Changing the tire on a road bike is an important skill in cycling. Learn how to change your tire in this cycling video.
Use tire levers to remove tire
Remove tube opposite side of valve
Reseat tube on wheel at 5 PSI
Kevin Livingston is a former professional cyclist who successfully rode and completed six Tour de France races as a teammate of Lance Armstrong. Kevin now focuses on Training and Coaching through his company, Pedal Hard Training Services in Austin,TX.
KEVIN LIVINGSTON: Hi. I'm Kevin Livingston here at Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop with [PH] Christian. He's going to help us demonstrate how to change a tire. So to get started here we've got a tire that's inflated, we're just going to change the tire but it may already be flat. First we've got to open the valve, contract [SOUNDS LIKE], depress the air, get the air out of the tube. So now we've got it flat. Again you may have gotten a flat and not needed to let the air out. We're going to use tire levers to get the tire off. So what you do is you take this--you get under the bead of the tire. Pry it off. You'd probably need two. So you get one hooked under, Christian is going to get the second one lined up, now he's got a good portion of the tire off. Now he can work with the tire a little bit to remove the whole side here at the bead from the rim. Remove one side completely. Go opposite side of the valve. Start removing the tube. Now if we're going to change the tire we would actually have to remove the whole tire from the wheel but we're just going to change a tube. A tire would have to reseat one side on one bead to get it so that we can then re-seat the tube. So we'll re-seat the tube on the tire and on the wheel. How much pressure do you recommend putting in to get started just to--? CHRISTIAN: I would run maybe just about 5 psi just enough to get the tube nice and round. KEVIN LIVINGSTON: So just enough air to get the tube nice and round, maybe 5 psi. He's using --He closed the valve there so that he keeps that air and to help him set that tube in the tire. He starts with the valve stem. Feed the tube into the tire. Now, begin to seat the tire back on to the rim. You notice he's not using the tire levers because a lot of the time if you use the tire levers, you end up pinching your tube putting the tire back on. He's making this look easy because he's a seasoned veteran. A lot of times it's very difficult to pull the tire on so you have to work your way up to where--how he's done here and it may take even a friend or a partner out riding. Right now he's using the tire lever to seat the tube up into the tire so that he doesn't pinch it on this last portion of pulling the tire over. Again pushing the tube up and over so that it's not stuck between the bead of the tire and the rim when he does the final portion there putting this on. He's got the tube seated in there. He needs some help getting it on or? Nope, he's got it easy. He's just going to roll that tire the last part over. Snap it in to the rim. You're all set. I do recommend checking like you just did there. What did you do? You checked to make sure-- CHRISTIAN: Yeah. Basically what you want to do is check inside the tire right here to make sure that you don't have the tube underneath the bead of the tire. KEVIN LIVINGSTON: Right. CHRISTIAN: Soon it will blow off. KEVIN LIVINGSTON: So he's checked that there is no tube between your tire bead and your rim so that when you blow it up it doesn't come through and pop. A technique he used is you can grab the tube and just sort of wiggle it up if it is showing to make sure it's not there. So now we're going to pump it back up we should be ready to go. Help him out here. All right, thanks Christian. CHRISTIAN: You're welcome. KEVIN LIVINGSTON: That's a pro tire tube change with the help of Christian at Mellow Johnny's Bike Shop.
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