Continental Travel Contact
 

My commuter is a Trek Police bike from 2001 (not a cop, just got a good deal at an auction). I recently bought a conti travel contact tire (26x1.75) to replace the conti town and country tire (26x1.9) that was worn down. Long story short I spent an hour trying to mount the sucker, lost 2 tire pries and a tube in the process :mad:. Its frustrating because I know how to mount a tire, or at least a road tire. I'm currently running conti gatorskins (700x23) on my road bike and those were a cinch to mount.

Currently I have only one tire pry left and the tire is mounted on a tube that I killed. I'll probably head to the lbs tomorrow to buy some new prys, but I don't want to pay for them to fix it if I don't have to.

Does anyone have an idea why the travel contact is so darn difficult to mount? Should I be mounting it differently than my road tires? Does that tire fit my rim (no clue about the size, just know it looks like a typical mtn bike rim...)?

The bummer is I wanted to switch to the travel contact. The town and country tires were great, but I like the idea of the knobs on the side.:(

There is a tyre lever at the bike shop that has a handle for better leverage

I have a set of the Travel Contacts on my Swobo Folsum in the summer months. They are a pain in the butt to get on! Once on, I've had 1 flat in 2 years of spring through fall riding on them. I ended up using the Pedro's metal lever for downhill tires. You just have to be careful about scratching the rim all to heck but it was the easiest way I have found.

I went by the lbs today, bought some stronger tire levers and finally got the guy mounted. Thanks for the help!

Update: Went for a short ride, but I would already recommend the tire. I'm running a 26x1.9 town and country in the back and the 26x1.75 travel contact in the front. Fairly low rolling resistance and handles great! Maybe its the excitement or maybe its replacing the 9 y/o tire, but I love it!