These are 700×36 WTB Vulpine new tires with tubes. I’m using a floor pump and took them up to 80 psi or so. The lining around the tires seems that it isn’t totally set in the bead. I’ve tried getting it damp with soap and water but both front and back tires are noticeably bumpy. What am I doing wrong? Do I need an air compressor? What PSI should I pump them up to?
I’ve tried soap and can’t get these tires to set or bead, very bumpy ride
byu/lildawg07 ingravelcycling
by lildawg07
19 Comments
Air compressor will set the bead. Hand pump usually won’t.
Higher psi to set them.
An electric pump might be enough to set them, 15-20 dollars on AliExpress. Mine were giving shooting noises while setting so I run out of he room xD
If you don’t have a compressor just use a CO2 cartridge. It will seat that tire in 2 seconds.
Pull the valve core, soap it up, and let the air rip! I have a set of wheels that are angry with new tires as well. Sucks but you will figure it out.
80 PSI is more than enough and frankly for a tire of that volume is placing a lot of stress on the rim.
I’d back the pressure all the way back down and use a tire lever to push the bead back into the center channel of the rim and try again.
If that doesn’t work, then I’ve had good luck with having a little pressure in the tire (15-20 psi?), locating the portion of bead that hasn’t seated at the top of the rim facing away from you, wrapping your hands over the top of the tire and holding it in your palms like a baseball bat, and then twisting with a downward motion of your hands to pull the bead out of the channel and onto the rim. (similar to this at 2:30 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K12l7abS33A). The goal is to lift the sidewall and bead just enough that the pressure in the tire pushes it onto the shelf.
Put more liquid detergent on the edge of the rim and tire where it’s sticking. Inflate, massage, deflate a bit, massage, add liquid detergent. Swear, take a break and repeat. Deflate again, inflate a bit more than what it is going to be at. Eventually it will pop into place. Just keep working it.
It takes around 90psi for my 700×37 riddlers to seat on 19mm rims. What helped me was lots of soapy water when inflating and riding it around a little to help stretch the tire a little bit.
You can install it with tubes first or deflate it and massage problem areas into place some
A $25 schrader fill valve attachment for my air compressor has made this so easy for me to seat rubber
If you don’t know what your doing and you have very expensive carbon rims, just have a bike shop fix it for you, you can do a lot of damage if you don’t know what your doing.
I havnt read the comments and don’t own these tires, but what about extra layer or 2 of rim tape/gorilla tape? I never needed to try this but heard that helps, it gives the tire a tighter fit I belive
If the wheels are hooked, keep going with the pressure. If they are hookless, add more soapy water. Spray it directly on the bead of the wheel and tire before inflating.
This problem doesn’t occur with hooked rims and tubes.
I had so much trouble with my terravails. I had to warranty them.
The standard advice is to spray soapy water around the rim and over inflate them. That may fix it. If not warranty them
My new terravails don’t do this after getting them warrantied
Some tire/rim combos are just the absolute worst to seat when using tubes. The old tires I used on my gravel bike (carbon rims) would need to be seated pretty much every time they were deflated (ie not even taken off the rim). One time, it took setting a PR on a very rocky downhill gravel segment about 2/3rds of the way through a 60km ride to finally get the fucking tire to pop in place. The ride home was so nice after dealing with a constant bump all day.
I had the same issue a couple weeks ago. What I did is I pumped the max recommended pressure for the tire and then pull the unseated edges with my fingers. Just make sure you start pulling on the spot where the unseated part starts. That makes it way easier than pulling onto the center of unseated part.
[Rema Tip Top tyre mounting paste](https://www.bike-discount.de/en/rema-tip-top-remaxx-tire-mounting-paste) better than detergent. I use this in my workshop for mounting all tyres, very rarely do I need to massage a bead to get it seated.
Silicon shine from muc off, spray on bead of tyre and over inflate by 20psi if needed. Thry over inflating first.