Seriously. I could barely breathe when I took the lid off the box!

Need to lace them up to some 88mm chinese carbon. But seriously, those things are really nice and i'll most likely never own something as nice as those lol.

It is great to have those moments, like Christmas when we were kids.

Today I tidied the shop, topped off all the tyres, oiled saddles, swapped saddles, switched tyres on 3 bikes, and helped tweak my friend's new 1972 Raleigh Twenty with a better set of brakes and new tyres.

I have a lot of tyres to check here.

They do... they are called cartridge bearings.

I also like the sets I have with zerk fittings for grease.

I want to punch a ******** hole through my wall to alleviate my frustration of mounting a folding tire. Never again!

I've mounted dozens of folding tires, and usually find them easier to mount than wire (rigid) bead tires. What exactly is the problem ?

You can finesse the tire/ bead on the rim to get it just right using your hands and with it inflated to ~10 PSI.

The only tires I've ever had any issue that required levers instead of my thumbs was the freedom thick slick i needed on the fly and some forte tire.

When I get to the last maybe 6-8" of bead to set it is immovable and I end up smashing my hand from the tire tool slipping off from the tension.

Soap and water.

Vodka and whiskey.

Nitrous Oxide and blow torch.

Well is that tire tool a tire bead jack?

IT'S ALL THE RIM'S FAULT!

I had to fight with my thickslick as well. It still wasn't too bad, just used my levers.
The cheap kenda's I had on my first bike would pretty much go on in 45 seconds just using my hands.

I'll give that a try, thanks.

I don't drink so I'll try another method.

I'm court ordered to stay away from flammable items.

Its one of these jammies
http://www.universalcycles.com/image...small/1241.jpg
I use these cheapo things on all my tires but this is my first folding tire attempt.

Well there's ya problem.
I'd just get a koolstop bead jack and call it a day. Show those folding beads who's boss!

Awesome, Thank you for the help.

the var bead jack from rg works fantastically as well and it fits in a tool pouch

today i worked my new 3rd job here at campus which essentially consists of editing and formatting excel spreadsheets of student records and minor it help for the old ladies in the office

it pays $38.91/hr.

why cant this be my full time job?

Try mounting Marathon Plus tyres... or Avocet TT30's (folders).

I am sure that if there is hell it will be full of those TT30 tyres but once you got them on the pain was worth it.

Most of the folding tyres I use mount up easily and there are not too many tyres I cannot mount with my bare hands... when I can't Schwalbe levers are my favourites and Park levers are a waste of money.

If all is lost these are the mother of all tyre levers... the other end is used to straighten vintage steel rims with rolled edges.

http://www.ravingbikefiend.com/bikep...cotd%20(1).JPG

Just out of curiosity, are you the shop owner/head mechanic/just a regular mechanic?

It is a one man operation here.

Besides working for myself, I also partner with a framebuilder, do a bunch of contract work for a local charity, and teach classes and volunteer at the co-op.

This spring it will become a 2 man shop with 2 fine ladies joining us to help with the accounting and front end so we can work and check out their back ends.

(The ladies are our wives).

Oh very cool, I hope it works out for you. If I was closer i'd come volunteer and help you out, sounds like fun.

It is never the same day twice.

Today a customer brought in his custom made Thorn touring bicycle that just got a new coat of powder after the TSA tried to destroy it... they also broke the rear (XTR) derailleur but the White wheels were still intact.

Will be putting that back together so he can take it to Mexico next week and start a South American Tour.

It is a freaking gorgeous bike and one of the last handbuilt models Thorn made in the U.K.

As for the new shop... only my partner and I will be allowed to check out the ladies and we don't need any help with that.

:)

Sounds like it was a good day then. Working on nice custom beautiful bikes will always be a plus. But even working on crappy bikes is still pretty fun in itself.