How To Remove Tubeless Tire

Jim's Tech Talk

By Jim Langley

In several recent columns like this ane. I've offered tool tips and ideas for a mutual and extremely frustrating result with some tubeless tire and tubeless-gear up rim combinations.

The outcome is that, when the tires are installed, the tire beads become locked onto the rim. There are shelves on each side of the rim designed to lock and hold the tire chaplet in place. The problem is that they hold besides well and when it comes time to remove a tubeless tire locked on like this, it can be monumentally difficult to remove.

If you carry a tubeless plug patch kit, such as the ones by Dynaplug (run into my contempo review) you lot may never have to remove a tubeless tire to prepare a apartment on a ride. But you'll still run into the issue when it comes time to replace the tire, if you work on your ain bike and have tubeless road tires and rims with locking chaplet.

Even if you accept tire levers that work well on other tires, they usually won't work for removing the locked on tubeless tires you tin meet. The problem with standard tire levers is their tips are also thick to fit between the tire dewdrop and the rim. Y'all can try to jam information technology in-between but the mechanical advantage of the bead lock designed to not allow go no matter what, prevents getting anything likewise thick between the rim and tire. At that place isn't enough space, either.

If you're lucky, instead of using a tire lever, you can push on the sides of the tire with your hands to try to shove the dewdrop at i spot off the rim shelf there. If you attempt spots every few inches around both sides of the rim, you might find one spot that releases. And if so, that 1 free spot will create the slack needed to get the tire off all the fashion around on that one side. Then yous just have to echo the process on the other side to unlock that bead and remove the tire.

Dreaming of a Custom Tire Tool

Equally I wrote in previous Tech Talks about stubborn locked on tubeless tires, I've been trying to invent a tool that both fits in-betwixt the tubeless bead and the rim and likewise has a pinching action to push the bead off the rim. I have not had much success – lots of ideas, but cipher I thought would work with all tires and rim types I would like to employ it on (for road and mountain tubeless tires – MTB tires can be much worse than route).

Finally, the other solar day while fighting to remove a locked on tubeless tire, I had a eureka moment. This tire was even worse than a typical locked on tubeless because I had put a new tube in to fix a flat. The sealant in the tire stuck to the tube gluing it inside the tire and this made information technology even more difficult to push button the tire beads off the rim.

Realizing I couldn't strength this tire off with my hands – or whatsoever of the regular cycle tire tools in my shop – and I have almost everything e'er fabricated, it dawned on me that I might take a much more basic tool to exercise the play a trick on.

Use with Care

The tool that worked the magic was a good quondam fashioned putty pocketknife. Here are some photos so you lot tin can see the type. With its oversize handle you have a great grip for forcing the tool in between the tire and rim. Y'all have to piece of work at it a bit with the goal of getting the entire width of the blade resting on the rim.

Once the tool's blade is fully down in between the tire and rim, you tin use the tool every bit a lever and also twist it to get its potent wide blade to push the tire bead off the rim shelf. Y'all employ the tool carefully and so every bit not to jab whatever precipitous edges into the tire or rim. You're just trying to get the tire bead to move toward the center of the rim.

It took a few tries to free the tire, but the putty knife worked well. I had to exist sure to continue it downward against the rim and focus on moving the tire non in whatever style scratching or poking the rim or tire.

If you attempt this with a new putty pocketknife, y'all want ane that has a bract stiff enough non to bend. That way using it as a lever or twisting it to push the tire the blade will be potent enough to have the desired event. If the new blade has any sharp edges, exist sure to ho-hum them with a file or slice of sandpaper, etc.

I promise this tool tip helps you with locked on tubeless tires. If you give it a try, delight annotate and allow everyone know how information technology worked. And, delight comment with your favorite tools for removing locked on tubeless tires.

Jim Langley is RBR's Technical Editor. He has been a pro mechanic and cycling writer for more forty years. He's the author ofYour Abode Bicycle Workshop in the RBR eBookstore. Check out his "cycling aficionado" website athttp://www.jimlangley.net, hisQ&A blog and updates atTwitter. Jim's cycling streak ended in Feb 2022 with a total of ten,269 consecutive daily rides (28 years, 1 month and eleven days of never missing a ride). Click to readJim's full bio.

Source: https://www.roadbikerider.com/putty-knife-unseat-tubeless-tires/