Endless pinch flat issues changing 25 mm tyres

[ayceejay]

I was out for a ride down Portsmouth way on my way back from Lands End one day when I saw this geezer at the side of the road trying to get the tyre back on a wheel. He had a tyre lever the size of a cricket bat and was all sweaty. I stopped to help him, poor dear and after a short conversation agreed to show him how to do it without any artificial aids other than talcum powder, I think I left him in high spirits apart from a deflated ego and a broken cricket bat.

 

[andrew_s]

If you see you are about to run into a pothole, transfer your weight from the saddle to the pedals and allow the bike to rock underneath you.
With practice it's even possible to unweight the saddle on feeling the front wheel enter the hole, provided you aren't going too fast (works up to 15-16 mph)

 

[albion]

I would suggest that is standard practice for almost everyone not in a race.
It is embedded in the technique to surviving those potholes.

The new culprit this time was the Newbottle to Ryton Road, the side east of the A19.
A slow also puncture came to mind but not that, I did a repair there and then.

 

[snailracer]

You can get 35mm tyres which are fast, no need for 25mm. Their puncture resistance will be inferior to "standard" 35mm tyres, but no probably no worse than 25mm ones.

 

[albion]

Well I did that route again at the weekend.
There were as many craters as there were potholes. There are certainly impossible not to miss unless acclimatised.

 

[Smurfy]

That's pretty much the way it is for tight combinations of rims and tyres on the first fitting. After that, some tyres stretch a bit after running at max pressure for a few weeks. Some never seem to get any easier.

I've had too many tyres where I thought the skin on my thumbs would peel away from my finger nails before I'd get the wretched things on! Can be quite painful sometimes.

 

[alans]

I normally ride 35 mm Schwalbe Marathon Plus tyres, but as I'm riding my first 100 miler tomorrow I've swapped to 25mm in the same tyres.

All done now, finally, but along the way I discovered...

a) that 25 mm are a LOT harder to get back on the wheel
b) how annoying an endless series of pinch flats can be (think I scored 8 and trashed 3 inners)
c) how important technique is
d) how helpful youtube is
e) that using levers to put the tyre back on was causing the pinch flats
f) that it IS possible to put the tyre back on without using levers, no matter how impossible it seemed when I started

Then again it could just be clumsy old me.

No it's not you being clumsy,I've BTDTGTTS.

My experience with new 25mm Marathon+ is as per your a) to f)