The main purpose of this post is for self-documentation - I’m writing this down so I remember the procedure the next time I have to do it. With any luck, I’ll remember this post exists before I destroy another inner tube or spend another hour swearing in the garage (the national pastime of Minnesotan men). If this is useful for anyone else, that’s great too!

Taking Off The Old Tire

  1. Deflate the tube
  2. Prepare two tire levers
  3. Away from the stem, roll the tire over the rim until you can get a lever under it
  4. Slip the first lever under the tire bead
  5. Keeping lever #1 under the bead, get lever #2 under there 1-2 spokes away
  6. Using both levers, get the bead over the rim. Alternate between a “levering” motion (push down on the other end of the lever) and a “pulling” motion (pull up and out on the tire bead).
  7. Once part of the bead is over the rim, hook lever #1 on a spoke and use lever #2 to get the rest of the bead off the rim. Alternate between levering the bead away from the rim and scooching the lever further along the bead.

Installing The New tire

  1. Get one side of the tire on to the rim, this should be pretty easy.
  2. Rotate the tire so that the logo lines up with the valve hole in the rim. Call this the “top” of the wheel and the other end the “bottom”.
  3. Put just enough air in the tube so that it takes a toroid shape when laid on the ground.
  4. Starting at the top, get the valve through the hole in the rim and then jam the rest of the tube into the tire and onto the rim
  5. Starting at the bottom, begin to work the remaining bead onto the rim. Work both sides evenly from the bottom to the top
  6. Once you get a few inches from the top, it’ll start to be a pain in the ass. Struggle with it for a minute, see if you can get it on there.
  7. At this point, you’ll be tempted to force it on with a tire lever. DON’T PICK UP A TIRE LEVER. LEAVE IT. You’ll pop that tube every damn time.
  8. Instead, deflate the tube all the way and turn back to the bottom of the wheel
  9. At the bottom of the wheel, push the bead of the tire off the sidewall of the rim and crush it down into the center of the rim. This creates slack in the tire.
  10. Work that slack back up to the top and roll the tire back onto the rim.
  11. If it didn’t work, go open a beverage, take a 5 minute break, and repeat.