Continental Gator Hardshells are impossible to install

I had the same trouble a couple of years ago when I tried, unsuccessfully, to install a new Conti Gatorskin Hardshell. Tried the hair dryer and the soap on the bead tricks, too. After many hours, expletives shouted and blisters on my hands, I gave up and took it into my LBS. Of course, he popped it on the rim in a matter of seconds, though not without affirming that Contis are notoriously hard to install.

I was nervous about getting a flat so after I rode on it about 500 miles, I decided to uninstall/reinstall it to see how much it had stretched. Turns out it hadn’t stretched enough for me to be comfortable changing it on the side of the road so I went back to my Vittorias, another beaded tire. I can usually change those in under 5 minutes. So as much as I loved the ride of the Conti’s, I just get too many flats to feel comfortable riding on tires that I worry about changing, especially on the side of the road.

Life is too short to ride crap tires.

Some tire-rim combos are just really tough, if not impossible. And I agree that having a tire you can’t change on the side of the road is just a phonecall waiting to happen.

That said, I have one of these bead jacks at home and it makes tight tire installation really quick and it hasn’t met any combo it can’t handle yet — though maybe yours would push the limit:

https://www.amazon.com/Kool-Stop-Tire-Bead-Jack/dp/B001AYML7K/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1465913126&sr=8-6&keywords=tire+jack

And then for on the trail, these guys work well for stubborn tires:

https://www.amazon.com/Crank-Brothers-Speedier-Lever-Black/dp/B008UY1MXW/ref=sr_1_fkmr0_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1465913246&sr=8-1-fkmr0&keywords=park+speedier+lever

Of course, neither of those tools might solve this problem, but if they didn’t, I’d say return the tire.

The time I broke every lever in my house and had to call out of service because of a flat tire. 😮

I have these wheels. After spending 2 hours on the side of the road one night destroying tire levers, tubes, and knuckles; limping home with a slow leak from the last patched and re-pinched tube; then spending a couple more hours at home destroying another tube or two, I developed a different strategy.

Tubeless. 😎

@dplasters 141469 wrote:

I bought a set of Shimano Ultegra 6800 wheels, which are apparently known for being tough to get tires on.

After pinching 2-3 tubes i have developed the following strategy.

1. Start mounting tire opposite tire valve
2. work up and around both sides equally so that you are heading towards valve
3. when you get to the point you can’t easily put anymore on by hand
4. push valve up into the rim, make sure the tube is tucked into the tire as much as possible
5. grab tire lever
6. use lever to mount the next inch or so
7. leave lever in after you have mounted this inch
8. it should be pointing basically skyward
9. start sliding it towards the valve/rest of unmounted tire
10. this has never resulted in a tube pinch and has worked for me every time
11. this may be because i have essentially bent my one tire lever flat, it no longer has a curve on it
12. your mileage may vary

@sethpo 141507 wrote:

I had a weird thing happen with both these and the Schwalbe G-One gravel tires (I love both tires btw). On occasions when I’ve run these with tubes they have a strange bump or swell that’s very noticeable on the road. The bump is vertical (not pushing out the sidewall) and I’ve not been able to figure out what’s causing it. It’s only happened on these tubeless tires with tubes.

So, what’s probably (almost certainly) going on here is that one part of [one of] the tire beads is stuck in the channel. You typically won’t see this happen with tubeless because the tires won’t be holding air unless (until) the beads snap in / up onto the shelf. You can usually get the tire to fully seat with a tube by just pumping it up to a much-higher-than-normal psi (and then let out air to your desired psi).

Some rims seem more susceptible to this. E.g. I didn’t notice this before I was mounting tires on my Grail rims.