No amount of massaging brings the beads up into place. They dive at various points.

I am gonna try running some talc along my beads so they will seat right, and so I can ride them right away after that if it works.

I have heard of using soapy water, hairspray, windex, etc.
But I am under the impression you can't ride right away and need to let it dry out overnight.

Any other tips would be helpful.

With soap and water you don't have to wait over night for it to dry . you can use a hair dryer if you are in a hurry .

The seating method varies according to whether you have hook edge or Endrich rims.

With Endrick rims the bead can be low in the center well, and you need to pull it up. Sometimes simply over-inflating will blow it out onto the seat with a solid pop sound. This is how auto and motorcycle tires are seated. This only works if it's close to begin with, otherwise you have to work the tire around to get it as close as possible then try more air.

Or you can pull it up with a pair of pump pliers (Channellok). If using pliers, protect the tire with a piece of leather (an old belt is fine). Put the short jaw against the rim and rock back to lever the opposite side out.

Lastly you can ride them a few days, then lower the pressure and try reseating after the tire has relaxed a bit.


Hook edge rims usually have the opposite issue where the tire is out too far and the bead not pocketed under the hook correctly. If inflated to full pressure, there's a good chance they'll blow off.

It is a Velocity Synergy clincher rim, with a Grand Bois Hetre (gumwall, kevlar bead, folding tire) going on it.

I inflated it to max rated psi for the tire, and that seems to have seated the bead well. There is one or two places where the witness line starts to dive a little, but I can still see it - it hasn't gone under the rim edge, so looks like it is as close as I'm gonna get.

I am hoping it will not present the same problems in the future, like after a flat fix. I'd hate to spend half an hour getting a tire seated on the road after a flat fix.

Folding tires are often harder to seat because the bead is very flexible, and also sometimes because the tire has taken a set while sitting folded in the box for 6 months. If you buy folding tires, take them out of the box as soon as you buy them, and hang them up to relax the folds.

Your tire should be much easier to seat the next time, because it'll have taken a round set. I even suggest that after riding them a few weeks, you deflate and reseat to see if you can get them perfect.

Thanks for the encouragement. There are warnings about being careful to seat the beads correctly. Makes it sound like instant death will occur if not. So I was a little concerned when it wasn't seating perfectly.

If you leave tyre on long enough (maybe as little as a few weeks?) while poorly seated, it can become deformed at the bead and never want to seat right.

I think the effect varies from tyre to tyre, probably depending on how much rubber is in the bead.

What's worked well for me and I learned about on this fine forum, is running a soapy sponge between rim and tire before inflating. Before doing this and obstructing my view with suds I check all around the wheel on both sides -- pushing in the tire bead towards the middle to make sure the tube is not stuck between tire and rim.

Another simple trick I've picked up to make things easier once inflated is that after tightening the pump head on the valve, I lift the tire off the floor and check the tire for any obviously low spots before any pumping. Then inflate with the tire still off the ground. Otherwise I've found that the weight of the wheel with push down on the tire where it is between rim and floor. By lifting it off the ground as I start inflating the tube, I find that I don't have to deal with this low spot.

Then inflate to desired pressure, if the bead isn't centered, I let out enough air to where I can massage the bead closer to its final position by hand, and after working the tire mostly into position I then inflate to pressure again and pop goes the last low spot. This usually saves me from having to really over inflate to get the bead to pop in the most troublesome spots. And I haven't gotten the tube stuck or twisted when changing tires in the longest time.

No; if that were a problem we'd never be able to ride in the rain.

Once the tire is fully inflated, it's not going to move on the rim whether or not it is wet.

Make sure the rim tape is even and centered. Patches on the tube? As said before, wet soapy sponge on the bead, use air compressor to inflate. That's how I set my tubeless tires.

Generally one can go significantly over the "max" inflation when seating a tire. It was not unusual before hooked rims to have the above problem, and we routinely (but carefully) inflated 10-20 lbs over the recommended or max.

Learn something new every day, I never knew they where called Endrick rims! Park makes a tool for seating tires I've used one a few times, they work much better if the bead\rime is lubed with some soapy water, of if the bead is given a spray of silicon before mounting.

Mixing hook bean and Endrick also can lead to some mis-mounted tires.

Forgive me for sounding like a dunce, but what are you guys talking about? I don't doubt you know what you are doing, but I can't make any sense of it. In 30 years I have never had a problem with any tire I have mounted. Just get it on the rim, both sides of the bead, and inflate. Always right. Or at least right enough for me. Sometimes the tire pops into place, sometimes it is just there automatically. Old Specialized folding tires from the mid-80's, Michelins of various folding models, Conti GP4000, etc. I never even bother to look anymore. Whoops, I guess I shouldn't have said that. No kidding, I don't understand what this is all about. Witness line? I feel like I woke up in the Twilight Zone. Please clue me in.

Can you elaborate on this when carrying a folding tire as a spare? I often wondered about the tire taking a set when in the pack for 6 months out of the year.. assuming of course I didn't need it...

Were you referring to Jan Heine's warning in this post about seating tires on rims (like your Synergys) with deep wells?

https://janheine.wordpress.com/2012/0...th-deep-wells/

I think Jan's warning that poorly seated tires could cause a crash refers to potential crashes after a tire blowout or rapid deflation. If the tire beads are not seated properly, so that the tire overall is loose on the rim, after deflation the tire can move around and even get partially pulled off the rim which would cause serious control problems.

However, if the tire is properly inflated, I can't see any reason for a problem. At proper inflation it doesn't seem possible for the tire to move around or get pulled off, even if the bead height goes up and down somewhat at different places on the tire.

If anyone thinks this is not correct, please advise.

I have the Velocity Synergys with 38mm Soma B-lines. Personally, I don't worry about getting the tire perfectly even around the rim, I just futz with it for a few minutes to even out the biggest wobbles. The remaining small wobbles don't affect the ride at all, as far as I can tell.

This is a known issue with some rims that are popular for wide 650B tires, such as the Velocity Synergy which the OP (and myself) are using. The blog post I linked to above explains the problem.

I got the bead on good and runs great so far.
Jan's page, plus LBS info, and also a guy who has a Panaracer (Makes Hetres) Kevlar belt folding (like Hetre) Xpress tire came off his rim while riding the other day. Why? I don't know. But I started to get a little nervous about the hard time I had getting the bead straight on mine.
Anyway, I pumped to max rated pressure and that seemed to do it. I have it back down to 60psi now.
I'll relax now and just try to enjoy the ride.

That's good to hear. Bikes are for riding and enjoying, not agonizing over.

Thanks. My bad! I have been spending all my time on the 41 road forum and didn't realize we might be talking about something not road specific here. But of course this is mechanics topics for any bike. Got it.

When I mount new tires onto my Mountain Bike (2.1" to 2.4" wide folding bead tires) I often have to pump them to 70 or 80 PSI before they will seat (with a "pop" as described by FBinNY). The max rating on these tires is generally around 50 PSI - I usually ride them around 30.

I can give a road-ish example, though. A set of 700x25 Continental Ultra Races would not seat evenly on my Araya 20As, despite my attempts at overinflating, deflating and massaging the sidewalls up and down, etc. They always had a slight hop when inflated to the specified pressure and ridden. While Ultra Races aren't their top-of-the-line road tire, I don't think inferior construction was necessarily to blame.