Struggling to seat 14" tyre properly

[nonstandard]

Hi, I have just replaced the perished 14 inch tyres on my daughters bike, I fitted them without any problems; however, when inflating them to within the recommended pressure range (35 to 50 psi) I noticed that the bead was starting to bulge off the tyre in one place.

I ended up partially inflating the tyres and then tweaking and manipulating them by hand until they were evenly seated on the rim and then fully inflating them. this took a few attempts and was immensely frustrating, I'm assuming this has something to do with the small rim/tyre size, has anyone any tips to avoid this issue in future?

[JohnnyCO]

Sounds like you did everything correct. Installing tires can be the most frustrating thing about bike maintenance. I call it tire wrestling. I over-inflate the tire once the bead is seating fine on the rim. Makes it seat a little better.

[Bill]

There is a couple ways to fix that problem. inflate it to around 5psi then seat it by hand. Also there a tool ... http://forums.bikeride.com/thread-1115.html that you can use, also in the first post KC-Steve shows an actual one you can buy. Things to check is a bent sidewall of the wheel itself, cracked tire bead, and a tube with a nasty bulge in it.

[trevgbb]

There are several different 14" sizes, it is important to check that the ETRTO no. is the same, this will look like one of these, the width designation( the first figures) is not too important but the diameter must be the same.
it is also very important to seat the tube properly in the tyre and rim, especially by the valve. Before inflating, push the valve upwards into the tyre and make sure the tyre beads are not pinching the tube.
Note that a faulty/bulging tube cannot push the tyre off the rim as the tyre is much stronger than the tube, this will only happen if the tyre is not seated properly or, very rarely, a faulty rim.

[nonstandard]

Thanks for your comments, hopefully I will not be changing the tyres again before it's time for the bike to go. At least I know a bit more about it now and will be able to work round it if I have the same problem in future.

Thanks
Jim

[DaveM]

If you have spots where the tire won't come out fully and gets stuck too far in the rim, you can spray a little Windex or something similar on the tire bead. When you pump it up, it will help the tire pop out into place. But those little tires tend to be tougher to seat than adult sizes.