Tires, tires, tires

[JeffC]

Tires, tires, tires again. I've been rehabbing a 1972 Opaque Blue Super Sport and it has the old style no hooked bead rims.  Well, originally I had the Schwalbe HS 159 white walls on it and they hug the beads very well and hold nicely.

Now skip over to the 1977 Varsity I'm also rehabbing. It came with kind of dried out Michelin World Tour tires on it. Well, I had to dismount the tires to true the wheels and replace a spoke or two. When I went to reinstall the tires I could not after much trying get them to seat back on the rims. I tried all the tricks like Windex and pumping up slowly or or pumping up fast. None of it worked. Anyway the Schwalbe white walls came off the Super Sport and went onto the Varsity without a hitch. I now have a 24" frame 1977 Schwinn Varsity Tourist with whitewalls just like the 1968 Varsity Tourist I sold to Tim S.

Anyway back to the Super Sport. I ordered some Schwalbe Road Cruiser tires from Bike Tires Direct and they were reasonably priced and shipped pretty quick. The bottom line on these tires are they are nice tires but you need hooked beads on your rims for these tires to hold onto the rims. I could not get them to stay on the rims. As a matter of fact last night I was greasing the headset and cleaning up the forks and all the sudden I hear this hissing and some unusual noises that sounds like someone passing gas and I take a look around and it's the rear tire coming off the rim.

Luckily, I had some brand new pre covid scam Kenda K35 black wall tires in the tire rack and I installed them on the Super Sport rims and they fit tight and seated nicely. I've never had a problem with those tires seating and holding a bead even if they aren't of the highest quality available for 32-630 tires. They work on these older non hook bead rims. I guess I'll need to take some pictures or it never happened. I'll get some pictures after dinner and update this post.     

 

[JeffC]

Here are pictures of tires, tires, tires. More pictures of these bikes and others will be in the Lightweight section with descriptions on their renewal and updating.

[JeffC]

These are the Schwalbe HS159 that are no longer available and the Michelin World Tour tires that came with the bike when I bought it.