Johnk3

In many years of cycling, the hardest tires to mount, by far...really very far, was 22mm Continental Competition tubulars on my wife's TT bike's Easton rims. That thing better not ever have a flat, or else...Fortunately she only uses those wheels for races.

jppe

Okay.....Had a revelation today. I took my wheels over to a bike buddy who is a master at building wheels along with getting tires on and off. Darn if he wasn't able to free up the tire bead from the wheel well just using his hands...and he was very quick and it was easy.....for him. I used his same technique and had zero luck!!!! I guess his thumbs and hands are just that much stronger?? What he was doing was folding flatted the tire over the rim and then putting his two thumbs under the folded portion of the tire or the sidewalls. He could then push the sidewall up and over away from him and the tire bead just popped out of the rim bed. I tried and tried but just didn't have any luck using his method.

But I was able to have success just using my hands. Essentially I also folded the tire similarly to what he did, it was enough to where I could get a good handful of it to work with. I then grabbed that part by both hands and pulled the opposite side (sidewall mostly) towards me. Just like magic the tire bead popped out of the bead well. I tried it a couple times and had good luck both times.

I've also ordered a different model tire (Vittora Rubino) just to see if those are a little easier to work with.Those were a LOT cheaper than Continentals so we will see......

This new bike has been sitting for almost 6 months as I just didn't want to get caught out and not be able to change a flat. I feel much better about it now!