Rabaconda street tire changer: initial review

[pdedse]

uggghhh cleaning wheels...well cleaning anything on a motorcycle really

Why did you insert the superfluous words ‘on a motorcycle’?

Why did you insert the superfluous words ‘on a motorcycle’?
Oh my...when Gonein60 sees the above comments

My concern over buying the Chupacabra, er, I mean Rabaconda was that I wouldn't be able to make it work like I saw on the videos. But I have to say that this thing works!

After the cat let go of the space heater, back out to the garage with warm, pliable tire. Watched this video about 4 times.



He shows some good techniques that if ignored will make life difficult. Got the first side up and over the rim w/out much difficulty:


The second bead goes on ok to begin with. You have to make sure the front half of the black, plastick apparatus is behind the bead and the other back half (foreground, lower left) is what sits on the rim, and it must be visible.


You use a tire iron to lift the bead over the top of the plastic part. Then ratchet it around...until you get about half way, then it gets tight.

But this cool tool keeps the bead down in the wheel well and frees up your hands:


Slather on more bead grease and, although you have to use a little more umph at this point, at no time did I get stuck where I had to start over. The tire didn't fuss any, the tube stays out of the way. No scratches on rim. Suddenly,...it's on!


At this point you can use the wedge to push the side of the tire in and extract the tool. All done:


Aired up to 42psi and I'll wait awhile to see if that holds ok. It's easy to use the wedge to pry the tire away from the rim a bit to make sure the tube isn't pinched.

Overall, a very nice product that's worked well on 2 rear tire changes. Still need to balance the tire, change brake pads and get it all together, but I like it. It may not be for everybody but I like 1) doing this whenever I want 2) I learn more about the bike 3) after a few more changes I'll break even and then I can save a few $$ and 4) gives me the chance to make the back end squeaky clean!