Valve Stems Tire

Valve Stems Tire

If you ride any distance or any time at all, you're going to have a flat tire eventually. Heck, you'll get a flat even if you don't ride at all and just let your bike sit. Like a balloon, bike tubes seep air at the molecular level and eventually go soft.

Let's start by trying to avoid flats. There are two ways. First, you can buy flat-proof tubes and have them installed in your tires. Unlike car tires, most bicycle tires still need tubes inside them to hold the air. There are tubeless wheels and tires out there, but mostly for mountain bike racers. Flat-proof tubes are either very thick rubber, or filled with sealant, or both. The thick flat-proof tubes are both heavier and tend to give a slightly harsher ride than regular tubes, but it's a reasonable trade-off if you get a lot of flats.

The second way to avoid a flat is to fill your current tubes with sealant, like Slime or Airlock. Unfortunately, this is not yet as easy as it should be, and it may be easier to buy new tubes already filled with sealant. To fill your existing tubes, you have to pull the valve core out with a special tool that's included with the sealant, fill the tube with the goopy stuff, then reinstall the valve core and air up the tube. It's doable, but dumb. A bike shop can do it for you in just a few minutes.

Fixing A Flat

Fixing a flat is doable and not a bad skill to have. It's also something most bike shops will do for $5 or $10, so keep that in mind and choose accordingly.

If your rides take you away from town, it's a no-brainer to carry a spare tube, pump, and tire irons with you. Tubes and tire irons (and a patch kit) can get stuffed into a little storage pouch that attaches under your seat. Pumps get attached to the frame of your bike. If you don't have the stuff on your bike, you'll have to hoof it home and fix the flat there. Here's an overview, then step-by-step instructions. The method for getting the wheel off varies from bike to bike, and from front to back.

• Take the wheel off the bike.

• Pry one edge of the tire off the wheel so you can take the tube out.

• Take out the old tube out.

• Check the tire for thorns or nails (so you don't puncture your new tube too!)

• Install the new tube.

• Reseat the tire on the wheel and inflate the tube.

• Finally, reinstall the wheel on your bike and ride home.

Cross-country racers can do this in under two minutes, but they are weird people who get up early, drive long distances, and pay good money to suffer badly, so we won't worry much about them.

Here's how to remove the wheel. Start by taking a look at it. You need to see what kinds of brakes you have to deal with and how the wheel attaches to the bike. Like your seat, it'll either be a quick release or nuts. Start with the brakes. If you have coaster brakes, skip ahead because you don't need to mess with any stinkin' brakes. If you have brakes you apply by squeezing a lever, you may have to loosen them in order to get the wheel off the bike. How they loosen can vary.

If it's a fairly new mountain-type bike, the brake arms separate when you take the tip of the curvy piece at the end of the brake cable (technically called the "noodle") out of the slot it fits into on the other arm. Older-style cantilever brakes usually have a release lever on the brake itself or on the brake lever. Flip the lever, and you create enough slack to slip the wheel out. Bikes with skinny tires and wheels often don't have any release at all because you can slip the wheel in and out without loosening the brakes.

So, however it happens on your bike, step one is loosening the brakes if you need to.

Now, take a look at the wheel itself. An axle runs through the center of the wheel and attaches the wheel to the bike. That attachment will either be a quick release—look for a lever—or nuts that thread onto each end of the axle.

Before you loosen the attachment, lift the bike up by the handlebars, flip it over, and set it upside down on its seat and handlebars. Now, loosen the wheel attachment either by opening the quick release or loosening the nuts. If it's a quick release, the front wheel may not lift straight out even when you've opened it. They put little tabs on the front fork to keep wheels from coming off if the quick release gets accidentally opened while you ride. There is no jaw-breaking face-plant that comes faster or harder than the front wheel suddenly coming off your bike while you ride. To get the wheel off, hold the nut on the opposite side of the axle from the quick-release lever and spin the lever itself counter-clockwise. A few revolutions around and you'll be able to lift the wheel out.

Remember, you'll have to tighten the quick release the same amount when you reattach the wheel.

Front wheels lift straight out. Rear wheels lift out or forward and out. With the rear wheel, you also have to deal with the chain. Once the wheel is loose, hold the chain with your left hand and lift the wheel a little with your right. When the wheel is free of the bike, lift the chain off the toothed sprocket and pull the wheel out and to the side to clear the chain. You can just let the chain dangle there on the bike until you're ready to put the wheel back on.

