Tanstaafl

I have volunteered on a lot of bike rides over the years. I changed hundreds of tires. Some tires are easy to change, while some fight all the way. The width on the rims varies but they are all 700 size with a 622mm BSD.

So what is it that makes some tires easy to change and some not at all easy?

jo_lacs

1) Double walled rims seem to make tire changing a bit harder than single walled rims. 2) Folding bead tires IMO are easier to unmount as oppose to wire beaded tires, however, mounting folding bead tires could be another story. 3) Certain tire brands seem to be harder to change than others. 4) Any combination of the above.

shelbyfv

You shouldn't discount the phase of the moon. In fact, begin keeping records now and report back in a year.

SurferRosa

Talking clinchers here... In my experience, it's more about the rim than the tire. Two that are real bears are the Ambrosio Extra Elite and Mavic MA40. Folding tires have been more difficult than wire bead, especially on these two rims. I don't ever want to mount folders on that Ambrosio rim ever again.

Kabuki12

The hardest tires to mount for me were a set of wire bead tires on my daughter’s Raleigh after she bought a set of MA40 Mavic rims for it. They weren’t impossible , but the needed the tire levers the last third of the way. I can usually mount tires without them or maybe the last couple of inches .

Drew Eckhardt 

The MA40s are fine, you could even use a thick rim tape like Velox on them.

dabac

I think it’s simply due to production tolerances of tires and rims. Measuring a rim circumference accurately enough at home could be done w/o too much trouble, but measuring a tire bead accurately isn’t as easy. Had some Geax Street Runners that were beasts to mount on Mavic rims. Some Suomityres W106 that weren’t much fun either. Schwalbe Marathon winter and Conti Sport Contact didn’t put up half as much of a fight.

Drew Eckhardt 

It's the shape of the depression at the rim centerline which determines how much slack you can create and the resulting ease of mounting tires.

0.010" larger diameter there can mean the difference between cussing at tools and comfortably hand mounting tires.

Velox is 0.020", thin rim tapes 0.010", two wraps of Stans or filament tape about 0.010", and two wraps of 1 mil Kapton 0.005". Use 5/8" (16mm) for traditional wheels and 3/4" or wider (19mm) for contemporary wide rims. As added bonuses, Kapton is the lightest and least expensive rim tape. It's often used for circuit board rework, and can be purchased on Amazon or eBay.

You also want to finish at the valve stem on tight rims. Starting there handicaps you with the valve stem keeping the bead out of the smallest diameter part of the rim bed.

From https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-m...-mounting.html

Don't finish like this:

or use a bicycle rim tape thicker than necessary like this:

skidder

Its always seemed random in the years I've been riding. Certain models of tires from certain brands don't work well with certain models of rims from certain brands. The only tires I've found to be a universal b!itch to get on-and-off are Vittoria 700 tires of 28mm or smaller width, and Schwalbe touring-style tires (Marathon and Marathon Plus). Surprisingly easy to mount were the Performance Bike Gotham Street tires; heavy tires but cheap (<$20), puncture-resistant, and rolled nicely on my utility and SS bicycles. When they went out of business I bought 6 of those (700 x 32 size). If I buy a new brand/model of tire and can't get it to mount easily at home I'll take it back and exchange it for something else, I just don't want to get stuck on the side of the road struggling with a tire.

Russ Roth

Also my experience. Mounting a Vittoria tire on a trek Matrix road rim was always the worst combo, the narrow aero matrix was always tough to mount a tire to, make it the Vittiora.
Open tubulars can also be deceptively tough to mount but once they've sat on the rim with tire pressure for a week you don't need tools to change flats.
Some tires are built to tighter tolerances and some rims fudge the diameter just a touch, the wrong combination can really suck; in my opinion the whole tubeless road movement has only made the situation worse and I can't stand them.

63rickert

The problem is there are no standards. The bike industry has resolutely resisted all attempts to impose standards. In particular the American branch of the industry does nothing but throw monkey wrenches in the works. The Bicycle Technical Committee of the International Standards Organization has been wholly disbanded a few times because the children have not learned how to play together.

Sy Reene

I think that it's getting harder as more and more rims are made Tubeless Ready. Even if you're using tubes, the bead 'shelves' are robbing space for the tire to be maneuvered -- making the final stretch of the final portion of the tire bead that much harder. A good article: https://www.slowtwitch.com/Gravel/Tu...tion_7352.html