How to Change a Bike Tire (Step-by-Step)

Changing a bike tire is the single most useful repair to know, because it is the one that strands you. Everything else on a bike will usually let you limp home. A flat will not. The good news is that the job needs two tire levers, a pump and about fifteen minutes, and the technique barely changes whether you are working on a road bike, a hybrid or a kid's 20-inch wheel.

This guide covers the whole job: getting the wheel out, removing the tire, deciding whether you actually need a new tire or just a new tube, fitting everything back and seating the bead so it runs true. If you only need to swap the tube, the inner tube guide covers that shorter job.

What you need

• Two plastic tire levers. Steel levers will gouge an alloy rim and destroy a carbon one.
• A replacement tire and/or inner tube in the correct size.
• A pump with a gauge — a floor pump if you are at home, a mini-pump or CO2 for the roadside.
• Optional but useful: a rag, and a 15 mm wrench or 5 mm Allen key if your wheels are bolt-on rather than quick-release.

Step 1: get the wheel off

Shift into the smallest rear sprocket before you touch anything if you are working on the back wheel — it slackens the derailleur and gives the chain somewhere to sit. Open the brake if you have rim brakes, because the tire is wider than the gap between the pads. For a quick-release, flip the lever open and unscrew the far side a few turns. For a thru-axle, undo it fully and slide it out. Bolt-on wheels need a 15 mm wrench on each nut.

Step 2: deflate and lever the tire off

Getting the bead off the rim

1. 1

   Let every last bit of air out

   Press the valve — Presta valves need the little knurled nut unscrewed first — and squeeze the tire flat all the way round. Any residual pressure holds the bead against the rim wall and makes the job far harder than it needs to be.

2. 2

   Push the bead into the centre channel

   Work around the wheel squeezing both sides of the tire towards the middle of the rim. Rims are deeper in the centre, and that slack is what lets the bead come off. This is the step people skip, and it is the reason they end up needing three levers and a lot of swearing.

3. 3

   Hook the first lever under the bead

   Insert it opposite the valve, hook the bead over the rim edge, and clip the other end to a spoke.

4. 4

   Work the second lever around

   Place it a few inches away and slide it around the rim. Once six inches of bead is over the edge, the rest usually pulls off by hand.

5. 5

   Pull the tube out

   Leave the second bead on the rim if you are only replacing the tube. Push the valve up through the rim hole last.

Step 3: decide — new tube, or new tire?

Before anything goes back on, run your fingers carefully around the inside of the tire. You are hunting for whatever caused the flat: a flint, a shard of glass, a thorn or a staple. If you fit a new tube over the object that killed the last one, you will be doing this again within a mile. Check the outside tread too.

If the tire itself is done, our guide on how long bike tires last covers the four wear signs in more detail and gives realistic mileage figures for different tire types.

Step 4: fit the new tire and tube

Step 5: inflate and check the bead

Inflate to roughly half the target pressure, then look at the moulded bead line that runs around the tire just above the rim edge. It should sit at a constant distance from the rim all the way around, on both sides. If it dips or bulges anywhere, let the air out, work that section with your thumbs, and try again. Inflating a badly-seated tire to full pressure is how people blow a tube off a rim with a bang loud enough to be mistaken for a gunshot.

Refit the wheel, close the quick-release or torque the thru-axle, and re-connect the brake if you opened it. Spin the wheel and check it runs without rubbing. If your brakes now feel wrong, our guide to adjusting bike brakes walks through resetting pad clearance.

Common mistakes

• Levering the second bead on. This pinches the tube more often than not. Thumbs first, always.
• Not finding the cause. If the flint is still in the tire, the new tube lasts about a mile.
• Ignoring the rim tape. If it has slipped and a spoke hole is exposed, the tube will puncture from the inside. Replace the tape, not just the tube.
• Fitting the wrong tube. A 700c tube in a 26-inch tire will not seat properly even if you can force it in.
• Inflating hard before checking the bead line. That is how you get a blow-off.

The ETRTO/ISO number is the only tire size designation that is unambiguous.

Sheldon Brown, Tire Sizing Systems

Once you have done this two or three times it stops being a job and becomes a fifteen-minute inconvenience. If you want to go further, learning to patch a bike tube means you can carry one spare tube and still fix three flats on the same ride.