DocRay

sounds like true love has made it to Texas.

JOEPIPPAS

Do I hear dueling banjo's

DocRay

oh, I'm sure you do.

JOEPIPPAS

"Squeel like a pig boy!"

Blaireau

I bet you'all shave your legs

Nacho Speedee

HIJACKED!!!!!!

msheron

Heat them up first with a hair dryer so they stretch easy.

biker7

Well...wasn't much good advice given. There is a trick that some don't know that I learned on this board from a sage old member. The trick is you have to get all the air out of the tube and put both of the beads very close together and pull up on the opposite end of the tire. What this does is increase the inside diameter of the tire. Without having the beads together the effective diameter of the tire is much smaller because it rides higher on the rim bead. It seems subtle but makes a big difference.
Good Luck...we have all been there. Use tire irons as an absolute last resort because of tube pinching. I too use the dryer and a mild stretch but no fluid or powder etc...just expletives.
George

rivalV

https://www.parktool.com/products/det...=17&item=TL-10

Enthalpic

Switching to thinner rim tape can help. The bead on the opposite side needs to fit into the groove; it can't do that very well if the groove is filled with (usually cloth) rim tape.

slowandsteady

Huh? Rim tape shouldn't be anywhere near the bead or groove.

Retro Grouch 

Try this. I seldom have to resort to using a tire lever or any other gizmo to install a tire.

1. Get the bead on one side on.
2. Start the second bead opposite the valve stem (important) and work in opposite directions.
3. When it starts to get hard, go back to your starting place and pinch both tire beads in toward the center of the rim.
4. Now hold the wheel vertically in front of you with the valve stem down. Start with your two hands at the 3:00 o'clock and 9:00 o'clock positions and try to push the tire straight down. What you're trying to do is to concentrate all of the slack in the tire at the point where you have to force the last few inches of tire over the rim.

The rubber at the base of the valve stem is a little thicker. If you start the second bead at the valve stem, it robs you of a little bit of slack.

slowandsteady

Am I special or something? How come all of these people don't use tire levers for fear of pinching a tube? There is no way my little girly hands are going to get a road tire on a rim without the aid of tire levers.

Is it some sort of macho thing to take three times as long to get the tire on with your bare hands than to use girly-man levers and take a few seconds? I bet you guys don't ask for directions either.

Enthalpic

The groove I am talking about is not the rim hook that the bead sits in after inflation. During mounting the tire bead on the far side will sit in the trench made by the two sides of the clincher rim, right where you put rim tape.

jciv03

How do you like those Williams 50? did you get the 50C or the 50?

Nacho Speedee

The 50c's look and feel great but I haven't had a chance to really ride them. I went up and down my street briefly and they seemed super stiff and spin well. I'll let you know after I've raced Sea Otter with them...

jciv03

Excellent! Although I can't afford the 50C, I'm considering getting the System30 when they're in stock.

Carbonfiberboy 

I had a tough pair of rims that were much improved by going from the regular cotton rim strips to a thin polyurethane one. A thinner rim strip allows the tire to sit lower down in the center of the rim. You have to look around, though. There are also poly rim strips for sale that are too thin to do their job.

And like eippo said, you keep the tube valve open and push the bead down into the center of the rim on the side close to you, then keep tension on the bead as you slide your thumbs toward the opposite side. The tension holds the bead in the center of the rim. But even that doesn't work with impossible rims, which do exist.

cyclezealot

scuffed up nuckles.

Gee3

Someone recommended this handy tool to me: Crank Brother's Speedlever

I was to impatient and the shops were all closed so I ended up pushing up getting as much tire on the rim as I could and then little by little I forced the tire over the rim with my thumbs... My thumbs hurt like heck but i eventually got them on. The second time was a lot easier and didn't take me 30-40 mins like the first one did! My mantra: I will not be beat by a tire!

jschen

Alternatively, get different wheels. Putting Michelin Pro2 Race tires on my Easton Circuits, it drives me mad. Even with the tires already stretched out for months. I think I'd abandon a ride and call for someone to pick me up if I ever flatted out on the road. Putting them on my Alex AT400 rimmed wheelset of some sort, it's a piece of cake.

Despite my frustrations with it, the tires are currently on my Easton Circuits again. Yes, it still took forever to mount even though it's not new.

mezza

I shout the word f**k a lot and this seems to work, eventually.

CaptainCool

I'm going to say they're not. The only set of road tires I've put on are Vittoria Zaffiro 700x28s. It took me four hours of pushing, cursing, squeezing, reading advice here ("just push you wimp"), and one chipped tire lever to finally get them.

These tires and rims are cheap, but I don't know that that has anything to do with it. I've done several mountain bike tires by hand so I wasn't completely new to it.

Alonso22

i just got some Tufo Elite clincher tires... right size and everything but damn it was pretty tuff putting them on...

Gordo789

yeah this happened to me tonight. trying to get the tires off my forte titans with my bare hands was impossible. the tires used to just come right off of my old alex rims. suffice to say i had to walk the last two miles of my 40 mile ride, at close to 2am on top of all that.