RonH

I remember I had a heck of a time when I installed Conti GP 4000 (700x23) on a pair of Velocity A23 rims about 2 years ago. @TejanoTrackie suggested I use a VAR tire jack which helped a lot. Now its time for new tires and I can't get the old tires off, even using the tire jack. If I get them off I want to install Conti GP4000 700x25 tires. I watched a few online videos. The one on the Velocity site was most helpful. Got any other suggestions? Thanks.

sch

If the tires to be removed are worn out, you could cut the bead on both sides to facilitate removal. Park plastic coated steel
core levers (TL 6.2) might give you more leverage to pry the bead over the edge of the rim and liquid soap lube on the rim edge
may help removal, though it is a bit more helpful in install. Wonder if the 25mm tires will be any better re install/removal.
Hope you never have a flat on the road. I would strongly consider another brand of tire, (or wire bead conti, see below).

I recently had a 2 hour episode of install/removal of 3 pairs of German sourced Contis on Vuelta rims, finally gave up on the
tires realizing if I ever had a flat I would be SOL. Put a Michelin Pro on instead, it mounted fairly easily (2-3 minutes).
Otoh the same Contis I had wrestled with installed easily on a Rolf tandem rim, with just thumb leverage alone. Some tire
rim combos are not meant to be. FWIW a wire bead Conti easily installed on the Vuelta rim, where the kevlar bead was
a horror show, go figure.....

Gresp15C

I have some super tight tires. What I have to do is get 3 levers under the bead all at once, and then hold 2 of them in there while I pry with the third, then hook it over a spoke, and move on to the next lever. I'm convinced this is why lever sets come with 3. The hooks are because you don't have 3 hands. It doesn't always "take" on the first try, and you may have to fiddle with exactly where to place the levers.

rm -rf

On my previous rims, I couldn't hook a spoke with a lever. The next lever would not be able to get under the tire bead. (I cut the hooks off the pair that stays in my saddle bag.) I wonder if sets of 3 levers with hooks are designed for older wire bead tires? I haven't mounted a wire bead for at least 20 years now.

My tight tire howto
My previous Kinlin rims had a very shallow center well. So it was very hard to get the last part of the bead over the rim, there's very little slack.

It's so tight that even with no tube installed and just one bead on the rim, I couldn't slide the tire around to match the tire label with the spoke hole. That's really tight!

But I found a fast, easy method to mount tires on those rims that doesn't take a lot of force. I still do it this way, even though my current wheels are way easier.
Here's the thread: Tight tire mounting
Posted in 2010!

