Easiest tire change

[MDMason]

One of my considerations in choosing a new wheel is ease of changing or repairing tires. Which wheel is the simplest to change or repair a tire?

Edited February 13, 2020 by MDMason
Grammar

[Marty Backe]

Until you've changed a tube/tire it's natural to feel a bit overwhelmed at the prospect. But like many things in life, once you've done it, you'll realize it's not difficult at all. A bit time consuming, yes, but not hard.

First of all, I highly recommend the use of Slime in your wheel of choice. This will "fix" the majority of the rare flats that you will experience. I have videos on my channel that further discuss this, and there are plenty of Slime discussions here on the Forum (use the Search function). Second, if you get a flat that Slime doesn't fix, I recommend patching your tube if at all possible. Third, tires will likely last a few thousand miles. By the time you have to change a tire, you'll most likely feel very comfortable working on your wheel.

Now, to which wheel is easiest. I argue that they are all about the same, with a few exceptions. The primary exception that comes to mind is the Z10, which is apparently difficult do to the extent of wheel disassembly required to fully access the tire.

I have not changed a tire on any Inmotion or Ninebot wheels, but have done so on KingSong and Gotway wheels. You will hear some people claim that KingSong is easier, but don't buy it. I argue that KingSong and Gotway take about the same amount of effort, but it's a different kind of effort. KingSong will involve a lot more screws and potential partial destruction of the pads, and the disconnection of wires. Gotway will require (on most but not all of their wheels) the separation of the shell, but wire disconnects are not needed, and generally many less screws are involved. I believe only the Monster has 2 screws under the pads, but their pads are not as delicate as KingSong's.

So it's a roll of the dice.

If you must know the easiest, I would argue that it's the Monster since the pedals do not have to be removed. Somehow I suspect that's not the first (?) wheel that you're wanting to get 

So rest easy. Use other criteria for picking your wheel and don't worry about the tire. That will work itself out in due time. Trust me.

[mrelwood]

I absolutely agree with everything Marty said. Consider this: your first tire replacement (roughly at around 3000 miles) will take you maybe 2 hours, but you might win half an hour by having chosen a different wheel.

By that time you have ridden the wheel for maybe 300 hours. Therefore I consider the riding charasteristics of the wheel around 600 times more important.

[Michael L]

Unfortunately I have to disagree about the few thousand miles claim: I've had my InMotion V8F for about 3 months, and I absolutely love riding it--it's become my only form of transportation--but even though I'm only riding paved roads I've had to patch the tube twice in those 3 months. Both times it was extremely stressful to change, and took significantly more than 2 hours. One of the steps (removing the flaps under the pedals) involves quite a lot of brute force to distort on of the plastic components.

If someone comes out with an EUC that's more streamlined to get the wheel out of, but otherwise similar to what's already out there, I'll switch to it in a heartbeat.

[RockyTop]

On 8/29/2021 at 8:31 PM, Michael L said:

I’ve had to patch the tube twice in those 3 months.

Wow! I have only had to replace a tube once and it was my fault. The tire pressure was too low. It ripped the valve stem off. I was surprised. I replaced the tube in a half hour. KS16s. 

[mrelwood]

On 8/30/2021 at 3:31 AM, Michael L said:

I've had to patch the tube twice in those 3 months.

You really should look into the product “Slime”.

Luckily disassembling any EUC gets much easier and faster for the first ~5 times you do it.

I fully agree though that the manufacturers really should much improve the maintenancibility from all current and past EUCs.