24" fecking wheelchair tyres and punctures.

[FluffyChicken]

How the hell is any normal person suppose to fix a puncture in there.

Not just bending any normal tyre tool (of various types) to get it off.
And then being and snapping your best levers not getting it back in.
You then resort to various long flat bladed screwdrivers, ripping all the paint of the rims.
And then finding your portable vice to clamp the bastard in place to get the fecker on.

Ffooks sake.

So what's the "in the know" nack for these.
Quick easy and simple that any disabled person could do?
For next time.

 

[greencat]

Marathon tyres are notoriously difficult to get on/off. Repairing punctures on my Brompton would drive me to tears.

The knack is to make sure the beading on both sides is pushed in to the well of the rim as much as possible all of the way around (do not skimp on this step), lever a little more in and repeat. There is no spare tolerance to do it any other way ime.

 

[FluffyChicken]

Ha, I had it sat in as far as it would go, I have experience of bugger tight tyres.
Not much room with the inner tube in there too.
It still stopped way before he shows, you couldn't push this with your fingers, way too thick and rigid.
This was another level of feck.

 

[greencat]

I feel your pain. I would spend 30 seconds making sure the beading was exactly centred in the well all the way around and still have to use steel tyre levers to get it on.

Now both tubes on the Brompton are loaded to the max with anti-puncture slime.

 

[2manyoranges]

As you know FC, some combinations are awful. I spent over three hours with a Schwalbe Magic Mary onto a Spank DH rim. Terrible.

As with GreenC, fettle into centre trough in rim, but three further things:

1 get tyre stretched and in shape - leave lying on the ground absolutely flat and hopefully in the sun
2 judicious heat - a hair dryer is good, a hot air gun too much
3 lube

That last is really important. You can use soap+water, which is good when you are doing tubeless. But Schwalbe also do an excellent mounting fluid, which I use a lot:

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/31341863...hBGLSVgHxcNrr2Z-30DP5qgYWaAgQgBxoC4SQQAvD_BwE
But I agree - the pleasure of it finally popping on is diminished by the horror of ‘what if this punctures and needs to be done in the field?’. By then, the tyres should have stretched, and even marginal stretch in a wire bead allows easier later demounting and remounting.

 

[pigman]

Feel for you buddy.
I had the same problem trying to fit a tyre to a brompton 12" wheel. I actually gave it that much force, the wire bead ripped out of the tyre and i had to get another one. What i found was that the rim I was working on was bigger than the one that didnt need changing, even tho they were the same make and came with the bike. The existing tyre (the one that didnt need replacing) had loosened with age and fitted onto the oversize rim and the new one fitted the (presumably) normal sized rim.

i also soaked in hot water before fitting hoping for a bit of expansion

 

[Woz]

I had a right hassle mounting some Schwalbes a while ago, stumbled on this and got inspired:
https://www.michelintruck.com/assets/pdf/bulletins/TB_Lubricant_MX_Truck_Tires.pdf
Worth a read. My goto now is not to faff around, pure vegetable oil on the internal wheel rim walls and well, and a liberal coating
on the tyre bead. It's not as messy as you would think, and I was amazed at the difference. Unlike the video, it's actually at
the very opposite side of where you will finish mounting that you really need to push the tyre in the well.

I no longer use water and washing up liquid - the salts accelerate aluminium rim corrosion.

 

[FluffyChicken]

It's a factor of the tight 24" size, narrow 1"tyres, puncture protection etc and it has to be levered on with long metal levers. There is no other DIY way.

The vice was to hold the other side down so it didn't pop out.

He was almost going to get the Islabikes whatever smallnobs or Schwalbe black jack on for a bit. Not the best tyres for a wheelchair.
They're easy to put on though.

I know there is a lot of on the spot twisting in wheelchair use, but ffs they don't need that tight a bead.

It's enough to go back to solid tyres.


And to top it off, they (makers) put the tyres on the same direction for each wheel when you look at them. So when they on the chair, one is backwards.
Could have changed it but I wasn't taking both beads of the rim.


Blumming drawing pins!.

 

[2manyoranges]

Oh oh! Sudden thought - are they actually wheelchair size? Bontrager do specific tyres too...

https://www.bikeforums.net/bicycle-mechanics/926228-wheelchair-tires.html
See table here - I did have the wrong size on one occasion......

https://www.spokz.co.uk/schwalbe-marathon-plus-evolution-wheelchair-tyre.html

 

[FluffyChicken]

I should hope so, they're the ones it came with


Edit unless you mean the other tyres, they'll not actually fit as they're mtb 24"
But might have been easier to rebuild the damn wheel itself.
So 25-540 wheelchair and kids mtb 54-507 I think.