Fitted new front tyre and tube a month or so ago. Yesterday, the best day of our year up here so far, and flat tyre. Looked at it last night pumped it up and left it. This morning, another cracker, and flat as fek again. In from work tonight, changed the valve and this time I 'painted' some soapy liquid around the valve and stem. BIG bluddy bubbles coming from the base of the valve stem..........so need to get the thing off and pick up another new tube

Hee jim " lovely day too. take the bonnie oot ,,,,,

That is what's known as the law of sod.

Hopefully there'll be some more good days for you to enjoy this year once you've got the new tube in.

Jimmy could have been worse, you could have got a flat up the highlands with no signal.

Well 10 days later and its still not fixed.

My shift pattern changed to mon-fri so I couldn't get into the local bike shop. Eventually sent my boy in but the shop is closed for the Fair Holidays......Ordered an inner tube from flea bay and it arrived on thursday so took it in to the guy that does my car tyres but he's shut so went round the other car tyre places but no-one would touch it....as I said FFS

Need to order myself a decent set of tyre levers so I can deal with any future punctures

Tell ya what i did a tubeless bike tyre the other day , first time ever, I have a bead breaker tyre changer thinigie , so easy and no feart of pinching tube

Feel your pain jimmy, had the same thing on one of my bikes, took over 2 weeks until I got it sorted today

I got irons from Stafford s few years ago, £10 for 2

paid for them selves a couple of times as helped a few peeps out changing their tyres

I've had problems with the XJ turbo wheels as they are 19', most tyre machines are limited to 18's but I ended up making my own set of jaws that fitted the existing machine I had to hand,

The DT tyres can be changed with a pair of big screwdrivers, just be careful of the tubes, I replace the new tyre using only my boots with no levers at all, just make sure the shoulder is in the centre of the rim opposite where you're standing as it gives you more room to slip the tyre over the rim on the opposite side

2 "G" cramps and 2 big flat screwdrivers are all you need Jimmy, as above just watch out the inner tube.

I seen a clip on youtube using cable ties. I had a pack in garage so while I was waiting for my tyre levers to turn up from Ebay I thought I'd give it a go and to my surprise it works

great for alloys, no risk of damage to rims

So am I right to assume changing a tubed tyre is similar to doing it on a push bike?

Think so Andrew, just tougher rubber and a bit of a bugger to get back on.

Think so Andrew, just tougher rubber and a bit of a bugger to get back on.

Just smear some washing up liquid on the tyre bead first and should pop back on the rim a treat.

Or furniture polish apparently!

or a tub of tyre soap, which doesn't contain salt. Anyway tyre now back on bike so we're good to go

Tommy next time instead of waisting a pack of zip ties use tie down straps, changing a tire the first time is hard for anyone but everyone should learn and own some tire irons. A trick to doing tubed tires is to start 180 from the valve and finnish at the valve,this way you can push the tube into the tire and not pinch it, never push the tire irons all the way down to the rim center so you dont pinch the tube.

The first few times anyone I have ever tought how to do it struggled but after a few times it get easier.I have a tire machine at my disposal but it dosent do me any good when I am 200 miles from home.

Never thought of tie down straps. I'll borrow some from work before the weekend!

or a tub of tyre soap, which doesn't contain salt. Anyway tyre now back on bike so we're good to go

I use olive oil soap rather than the coal tar stuff, preserves the rubber better

Dumb question but in the absence of the above would 2 in one oil be ok?