HardyWeinberg

My wife's 2 yr old cannondale has schwalbe lugano tires that are insanely difficult to crack the bead on to pull out a tube and patch it. Also insanely difficult to get the bead back on after the tube is fixed. Two straight times I tore the tube while levering the tire back on. I never have this problem. If I were to replace her tires w/ the kind I use, would I find that it wasn't her tire at all but a combo of the tire and rim that were really grabbing each other? And that the tires I like might not behave the way I like them to on her bike?

Skipjacks

What size are the tires/wheels?

HardyWeinberg

700c 25mm tires with pretty narrow rims

FBinNY 

A key factor in how hard tires are to mount is the shape of the rim.

Consider, tires only stay on because their ID is smaller than the rim's OD. So in order to mount them you have to find some slack by offsetting the two circles slightly. It's the deeper well in the center of the rim that makes that possible.

So take a look at the rim, to see if that may be your issue. If so, you'll only get limited improvement by changing the tire.

One thing that may help is thinner time tape which can buy you some room.

In any case, you already have the tires on your bike and her wheels, so why not try the combo and see how it works.

wphamilton

Do you squeeze the tire beads to the center of the rim and pull around the tire to get more slack? Just asking just in case.

rm -rf

In 2010, I posted about mounting difficult tires. It's actually quite easy with the correct technique. Just one lever to mount the new tire, and very little force needed on the lever.
Tight fitting tire howto

And you need the correct shaped tire levers. I've tried this technique with other riders' levers, and some of them won't work without slipping.

Like FBinNY said, some rims have shallow center wells, so there's less slack to pull the bead over the edge of the rim.
My old rims were very shallow:


From my post:

79pmooney

+1 to all of the above posts. Also: tire beads and rim diameters are made to tolerances. Some manufacturers tend toward the larger diameters, some the smaller. If you have a combination of a larger rim and a smaller tire, the fit can be as you described. Consider going to a bike shop and asking about a tire they find a little less tight, especially if your wife's rim does not have the deep center recess. (Flats happen. Even to "bulletproof" tires. A tire that cannot be removed and replaced on the road is a tire that should only be ridden wearing good walking shoes or with a cell phone and willing partner.)

Ben

CliffordK

Several companies have moved to "tubeless ready" rims, and normal tube tires are much more difficult to mount/remove.

Here is a comparison of rim profiles I made a while ago:



In theory with the tubeless ready rims, you have to push the tire further into the center channel, but in practice, it doesn't seem that easy.

ThermionicScott 

OTOH, one nice thing about tubeless ready rims is that they are bringing some welcome consistency to the bead seat diameter. Instead of rims being loosey-goosey to make tire installation easy (and risk tires falling off during a blowout), or ultra-tight to keep any possible tire on, there is a focus on making things just right. In fact, some carbon clinchers are doing away with hooked sidewalls because the bead seat is in the right place and the beads won't (can't) go anywhere.

@HardyWeinberg, what rim tape are you using?

Motolegs

Have a look at a Kool Stop tire jack. Some of my road tire/ wheel combo's are really tough to mount. I cut the handle of the tire jack down to make it easier to take along on rides.

fietsbob

A 25mm tire you will pump up to over 120psi,? tight is Good!


I set 3 tire levers to get tight tires off, all puled down at once, and use 2 VAR tire jack tools to get them back on ..






.....

BobbyG

Try it. Remove your tires and mount them on her bike. Also try mounting her tires on your bike.

You have nothing ti lose but time and possibly some knuckle skin.

Doohickie

Schwalbe tires tend to be stiffer than other tires because of their emphasis on flat protection. Their website says the Lugano has their "minimum standard for protection" but I suspect they are still stiffer than tires from most other companies.

HardyWeinberg

I pretty much only use Schwalbes and don't have this problem with others. I did get the tire off, flat fixed, and tire reinstalled last night. I checked @rm -rf 's thread in mechanics, it was a good deconstruction of what I was trying to reason out, so very helpful, thanks. Could not tell from pix of reinstall how much pressure his thumb was applying to keep the other hand with the lever chasing the cracked bead around and around the rim...

Anyway, I got to the below view, stopped, took the picture, breathed deeply a few times, then finished getting it on.

I didn't (couldn't) do my usual crack-the-bead-at-the-puncture-pull-part-of-the-tube-out-patch-it-stuff-it-back-in so I fully removed the tire bead on both sides (left one side in the rim center), fully reseated the rim strip (it was a plastic strip not tape), pumped the tube a little, put it inside the tire around the rim, pushed the tube onto the rim, reseated the outer bead, got it to the above picture, finally got both beads inside, then went around again to double-check that the tube was not trapped and rimstrip not curled before I pumped it the rest of the way.

Not really looking forward to changing this in the field, fortunately my wife's commute is entirely on a bus route so when she gets a flat she can just wait for a bus (and hope its bike rack isn't full).

ps-> 90psi not 120~

canklecat

Schwalbe One V-Guard folders (700x23) are pretty dang snug on my road bike's Araya CTL-370 rims (14mm inside width, I think).

First time I mounted 'em this summer I needed the plastic levers to get the last bit over the rim. I changed tubes a month later and the rear was easier to mount -- I just needed my hands, but had to keep pinching the tire to get it into that sweet spot where it fits perfectly.

The front was still a chore to mount and I needed the plastic lever again. Turns out there's some residue from old rim tape that looks like it melted and bonded to the rim, or it might be adhesive residue from old rim tape that was removed. It can't be more than paper thin but that was enough to hinder seating the bead by hand. Next time the tire is off the rim I'll need to completely remove that old rim strip residue.

On the same rims, a set of Vittoria Zaffiro wire bead 700x23's weren't quite so snug and I could pop 'em back on with my hands. It was easier the second time because using the tire levers abraded just enough rubber from the bead surface to offer a little more clearance.

Hoopdriver

I very rarely have to use anything but my fingers to mount tires, using the techniques described by others, but occasionally I use my tire jack. I have used the VAR version.

fietsbob

Early in my SF bike shop jobs (almost 40 years ago) a 95 pound guy I worked with showed my how to get that last part of the tire back on ,
using just the palms of your 2 hands..

A Sumo ~wrestling crouch, wheel in your lap, work the last part of the tire on, with that part of the rim furthest away from your body.





....

HardyWeinberg

Will keep working on it!