YouWereAsking
I’ve never fitted beaded edge tyres before, but am having a go for my BSA Round Tank, which has 24x2¼in covers. Following a friend’s advice, I was planning to cut a ‘V’ in both beads for the valve to poke through, but then I read on the internet this is bad practice, so I’ve tried fitting without cutting the Vs. I’m now having difficulty getting the inner tube valve to poke through the beads and into its hole in the rim. How can I do this?
Clive Hopkins, email.
Like all offered on the internet, the tyre fitting advice you read needs weighing up. Unless beads are skimpy, I can’t see how the instruction not to cut Vs in the beads for the inner tube valve will work, as the inner side of the beads are flaps which overlap to protect the inner tube from the spoke nipples, while the outer part snugs into the rolled beads of the wheel rim.
We’ve been fitting beaded edge tyres for many years – in my case over 50 years – and have always cut mating Vs in the beaded edge tyre inner bead flaps. The cut is kept to a minimum and never goes to near the section of bead which mates with the wheel rim, but is enough to permit sufficient free passage of the valve. As well as fit beaded edge tyres, we have removed plenty of old examples, and all to date have had a V or semi-circular cutaway for the valve. Three sets of old removed tyres had beads shaped by the maker during fabrication for the valve. And of these one had two further pairs of moulded cutaways, which I assume were to permit the use of security bolts.