Switched the outfit from the M&S's to the summer tyres yesterday. No great shakes once you've done it a couple of times. To add a few pointers to the above:

Find tyres that work well for you. My front Mitas bead can be broken by hand but I've had Pirelli's on the MZ and my dads Guzzi that only came off with the hacksaw. I've run tubeless marked tyres with tubes that were easier on and off that some tube types although generaly TT is best. Another example of an industry with standards that then does what the heck it fancies at the time.

Unless you are riding a 125 two up, add a G-clamp to your kit. You can use it as a bead breaker and to hold a tyre in the rim well. Three levers are easier than two and you don't need twelve footers.

Once you've had a tyre off, lube the new one as it goes on. No tyre shop ever does this, it's good for their business that you need a press to do a job that a 4-inch lever should achieve. Tyre lube is best followed by grated up hand soap in water. At a push WD-40, lithium grease or washing up liquid all work they just might give issues (corrosion etc.) later.

Don't forget the rim protectors, they aren't just for the shiney chrome brigade, a badly placed lever will dent a rim.

Check the rim tape and feel inside the tyre for additional nails. I've seen plenty of high speed tube changes ruined when matey had another flat three miles down the road due to the second nail he didn't look for

"High pressure" for bead seating means 50 PSI, not 150. If it hasn't seated at 50 you need grease, a reposition on the rim and maybe a different tyre. Go too high and you'll start to wreck the tube before you've turned a wheel. There are pictures on every sidecar website of Goldwings that have had car tyres fitted on the standard rim, had the bead seated at massive pressure and subsequently exploded.

Dump the foam, it doesn't work. Slime and Ultraseal work up to their limits but are messy when they finally fail.

The 21-inch tube thing is a gimmic used by racers. The same lunatics save less than the weight of my breakfast by drilling holes all over the place and carrying various adjustable spanners and 70-quid aluminium widgits for undoing/rounding off the nuts. It's fine if the worse that can happen is that you loose a position in the championship, but a third puncture in a day due to overloading the wrong tube up some trail in Kazakhstan can loose you days or weeks if you shred the tyre. Do the job right to start with and know it's good for thousands of miles IMHO.

Fit a flap to the front mudguard. A lot of rear punctures are caused by detritus lined up by the front. The "fashion" mudguards on the bikes do nothing. Extent the mudguard with a bit of cut up oil bottle, conveyor rubber or plastic fenda-thingy and you save hassle.

Get some baby wipes, tyres are always filthy and you don't want that inside your gloves.

Warn your wife/Girlfriend about why you are going out and buying baby powder, hand wipes and tubes of lubricant, it saves time

Don't let any of this stuff put you off. Practice and you'll be self sufficient Only trouble then is you'll aquire a stack of part used tyres as you start to experiment with different types. I'm growing potatos in mine

Andy

WD duck oil works a treat ,
tempreture helps no end , getting them on and off
you shouldn,t have a problem , i have to stick my tyres in the airing cupboard to soften them up here .
I,d always use the wright size tube .

Even if you never change your tyres yourself, home or away, you should at least know how to....

You just never know.

Being stranded in the wilderness for the sake of not knowing how to fix a flat is just crazy....

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

This is excellent advice, I should have mentioned it . With thorns or cactus spines, (you get a lot of these in England? ) you can run your hand through the tire and realize you've got 3 or 4 more hidden spines you didn't pull out. This is how Baja riders have 8 flat days Been there, done that.

Slime is water soluble and cleans up in two minutes. With a tube and Slime, there IS not a mess unless the tube is shredded. Rare. When I hear this stuff it makes me realize folk have never actually used Slime before, or are using the old style sticky Fix-A-Flat foam crap they used to sell. Slime is totally different, not a foam, not sticky and it works! It is not new, we've been using it for over 10 years here.

Gimmick? Come to California and meet some real desert racers. It's not a gimmick. We learn a lot from racing and racers. Pick up the useful stuff, let the rest go. 21" tubes have worked for thousands of riders for decades. Not just racers, just normal dual sport guys too.

I said use a 21" tube "In a Pinch". This means if you are out of rear tubes, use a 21". I carry both sizes. BTW, Racers don't stop to change a tire, they just ride it flat round to the pitts, then the crew just fit a new wheel. Running a 21" tube will never cause damage to a tire, it might go flat, little else would happen unless you rider is dump enough to ride the flat across Mongolia.

