side of the tire being hard to remove rather than rolling in a corner.

DiabloScott

My point was, most tubie nubies worry so much about rolling a tire that they overdo the glue and make it near impossible to get off. You can safely cut back.

jebejava

- "When in doubt, use a bigger hammer" -

You should be able to roll it off after deflating the tire. Try harder, work your way around the rim and be careful where you place your thumb so you don't roll the tire off the base tape or damage that bond. I would hesitate to use tire levers though, only as a last resort.

San Rensho 

No! It should be so stuck that after you deflate it, it should be fairly hard to take off the rim.

You should use enough glue that a little bead of glue comes out from between the tire and the rim.

Six jours

Yeah, I really disagree with that too. Ther's no such thing as a tubular that's stuck on too well, unless maybe it's purely for training and the rider isn't ever going to be cornering hard.

IMO, a properly glued tubular almost requires judicious application of levers or a screwdriver to remove. Props to the OP for gluing it on right!

cmh

Thanks for the advice, everyone. It was my first gluing on new rims, so I followed the 3-layer, 3-day procedure on Park Tool.com. I'm glad to see that it was done right, or even a little overdone. It is hard to tell the first time. I'm going to go to work on it this evening with tire levers if I need it, I'm sure I'll get it off. In this case, the tire is still almost new, but the rim is trashed, so I won't worry about hurting the rim.

jebejava

I agree with all that San Rensho says, but read carefully. The OP has glued the tire correctly, he's having difficulty removing it. He needs to try harder to remove the tire by hand before resorting to using a tire lever to pry it off. Yes, it should be so stuck that "it should be fairly hard to take off the rim". It's his first time removing a glued on tubular and it's a technique he is unfamiliar with.

It's not a matter of damaging the rim, it's damaging the tire. Tubular tire glue remains somewhat pliable and it's the adhesion of the glue and tire pressure that keeps the tire on. If you do it a few more times, you learn the the technique, the amount and application of hand force, that it takes to roll the deflated tire off. Using a tire lever should not be the first resort but the last resort.

DiabloScott

A properly glued tire shouldn't require a tire lever to get it off, true. A tire that's glued on too well might require a tire lever to get it off - if that's the case, he can safely cut back some on the glue! There is such a thing as being glued on too well.

But using a tire lever to get the tire off will not harm the tire or the rim; you just use it to work around the rim and break the bond, you don't actually pry the tire off.

urbanknight

Actually, it is possible to use so much glue (too thick) that the tire will not actually adhere to the rim. Instead, a soft, flexible cushion of glue will separate the tire from the rim. Of course, you will feel the cushy ride and the terrible flex in corners before anything catastrophic can happen, but I was told that the tire could actually come off if ignored and cornered too hard.

My goal is to use a tubular on the same rim until it's gone, then I can use a screwdriver to remove it and toss it. Otherwise, a lot of finesse and manpower are required.

Six jours

Absolutely -- but that doesn't seem to be the problem the OP is writing about, and more to the point, my observations are in regards to the "A properly glued tire shouldn't require a tire lever to get it off, true. A tire that's glued on too well might require a tire lever to get it off - if that's the case, he can safely cut back some on the glue! There is such a thing as being glued on too well." opinions. The idea that one should reduce the amount of glue in order to reduce the amount of adhesion horrifies me.

DiabloScott

Horrifies you? If the adhesion is so strong that he literally can't get the tire off with all his might, then he's got a factor of safety of about 10 when he only needs about 2...

maybe 4 if he's racing crits in Texas in August at noon.

Six jours

Do you know this for a fact? Have you conducted instrumented and repeatable tests? And do you really want to experience the result of being wrong on this one?

And the flip side is that reducing the amount of glue in order to reduce the amount of adhesion is a dangerous and extremely inexact game. How much does he reduce it by? How does he know when he's reduced it enough but not too much? And is the trade-off of easier removal really worth the gamble with his -- and your, if you're ever behind him -- hide?

No thanks. I'll pass on the whole affair. My tires were always glued on to the best of my ability, and that's the way I liked it. It's really not difficult to remove a tire with a round-shaft screwdriver without damaging anything, and in fact, back in the day of shellac for track riding, the screwdriver was the accepted method so as to preserve the carefully built-up rim bed.

DiabloScott

Get serious please.