Okay, now the wheel is off the bike. Let's get the tire off the wheel—or more accurately, let's get one side of the tire off the wheel. You don't need to take it completely off.

To get the tire off, you'll need at least two tire irons, small plastic pry bars that come with most tube-repair kits or are sold separately for a few nickels. Usually two will do the trick, but a third can come in handy if your tires are stubborn.

To start, let out any air that's left in the tube. If you're being forced to change a flat, this has already been done for you. Next, take one tire iron and slip it between the tire and rim of the wheel on the far

side of the wheel from the valve stem. Catch the edge of the tire with the tip of the tire iron, and pull the iron toward you and down to pry that edge of the tire out of the rim. Hook that tire iron under a spoke and leave it there, holding the tire. If you can't hook it, you'll just have to hold it. Now take your second tire iron and do the same thing four or five inches away from the first. Pry up that second part of the tire, which will pull up the length of the tire between the two tire irons. Usually, that's enough to loosen the whole tire, and all you have to do is slide a finger or a tire iron around between the side of the rim and the tire's edge and you'll loosen the rest. Sometimes, it takes prying up a third bit of tire with the third tire iron to get it to go. And if you think this is hard and frustrating, try it with a damn motorcycle tire and wheel some time. I guarantee you'll work up a sweat, bloody a knuckle, and swear enough to make a sailor blush before you're done. At least my wife did . . .

Now the tire should be out of the rim all the way around on one side. Reach in and pull the inner tube out. You'll have to push the valve stem down through the hole in the wheel to get it out, and a few valve stems have small nuts that hold them in place in the hole. Spin the nut off if you have to, then push the valve through and pull the tube completely out. You can patch it if you want, but new tubes are only a few bucks so we're going to skip the patching procedure. If you're out on the road somewhere and don't have a spare and need to patch the tube, there will be instructions on the patch kit itself.

Before you put in a new tube, reach inside the tire and rub your fingers all the way around it on the inside. You're feeling for a thorn or nail or piece of glass that's poking through on the inside that you may not be able to see from the outside. You may well cut yourself doing this, so feel slowly. If you find something, either push it out and take it out from the outside of the tire, or if that doesn't work, pull it through from the inside. Do whatever it takes to get rid of it. Few things are more frustrating than replacing a tube and immediately getting a new flat.

Now, take your new tube and pump a little air into it. You're not making life preservers or balloon animals here, just giving it enough air to hold its shape. Take the valve stem and line it up with the hole in the rim. Push the tube into the tire there, then work all the way around so the whole tube is inside the tire. It's still off to the side of the rim at this point. Now, work the valve stem through the hole and push the tube and tire over so they're centered over the rim. It'll look like the wheel is ready to go, except that the edge of the tire isn't tucked into the rim. So now we tuck it in.

Start by the valve stem, and push the edge of the tire inside the edge of the rim. You'll be able to do this with your fingers. Work your way around in both directions. Toward the end, the tire will feel tight and it'll be hard to slide the edge over the rim. At that point, use your tire irons again to pry the tire back into place. It's usually not too hard. When the tire slips into place, look at the valve stem. It should be sticking straight up through the rim. If it's angled over, slide the tire and tube around on the rim slightly until it's right. Then pump up the tube.

Reattach the wheel to your bike. If it's a rear wheel, make sure to put the chain back on the sprocket. Also make sure the wheel is lined up straight with your bike—it's possible to slip it in at an angle if you're not paying attention. Tighten the wheel, either with the axle nuts or by closing the quick-release. It should take a fair amount of pressure to close the quick-release lever. If there's no pressure, it's not holding your wheel on at all, so open the lever, tighten it by spinning it clockwise, then lock it down again. It's a trial-and-error process to find the right pressure.

When the wheel is back on, flip the bike back over, reattach your brakes if necessary, and take it for a test ride. Brakes that rub now (and didn't before) are a sigh that the wheel isn't in straight. Loosen it again, straighten up the wheel, and retighten. (Quick releases are so handy it's not even funny.)

That's all it really takes, and it sounds harder than it is. If you're not sure you can remember all the steps to changing the tire, you could always practice in your living room some Sunday afternoon. Just pretend you have a flat tire and walk through taking the wheel off and taking the tube out. Then put it all back together and try your bike out. Once you've done it once, it'll be easy the next time.