On a rare occasion a 21" may fold or crease funny and get flatted, but I've not seen this happen .... in about 30 years. A motorcycle is not an outfit. On an outfit you can haul spare wheels/tires, jacks, Beer and G clamps. Not so much on a bike!

I've used slime, thought it'd save space on the solo. It sealed the first dozen holes but the nail was still in there and eventually found the tube seam, made a V-shaped cut and went flat. The only solution was to get the tube out, which as I wasn't carrying irons meant a shop. Fortunately this was France on a Tuesday not Mongolia, the UK or any other backwards place where such repairs take forever. I still have the front tube filled with the stuff and it's still oozing sticky green goo onto into the box of spare tubes after goodness knows how many washes (the goo floats as a sort of scum, which in my mind isn't soluable). It's messy and ultimately seems pointless if you are going places where you'd still need to carry the irons.

I'd use a front tube in the rear at a push, but we are talking heavily loaded overland bikes here. I'd want the wrong tube out ASAP which means more mess and hassle switching back when you find the right tube (I guess racers do that after the race?). Two correct sized tubes versus a single 21-inch is a lot of risk for little saving IMHO. No idea how Desert Racing would relate to doing thousands of miles a week at 40 mph with a ton of gear on the bike, don't they have helicopters and 4x4's along for when they run out of their sponsors brand of sun block?

Andy

I found silicone grease worked very well in helping get the tyre on. Also smeared it all over the inner tube so it could wriggle about inside the tyre. NO idea if it helps or not, but so far so good...

It might (or might not) mousses are slapped with the stuff to allow fitting and it's supposed to prevent overheating (messy & sticky but strangely fun)

For a tube, I'll stick with talc in the tyre and on the tube with a little bit of tyre-soap or WD40 to help seat the beads.

I don't think Mickey was saying carrying only 21" tubes as a suggestion for overlanders. Though I have read somewhere on here in the past someone propose to do just that and I agree it's daft. But it's a good tip for days out trail riding. And it's worth baring in mind for if you ever are in the middle of Mongolia or somewhere and lose or wreck all your rear tubes but still have a good 21"er. Same for using 18" or 19" in a 17". And some people report successfully using smaller tubes when it's all there's been available, eg 18" on a 19" wheel.


I don't carry anything to lube the tyre/rim for puncture repairs on the road. I can't be doing with the hassle of carrying yet another plastic container to break or burst and make a mess of my other gear. If I feel like using a lubricant when changing tyres at home, I generally use window cleaner spray as it's quick and not messy.

I've recently heard the theory that if you use too much washing up liquid or similar as a lube for refitting tyres after punctures, it increases the chance of patches not sticking effectively. Makes sense to me.

For getting the bead to seat evenly on tubed tyres, bouncing the tyre hard on the ground works though can be doing it for up to 10 or 15 minutes sometimes! If you don't bounce it straight the wheel will go flying to one side, so don't bounce it so it can bounce either towards or away from you - If you bounce it hard enough it'll hit you in the face and it f-ing hurts!

Rimlocks. As well as letting you run ultra low tyre pressures, rimlocks also reduce the chances of damaging the tyre if you choose to ride on a flat. I guess they also make the bike more rideable as the tyre can't move quite as much.

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UK to Mongolia 2009, on a DR350

A block of old fashioned green hand soap works well and won't make a mess. Chop with a knife and add 50/50 to warm water if you have the facilities, rub on if you don't. Depends on the tyres and rims of course, the Triumph and XT work fine without, BMW F650s and Guzzi 16-inch rears require a three ton press, ten-foot poles and three Rugby players!

Andy

Fixing flats is one thing - you'll have to do this on the road at sometime so you should be prepared, and experienced. Being able to change a tire is also good to know - or good to know that you can do it if ever required.

Of course, if you're at home, got the tools, why not - just to keep in practice.

But...if you're changing your own tires (even fixing flats) in them undeveloped countries, you're wasting your time. I mean, every town has a tire change expert, and they charge so little, so its also not a matter of cost. (you aren't that cheap, are you?).

I mean, changing tires - you get to decide when and where to change them - not like a flats that may happen at the worst possible time, worst possible place. So why not pay some guy the equivalent of a to do the grunt work. And besides, it is very entertaining to see the tools and techniques these guys have developed - maybe even show you a few good tips you can employ next time you really need to do it yourself.

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quastdog
Chiang Mai, Thailand