A tire that is hard but not impossible to get off with bare hands and brute force is glued on well enough that it's completely safe. That's a decent gage for how good of a job you did and I'd confidently ride behind anyone whose tires met that criteria. Anything stronger than that doesn't offer any extra safety.

I posit that ~100% of rolled tires were caused by either crappy glue jobs to begin with, bad base tape, melted glue from hot roads and/or braking heat, old dried up glue, or wheel damage.

Six jours

I am serious. If you haven't conducted repeatable tests then you're just guessing, with your "safety factors". This situation is a bad place for guessing. And it doesn't get much more "serious" than riding behind someone who has reduced the amount of glue he uses in an effort to get less adhesion.

urbanknight

Yes I agree with you there. It takes a full tube of glue to get the result I was talking about and it's hard to make that mistake without making a huge mess from the oozing glue.

But I will say that the most people do overglue their tires at least a little (to be on the safe side, as you said). Most racers I knew put one small (like the size of a pea) bead of glue in between each spoke hole (24-36h rims) and that held plenty tight. I have yet to see one of those come off during a race (mostly crits and velodrome). I will admit that even though they got away with less, I always erred on the safe side myself as well.

DiabloScott

My factor of safety numbers were just guesses, yes - no one is going to actually use them in an engineering calc, no one reading this assumed I had done any pull testing.

My only claim is that "damn hard to get off" is plenty secure and the indicator of a good job. Yours appears to be "Nothing is good enough if it can be made stronger", and you ignore the consequences of too much glue strength (damaged tires, damaged thumbs, frustration, waste of time).

Sorry if I appear to be bickering, I'm really quite agreeable.

Six jours

Me too. We just seem to disagree on the definition of "Damn hard to get off". IMO, that puts us into screwdriver territory. Maybe I just have weak thumbs.

Well, you're pretty much right with the first line. If I ever see a glue that works so well that tires can't be removed without shredding the tire or denting the rim, then I'll rethink my stance. But so far, I have never met a tire that couldn't be removed, undamaged, with judicious use of a round shaft screwdriver.

I do, however, still have the scars from having ridden behind someone who didn't have to put any effort at all into removing his tires. So I guess you can say I'm conservative on the matter.

Six jours

BTW, my approach to modulating tire adhesion is to use different glues, rather than different amounts. Dunlop white for training in freezing conditions, Panacement for training in the summer, Vittoria Mastik 1 for racing. This results in predictable, repeatable performance without having to wonder if maybe I didn't quite use enough this time.

p4nh4ndle

I guess I use too much glue; but then I don't normally take tubulars off unless they need to be repaired/permanently replaced. I was always told that one needed to glue around the spoke holes to insure against roll off. I only use tubies for cyclocross racing so I usually just wait for the glue (panacement) to degrade and then the tire comes off easily.
Doesn't "track" mastic cure absolutely hard and hold the tires on like a vice? Wouldn't that be the ideal cement for racing since you won't be changing a tubular tire during a race (you'd just get another wheel or drop out). Or does it degrade and break loose when the rim's heated through braking?

Bicimechanic77

A team member once told me to "not use too much glue" on his tubular. I laughed and said if you want me to do it I'm doing it my way which means it ain't coming off when you flat or hit a hard turn or you ride in the rain all day. Anyway, I do it my way and thats another story. As far as the best removal tool I have ever found is that wide plastic hub adjusting tool that comes with (I guess it still comes with them) Mavic wheels. I have about a 100 of these floating around. A Mavic dude once told me that they were for just that- tubulars (plus they adjust those hubs ok too). They are thin enough to get between a tight fit tub/rim and wont hurt the tub or rim either. You should be able to pick a few up at any good LBS. And for the record I only use Vittoria Mastik-One (1st choice) or Continental (2nd choice). And no offese but 3M is for posers.

Six jours

I'm only aware of one track glue, and it came out after I stopped racing so I've never used it. The track standard for the longest time -- and maybe still, in Europe -- was shellac, which works very, very well but is a bit time consuming and takes some special knowledge. It sticks extraordinarily well and is supposed to have the lowest rolling resistance of any glue, as it dries to a thin and very firm base.

As mentioned above, Vittoria Mastik 1 has a tremendous and well-deserved, IMO, reputation. It is easy to work with and holds like the dickens. It was the hands-down winner of a fairly thorough test of a number of different glues a few years back.