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Tire Lever in a Pinch: QR Levers

May 29th, 2008 by JoelGuelph

Have you ever found yourself on the trail without your trusty tire lever?  Perhaps you left on your bench at home, or it fell out of your seat bag that you forgot to zip up (again!).  Or maybe you don’t use tire levers but you just can’t get your riding buddies tire off without a little help. 

Use your quick release lever as a tire lever!  Most QR’s have a nice rounded profile that shouldn’t dig into your rim.  Many non-Shimano QR’s actually have a little lip on the end that is intended to help you hook the bead of your tire.  Or at least I assume that’s why they bother to add the hook to the end of it.

I wouldn’t go and throw out your plastic levers, as the QR’s can bite into the aluminum of your rim and potentially cause a little bit of damage or at least not slide very easily.  But, on the trail, they work in a pinch and if you get a knick in your rim from it, you should easily be able to file it smooth when you get back to the shop.

6 Responses to “Tire Lever in a Pinch: QR Levers”

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  1. 1 Art  on May 29th, 2008 at 6:19 pm

    Coooooooooooooooooooool…

  2. 2 Kerbouchaud  on May 29th, 2008 at 8:54 pm

    I perfectly understand the use and purpose of tire levers, but what gets me is this; I was at the LBS the other day, and a guy brought a wheel in needing a new tube. The shop owner took the wheel, pinched the tire together in a few places, bent the tire over, and the bead popped right out, he did it again a few inches over and pulled the rest of the bead out, yanked out the tube popped the new one in and popped the bead back over the rim. It took him about a minute from the time he grabbed the wheel until he put it back down. Actually took him longer to get the tube out of the box than it did to change it….no levers either.
    I think I’d much rather learn how to do that the screw around with tire levers. Anyone have any tips? the LBS owner ain’t tellin.

  3. 3 matt  on May 29th, 2008 at 9:39 pm

    Kerbouchaud: easy rim/bead combo. strong hands can roll lots of tires off (i pride myself on this minor feat of strength) but there are some that just require levers.

  4. 4 Incognito  on May 29th, 2008 at 11:20 pm

    Yeah, I saw this in a retro cycling manual, it was full of pastel colors and terrible haircuts. It’s a great idea in a tight situation.

  5. 5 Quinn  on Jun 2nd, 2008 at 11:59 am

    I can do the no-lever thing at times, how ever I prefer to use 1 Pedros fat/wide lever, 2 complicates things and no matter the tire 23c - 2.4 DH, those lever scoff at them all,

  6. 6 Carl Martens  on Jun 21st, 2008 at 3:11 pm

    Keep the tips coming. I just read your other post on Chain Suck…thanks for sharing the info!

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