The key is to lift less than an inch of bead at a time, then slide the lever over, and repeat. It's fast and needs little force. I need two levers to remove a tire, and just one lever to mount the replacement. Tire lever shape is critical -- see the thread for details.

~~~~~
My old rims were way tighter than that Velocity video. I liked his technique for "normal" combinations.



Your Velocity rim profile looks like it's somewhat similar to my Kinlin:

Cyclist0108

Never mind, reading comprehension fail.

Crankycrank

Push the beads to the center of the rim before trying to remove the tire. Same with installation. Push the mounted bead to the center of the rim. Also you can use about 6 zipties (or string, lightweight straps, etc.) equally spaced around the tire to hold the beads together. Works amazingly easy with a little bit of lube to slide the tire on the rim. I've done tubeless motorcycle tires with this method and no levers needed.

Gresp15C

I've found that on really tight tires, you have to get all 3 under the bead before you begin to pry with the first lever, so the other two are already under the bead. And the wheels with these tires also have no center well -- they are 30+ year old Rigida rims.

canklecat

Similar problem when I installed Conti Ultra Sport 2 on my rims. Had to use plastic tire levers to horse 'em over the rims. And I nicked the new front tube, pinching it on the last bit to go over the rim. Grrr.

Got a Kool Stop tire bead jack. No more problems. Plenty of leverage. Definitely gonna be useful the next several months while my shoulder recovers (borked and dislocated, hit by a car). I carry it in my jersey pocket while riding the road bike. Some folks use a hacksaw to shorten the handle. It doesn't bother me so I've left mine as-is.


I don't have any real preference in levers. I have a set of skinny black plastic no-names and a set of larger Bontrager orange levers. I usually carry one of each in the seat bags of my road bike and hybrid. So far, so good, no breakage or problems with the tightest tires.

I noticed the last time I had to fix a flat on the road bike, the Conti Ultra Sport 2 wasn't quite as difficult to unmount and remount. I doubt the bead stretched. I'm guessing some excess rubber flashing abraded off the first go 'round, just enough to make the second time a bit easier.

Ditto, the techniques described above. A little at a time, be sure the bead is in the trough or depression. I use fairly thick old style cloth rim tape so it's really crucial to be sure the bead is in the trough or I'll never get the tires on or off.

southpier

that's a slick tool; thanks for posting.

dsbrantjr

Using a thin slick rim tape like Continental Easy Tape or filament-reinforced packing tape instead of the usual VELOX cloth tape, will allow more slack for the bead.

Papa Tom

+1 for cutting the bead and ripping the whole tire off.

If you opt to use tire levers instead, wear eye protection. While working on a tight tire, I've had one of those levers pop off the wheel and crack me really hard in the cheek. Could've been an eye.

wingless

My Park TL-5 tire levers are acceptable when working on my 700x23 tires.

My experience is that they work better on these tight tires than the standard small plastic tire levers.

speedevil 

I switched a pair of Sun CR18 rims from Velox to 16mm Kapton tape and it made a difference. Two wraps of 1 mil (I think) Kapton tape is enough and still a lot thinner than Velox tape.

The Compass tires (35mm Bon Jon Pass) were almost impossible to mount with velox tape on the rims. Equally difficult to remove to change the tape, but it made more sense to deal with that at home than at the side of the road.

I used a set of blue plastic park tool levers and they worked very well. I'm amazed that none of them snapped considering the force needed to mount the tires initially. After that ordeal I bought one of the tire jacks - nice tool.

By contrast, a set of Michelin Pro4 25mm tires went on a set of Boyd Vitesse wheels by thumb pressure only. I guess I got spoiled with those.

southpier

I meant to add: talcum powder sprinkled inside the tire may help with tight. I use it to help the tube find its way without binding.

sch

I have a pair of the steel tire levers, they certainly have the needed leverage, but tended to gouge the rim edge, so stopped
using them. If you can't get one lever under and reliably pop the tire bead over the rim, doubt you will be able to get a
second, much less a third lever in there, but YMMV in that regard. My tight tire experiences are 1) getting the lever to hold
the tire bead over the rim edge 2) being unable to force the lever down the rim edge to get more bead out, soap helps
there.

I also have a Park TL10, apparently discontinued ( https://www.parktool.com/product/shop-tire-tool-tl-10) which solves the
2d problem and keeps more skin on my knuckles, nothing like hitting a flat blade spoke while tugging with all your might
on a tire bead that does not want to come out of the rim when the lever pops free. Not much help on the road.

cny-bikeman

The person in the tire bead jack video made the job more difficult by not finishing the mounting near the valve stem. That is one of the main ways to make the mounting more easy, as the stem forces both beads toward the outer portion of the rim, even more so with Schrader valves.

fietsbob

3 tire levers, Off, 2 VAR tire jack tools, On, is my choice.. for decades.

The Kool Stop one is great, but a shop tool in size..





...

RonH

Thanks for the replies. I watched the Velocity video again and finally did something right and got the tire off without much trouble. For some reason the new tire went on "easily" too.

Metaluna

For the record, the Velocity A23 also doesn’t play nice with Bontrager AW2 TLR road tires. I could not get one on my rear wheel without a tire bead jack, which I now have to carry with me in my backpack (next to my Road Morph). On the other hand, I just installed a Schwalbe Pro One on an A23 front wheel on the same bike and it went on pretty easily. I suspect some of it might have to do with how well you put the tubeless tape on. If you don’t get it nice and tight down in the well, it will reduce the effective depth of the well and therefore reduce the amount of slack you have to get the bead over the rim.