Hi!
I recently bought a bike and need to pump up the tires, but have never done so. I have watched some TikTok videos and understand the general idea, but I can’t get my pump to fully latch into the tire valve. It doesn’t seem to go far enough down onto the valve to properly latch on.
Any help is greatly appreciated!
by fintan238
3 Comments
Well, you don’t, not at this point. The tube slid inside the tire and is not aligned with the valve hole. You better remove (or just open) the tire, slide the tube and the valve to a 90° angle, put the tire back, and then you’ll be able to pump normally. If you don’t do that, you might burst your tube quickly.
If you were able to pump that tire up, it would almost immediately sheer, tear, or cut the inner tube at the stem. You fix the problem, that’s how you deal with this. Remove one side of the tire, align the tube stem with the hole so the stem is straight, and then reinstall that side of the tire. All you need are some plastic tire spoons which can be bought from any bike shop for less than $10 and probably off of amazon for less than $5.
[Here’s a Park Tool tutorial on how to replace an inner tube.](https://youtu.be/eqR6nlZNeU8?si=fd2XfcBiLcZNn4rj)
You need to shuffle the tyre round a bit to get the valve straight. Then (assuming the tyres are completely flat) push the valve from the back (through the tyre) to get a good connection with the pump.
Those tyres look rather cracked – might be superficial but indicative that the tyre rubber generally is perished and won’t give particularly good performance.