I’ve done my fair share of tubeless tyres, including this particular set, so I know that some can be a bugger to get inflated – this is why I now have a booster cylinder – but I’ve never experienced anything like the front wheel I did last night. It was nothing clever – Whyte OEM rim and Maxxis tyre – so no problems were anticipated.
In this case, it was brought to me because it wouldn’t inflate. In fact, it wouldn’t deflate either even with the valve core removed. After a bit of poking around with a screwdriver, it became obvious that the valve was properly blocked, so we decided to replace it with a new one. Nothing hard – just pop one bead off, pop the valve out, pop the new one back in and reinflate – 10 minutes maximum…
Well, we couldn’t even get the tyre bead to unseat from the rim. Even with two of us applying as much force as we possibly could. Even with one of us standing on the deflated tyre and the other applying all of their weight to lift up the rim from the floor. There wasn’t even enough space to get a tyre lever in between the bead and the rim wall. In the end, it took 20 minutes, half a pound of sweat and destroyed the rim tape before we finally managed to get the bead off far enough to squeeze a tyre lever down the back and pop it off the rim. And once the seal was broken, the tyre almost fell off the wheel.
Once off, the valve was removed (it had become totally deformed, probably through overtightening), the tape removed, rim cleaned, new tape applied, new valve fitted and the tyre back on and inflated within 10 minutes. It seated with a “pop”, but nothing that would indicate the evil that lies within for the next person to try to get it off…
Anyway, first for me – I’ve had plenty of tyres that were an arse to inflate, but never one that was so hard just to get off the bead!
Now’s the time for you to all tell me the simple trick that would have solved this for me. Alternatively, you can moan about your own experiences….