Folding bikes come with tons of health benefits and are an excellent means of transportation for short or long distances. Most people choose bicycles over gas-operated heavy vehicles just because of their portability and user-friendliness.
Recently, riders tend to carry an extra tire in case of emergencies, especially while traveling to a remote location or off-roads. But, before the consequences, we should know how to fold a folding bike tire while starting the trip. Because there is a possibility of getting punctured your bike tires in the middle of the trip and it’s an embarrassing moment.
Therefore, our team is here to provide an optimal solution with the folding bike tire. It could be with your backpack or somehow else. Besides, we’ll also introduce you to how to carry and install tires as a DIYer. Let’s start the journey–
What Are Folding Bike Tires?
It’s important to know what the folding tires are before we’re going to fold them for carrying in a backpack. The folding tires are a special type of bike tires that come in a compact, flat, and foldable format to make them transportable. One of their main purposes is to ensure the safety of cyclists, especially on a long journey.
As your tire has a risk of popping in a hilly area, road, and off-road in an emergency situation. A tire puncture is a common issue nowadays among casual bikers and mountain bikers. They are made of Kevlar strands for greater flexibility, instead of wire bundles, unlike regular tires.
How To Fold A Folding Bike Tire?
You can fold a folding tire in many convenient ways for carrying it with your backpack. To do so, you can follow the ‘fold and tie’ method that’s the most popular way of carrying one. You can fold them much easier because of Kevlar strands, flexibility, and great traction. We’ll discuss all the possible methods for such spare bike tires.
Loop & Tie Folding
The most common and popular ways of folding the maximum tire in case of a long trip or outdoor adventure. In this method, you can give your tire shape two loops and even fold up to three loops to save bag space. You can put 2 to 3 ties in between folded conditions.
How to Fold a Spare Bicycle Tire for Bikepacking
However, you can fold the fat tires with only 2 loops since it’s a puffy shape. You’ll require only a few minutes to fold and tie a tire.
Store in Box
You can use boxes instead of leaving them in a tied condition, especially when feeling unsafe. Yes, now you can store a spare tire in a box just after rolling up them in tied or untied condition. The tires and other things you’re carrying inside the backpack will stay safe and secure. If one of your tires gets punctured you can keep the old one in that container for fixing the leakage issue.
How To Install Folding Bike Tire
Installing a folding bike tire is a challenging task for you, especially when you have little knowledge about the process. It can be more painful if you’re a new cyclist traveling a long distance. Therefore, it’s important to have the sound skill to replace or install foldable tires easily.
Here, we showed all the steps and processors to install a tire completely. You might face difficulties during the installation but trial and error is the best way to learn. The steps are–
Step 1: First of all, you have to inflate the tube and pump some air into the tube so gets a circular shape. It will help you to level perfectly and protect a tube from bending and damaging.
Step 2: Now, it’s time to place a level on the tire. According to many experts, it’s good practice to mark the tire so it fits well with the valve. You can use a colored pencil for defining the level of fitness. It’ll also help to identify any covert puncture. Usually, bike tires have a pre-defined level on their body indicating the pressure level and information.
Step 3: In this stage, fit the tube inside the tire with the valve indication level. Next, you have to mount the beads by pushing the valve into the rim. Make sure that the bottom of the rim comes in the center of the wheel.
Step 4: In this phase, get the tube and tire in a position so the valve at the bottom and so the open side as well. You can use both hands and thumbs to put it inside the tire. Besides, place your hands on the top of the tie to the side away from the leg. You can watch this reference video for a better understanding.
Mount A Kevlar Bead Folding Bike Tyre
Step 5: Now, it’s time to fit the third quarter which means the first section of bead over the rim. Next, lock the tire edge just inside the rim with both hands. The process will continue untill the remaining edge is locked halfway to the floor.
Step 6: After getting the position tire on the rim deflates the tube. You need to get the right amount of pressure inside the tube. You should not put any weight on the folded tire because if you do, it could pop back up again. This will help squeeze all the air out of the tube.
Step 7: Start by holding both ends of the tire at the same time. Pull the two ends towards each other until you feel resistance. Now slide your thumbs outwards, allowing the ends of the tire to separate.
If the tire is stretched correctly then the distance between your thumbs will follow the shortest possible route.
Step 8: When you’re feeling stuck, try to think about what you’ve already done and why it hasn’t worked out yet. If you feel like you’re going nowhere fast, then maybe you need to change your approach. Or perhaps there’s something else you should be doing instead.
Step 9: To check if there is an issue with your tires, push the valve stem up into the tire bead. If the valve seat isn’t inside the bead then the bead won’t lock onto the wheel rim. To fix this problem, wiggle the valve stem around until the valve seat passes through the bead.
You may need to apply pressure to get the valve seat through the bead. Once the valve seat is through the bead, the tire should stay locked on the rim.
Step 10: You need to pump air into your tires until there is enough pressure to get them back onto the rims. You should then remove any excess air before inflating the tubes. Once inflated, you may need to force the beads outwards to ensure the tube doesn’t stick underneath the bead.
Last Word
So, it’s more important to know about installing method rather than how you can fold a folding bike tire. We know carrying a tire with you is not a big deal now because of their number of options. But you might get into a bit of trouble while replacing them in a remote location. Hence, we advise you to practice at home the whole installation process step by step.
