This.
Also a road bike tire actually carries a very small amount of air. That means that it doesn’t take much air loss to have a dramatic drop in pressure.
You might still try 28mm tires, or even 32mm, if they fit your bike. They improve ride quality, allow you to use lower air pressure, and lose air at a slower rate. The difference in speed is usually negligible.
Just wow, an entire thread all to explain to Mister Rik how to put air in a tire.
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samclem has already cautioned you not to be insulting to other posters in this forum. This is an official warning. Do not do this again.
Colibri
General Questions Moderator
The purpose of the presta valve is that it does not lose as much PSI when pulling the chuck off compared to a schrader - having as close to the exact right PSI is important to performance oriented riders, but no big deal to anyone else. They are a pain in the ass though, it has to be the most frequent problem that people have asked me about in the years I’ve worked in bicycle shops, I don’t think I’ve encountered anyone who is new to cycling who found them simple and easy to use.
Some people use nitrogen to fill their tires so that their is less rapid loss of PSI. I don’t know anyone personally that does that though.
I’m still confused about having to hold the pump on the stem while you pump, if you pull the stem through and lock the pump onto it, you shouldn’t have to hold it with one hand.
Anyway, something i don’t think anyone has mentioned, if 125 psi is the maximum listed on your tire, you are probably over-doing it it by inflating to 125 psi all the time. You would probably be better served somewhere between 105-115.
Guess I’ll have to take my encyclopedic knowledge of how to put air in a tire elsewhere… I’ll be the envy of all who struggle with such Herculean tasks… :smack:
That is usually an acceptable range. If you want to get super technical about ideal PSI you have to factor in body weight and look at a chart, and maybe consider road conditions as well. Your pump head seems to be worn, the pump should just lock on. It is very common for people to not press the head on enough before trying to lock it on, so you might want to try pushing it on a little harder before locking it. I would actually consider just drilling the hole to accept schrader valves(as mentioned by another poster earlier), there would be no down side to doing this, any decent LBS can do it in a few minutes if they are not busy.
(Bolding mine) Depending upon the rim (both composition & design - are they aero rims, width, etc.) you could undermine the integrity of the wheel. I sure as hell wouldn’t want that as my front wheel on a pothole-strewn downhill.
Based upon the wheel he has(assuming it is the original that came with the bike) I would disagree with that statement. When redrillling from presta to schrader it is such a small amount being taken away it would not have an effect on the strength. I have never seen or heard of such an issue as you describe arising from redriiling, do you happen to have a cite that discusses this? I would not want to inadvertently give unsafe advice.
Mr. Nylock has the right of it - it’s a tiny amount of metal you’re removing. Make no diff to 99% of wheelsets.
You wouldn’t do it to an aero rim, mind, as the schraeder valve is too short and you can’t typically get long schraeders [I’m sure they exist but I’ve never seen them available on bike inner tubes].
Mister Rik,a pump for you.
As soon as I win the lottery.
You bring up a good point. If your tire is 700x28 or above you will have no problem finding a long valve schrader tube(they started becoming much more common after Target started selling Schwinn hybrid bikes with deep dish “Swift” rims that come with schrader valves). If you have a 700x25 or lower width tire it will be difficult to find tubes with a long enough stem for an aero rim. It is possible to use a 700x28 tube with a 700x25 tire, but it is very difficult to avoid bunching the tube.
You should really go to a bike shop with your bike and ask them before you do anything; this forum kind of leads us all to make assumptions about the equipment you have in order to simplify things.
I wish my digital camera hadn’t died, so that I could post a photo of my rims. I don’t even have a smartphone.
If I simply need to pump up an already-mostly-inflated tire, it’s not much trouble to get the pump chuck to grab on. But if the tire is completely flat, the whole valve stem wants to disappear into the rim and tire, and it’s a bunch of work to get enough of it out so that the pump can get a grip.
And the tires go completely flat because I don’t ride as much as I should. I haven’t gone for a ride at all this summer, which is what prompted me to start this thread. I said, “Damn, I need to get on this bike and go”, but first I had to go through all the convolutions of getting air back into the tires.
This is the first bike I’ve ever owned that was equipped with presta valves, so to answer Mr. Insult up there (cmdrpiffle): Nobody fucking explained to me the differences between Schraeder and Presta valves. I’ve ridden bicycles since I was a child, and inflating a tire was always a very straightforward process, thanks to Schraeder valves. Nobody, even at the bike shop where I bought the damn thing, mentioned the additional steps necessary for working with a Presta valve.
What additional steps? The only additional step is loosening the valve, but then you don’t need a valve cap on a presta so it’s not exactly additional. Any other problems you are having are to do with stem length, not stem type. I have the same problem with schrader valves on my mountain bike, they’re not long enough when the tyre is flat.
Get some new tubes with longer valves and/or with stem nuts and it will once again be a very straight forward process.
You could get 60mm presta valves to replace what you have and also use an adapter. If it makes you feel any better, the problems you are having are extremely common. You should be able to go into a shop and they can explain everything to you; the best time to go is mid afternoon or when it is overcast; at other times shops can be way too busy to spend much time with you.
Specifically, “burping” the tire - the bit in the video posted earlier about letting a bit of air out before attaching the pump. That’s not something that would have occurred to me, and nobody mentioned it. So all this time, I’ve been “forcing” the air into the tire, assuming it was just an annoying characteristic of Presta valves.
On another note, I just realized that the first sentence of my final paragraph in my previous post looks like me being insulting in GQ. I apologize, and blame my exhaustion after a long day.
Sorry for your angst and deep butt hurt at the world being so cruel so as not to explain how to pump up a bike tire.
Must be rough being you
A tire shouldn’t go completely flat in one season. You probably have a leaky tube. Take it as an opportunity to replace it with a new tube with a longer valve. That should alleviate both problems.