I am in the process of upgrading my MUni whilst I am out of action (still with that broken ankle). Anyway, I am thinking that my rim will have to go. It’s a Mavic 321disc- I love this rim (except during tyre removal) but it’s gonna have to make way for a rim that is compatible with rim brakes.
My current set up is a 26’Mavic 321 with 26x2.6’ Gazz. This is great in terms of strengh and performance, but is it just my weak little fingers or has anyone else with this combination found it just about impossible to get the tyre on and off this rim??? Lucky that it is fairly bulletproof, as I don’t think I would want to change the tyre very often. I can’t do it even with tyre levers/lubricants. In fact, I have to bring it into my bike shop every time so that Mr Gorrilla-fingers-bike-mechanic can spend five minutes pulling it off with his bare hands.
Whew, got that off my chest. What would be a good (non-disc) rim/tyre combo that would make for easy removal, and reasonable performance? Mavic 521 and Gazz? Sun (ugh) and Gazz? Alex and Gazz? Mavic and Intense?
I use motorcycle tire irons getting the 24x3 Gazz off the DoubleWide and
Avro rims. Sometimes it seems really difficult and other times, not so
bad… Be gentle with the longer metal tire irons.
—Nathan
“jagur” <jagur.8bh0y@timelimit.unicyclist.com> wrote in message news:jagur.8bh0y@timelimit.unicyclist.com…
>
> i dont know,but i can tell you that i needed 2 tire levers and had to
> borrow the neighbors Rottweiler to get a 3 inch Gazz off a 24 inch Alex
> rim.
>
> i would check into tire levers that are longer than the shortys they
> sell at shops
I’ve been upgrading my MUni while recovering from an injured ankle, though not as bad as your break (hope it mends quick BTW). If (when) I upgrade my rim I’m going for the Halo Combat with brake surfaces mainly because Roger supplies them so that makes it easy to get hold of in the UK, don’t know about NZ. I’m not sure how they are for tyre fitting/removal with the various wide tyres but I use an old pair of 10” tyre levers (they made ‘em strong back then I’m told) that I’ve used to take a car tyre of with before and I never have a problem, you just have to be careful not to damage the rim.
What brakes are you planning on? And how are you fitting them? I’ve got an old Magura but I think it will have to wait until I get a Halo rim as the Nimbus II rim is narrower and I don’t want to fit it twice if there ends up being not enough adjustment.
I’m probably going to go for std v-brakes to keep the weight down. Most likely Avid single digit ultimates or single digit Ti’s. That’s if they have enough tyre clearance. I’ve been using shimano XTR on my MTB but that is the worst piece of $%!# ever invented. Works great until the linkage loosens up and start flopping around- they used to take them back and rebush them but they’ve stopped that altogether in NZ. Avoid these at ALL costs- there is a big boxful of XTR scrap in my local bikeshop.
I’ll probably have them fitted after my wheel is built- need to get someone to weld on some brake bosses for me. I was also considering this device: http://www.unicycle.com/shopping/shopexd.asp?id=566
I wonder how well it works?
My muni came with this rim and a 3" Halo Contra tyre; fitting the tyre using two short tyre irons was harder than any other bike tyre I’ve put on but it wasn’t problematical.
I did find that the paint on the nice shiny white rim did scratch easily though, so there are a few little marks where the last bit of tyre went on. No doubt now there are other scratches from actually riding the thing now, but it was still heartbreaking to see even tiny scratches on it less than an hour after I’d unwrapped it…