How To Change A Bike Tyre

Hello, my name's John, from On Your Bike in London. I've been a bike mechanic for 12 years. I'm going to show you a few things about bikes, like saddle height and setting it up, the correct size, and a few maintenance tips as well.

How to change a bike tire? I'll show you on the front of this bike. To get the tire out, you squeeze the brakes together. You can release the brakes if your tires are inflated.

If your tires are deflated, then you don't have to do this. So you squeeze them together; see, that releases out of there and that undoes the brakes. This one's got nuts holding the grill on, whereas with some, they're quick release with a lever, which you undo.

So, if I undo the nuts on this one, again, it's 15 mil the same size as the other. Here comes the wheel. On this one, we need to deflate it.

Dust cap. Get the air out. A tip for getting a tire off, especially if they're really small or road tires is if you move the tire around, and that breaks the bead, you can hear it cracking and making a noise and that makes it slack on the rim.

It just makes it a lot easier to get off. And if it's really slack, you can normally pull it off. I can probably pull this one off if I shove it with a tire lever.

What you've got to do is mind the inner tube, make sure the inner tub's okay. And it just hooks under there, and if it's really tight, you might need to use a couple of those. Just hook them onto the spokes, and then that goes underneath there, and that unhooks it.

And now, this one's become slack, you just run the lever around. I recommend putting it on the floor, and if you move it over to the side, and then you just pull, you'll find that the tire tube will come off and then you're left with the wheel. A common cause of punctures is this, what they call rim tape - it comes the inside of the rim - it's like this one, you see where the spoke is poking through? That could cause a puncture quite easily.

So before I put this back, I just make sure that's covered because that could be why they're having problems. Now, you take the inner tube out, and then on the inside of the tire, just very carefully and slowly work your way around the tire to make sure there's no cuts, nothing inside or any sharp objects. If there are, you might need some long-nose pliers, and either push it back through, or pull it through, depending on the shape of the object which way it's going to go.

This one feels okay, so I can refit that one. Once you've put the wheel back into the folds of the wheel frame, just tighten them or if it's a quick release, make sure the lever's pointing upwards - just make sure that's tight. And then most important, remember to reconnect your brake.

You pull the wire, and then this little part here, that's got a cut-out, that's got to fit through the wire here. Squeeze the brakes together, and now that your brake's reconnected, just make sure that everything's running freely. If it's not, then you might just need to undo it and adjust it.

That's it. .