I've said that a million times. I love the you cant spell one. Thats when you know they are getting pissed.

hahahahahahahahahahah

+1

i believe the term is "shi*tfaces". does the sound of your own voice make you tingle?

+1

Presta valves suck for me because I can never fill them, seriously 9 out of 10 times I have to take the pump off and try again. The tube of the pump just fills and the air goes nowhere.

8 year resurrection of a zombie thread. Impressive.

Open the valve....Burp it and then put your pump on the valve.

When you say "burp it" do you mean, press it down to let some air out? If so, how does that help?

It breaks the seal.

Read it all but can't figure out how this thread is geared to fixed/ss?

However before it gets locked, I want to go on record as saying that I like reading thru old responses on Necro'd threads and respect the fact that whoever revived this one or others, searched the subjects in which they were interested before posting...

Stuff is hard.

Life's a beach and then you die.

...only to come back as a zombie

Presta valves. Loosen nut (you'd be amazed how many people forget that). Push the pin down. Connect pump. Fill with air. Tighten nut. Go riding. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be riding yet it's not obvious to the new comer so while I don't condemn the initial confusion, those dills who never get the hang of it really should take up chess instead.

Mate, if it was easy, people would be doing it and talking about it on the internet.

This will be in someone's sig, I guarantee it.

I think you guys might have just made this guy's day.

There is so much stupid in this old thread... mebbe it should just die.

The Presta valve was invented for cyclists and the smaller od on the stem means that you can drill a slightly smaller hole than you would for a Schrader which is of benefit on really narrow rims but that is not it's greatest advantage.

Back in the day the pumps people carried were not as good as they are now and it was much easier and faster to fill the Presta with a frame pump, the valve on a Schrader requires a fair amount of pressure just to get it to open whereas the Presta uses it's own air pressure to keep the valve closed.

They both function the same when it comes to keeping air in and in industrial and commercial applications Schrader valves are used in higher psi applications like keeping the air in aircraft tyres and these can run as 200 psi.

The French still use Schrader valves on everything else.

Then you have the Woods / Dunlop valve... most folks have never run into them.

Them the ones with the bit of rubber to act as the valve? You still get repair kits with a piece of replacement rubber. They were the standard valve on my early bikes. Mind you, those bikes also used 28" wheels with wide, flat steel rims. Surprisingly, there have been SOME improvements on bike technology that were worth the effort (just not since 3rd August, 1984)

I don't have a real preference for either, but presto seems easier to obtain, so as to avoid having both styles, I'll stay with Presta. I've only had a stem failure when I've allowed the knurled knob to be screwed down to the rim while riding.

Yep... I service a number of Dutch bikes in my shop and they come fitted with Dunlop valves which also need to be burped and sometimes spit on before they work.

A presta specific pump head works on a Woods valve rather well, the dual duty pump heads do not.