Rabaconda street tire changer: initial review

[the Ferret]

[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!

[the Ferret]

Congrats pdedse. There is something to be said for accomplishing a new skill on your own.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and stick a headlight bulb in my wife's Highlander

[Cormanus]

But, yes, well done, pdedse. The additional cost of having tyres fitted when the wheel is off the bike is not exorbitant here, particularly when you buy the tyre where you have it changed means a Rabaconda is not likely in my future, but I can see the appeal for the same reasons as you've outlined.

[pdedse]

Congrats pdedse. There is something to be said for accomplishing a new skill on your own.

Tomorrow I'm going to try and stick a headlight bulb in my wife's Highlander

That's the type of simple sounding thing that I'll manage to turn into a 3-4 hour job.

[Gone in 60]

I heard the word “clean”…

This tool looks very cool, but until I can magically make my garage bigger, I’ll have to stick with irons and plastic rim protectors.

[pdedse]

I heard the word “clean”…

This tool looks very cool, but until I can magically make my garage bigger, I’ll have to stick with irons and plastic rim protectors.

My friend bought a tire changer that bolts to his garage floor. Part of what sold me on the Rabaconda was that it breaks down in a couple of minutes and comes with a nice storage bag...about 3' long and 10"h x 12"w.

[misterprofessionality]

Ok fine. I'm sold. Next time any of my bikes are up from r tires I'm ordering one of these.

[Gone in 60]

Yeah, that’s not bad!

About to host a Gone Jacketpalooza to shed a few that are too big for me now, that’ll help finance one.

[pdedse]

Ok fine. I'm sold. Next time any of my bikes are up from r tires I'm ordering one of these.

I think it's important that one really wants to do this. If a local shop charged $25-35 per tire mounted and balanced with me taking them off, I'd go that route, but $75 off the bike / $100 on...that was too much.

I'll add one detail thing if anyone ends up buying this. Of concern to me was that while it seemed to work ok from the videos, would I end up scratching the rims? I'm happy to report that not at all, once I realized how to use the supplied tire iron.

Rabaconda has some videos, and you can find plenty more on youtube. But there's one little detail that wasn't obvious, and it has to do with the very first step at removing the tire where you have to use the tire iron to pry the bead over what's called "the duck head" apparatus (the hard plastic black part--it actually looks like a duck's head / bill). In Rabaconda's original video, when the guy inserts the tire iron, you can't see what he's doing because of the angle. I thought he was using a separate rim protector and the tire iron over it. I did this but my rim protector separated open and I scratched the lip of the rim a bit. It sanded out just fine, but rewatching videos, re-reading instructions I realized that the tire iron is placed on top of the duck head apparatus itself--you don't need a rim protector, that's part of the job the duck head.

Rabaconda got some feedback on this because between my first tire change and the second, they updated their tire removal video and they make this detail much more obvious.

Here are some stills from the video:









And here's the updated video, this one for a tubeless tire.





I think the above steps were the only confusing part. It helped to watch a few non-produced Rabaconda videos, read and re-read the fairly clear instructions. I've read others saying that after several attempts they can break the bead, remove the tire and install a new one just as quickly as they can set up the tire changer. While I think that's an exaggeration, I can see that from set-up to braking the bead, tire removal, balancing, and mounting new tire will be done faster than I can remove / install the wheel/tire from the bike. But...by the time I get to the front tires I'll probably have forgotten everything and have to start over.



But I've enjoyed learning how to do this, and just in time as it looks like beginning Tuesday we will miraculously have a dry week into next weeend.