For me, I found most impressive the way that it dealt with tight tyres and I really liked its stability once located.

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Enjoy the great outdoors with the help of your Tyre Glider, safe in the knowledge you're helping to protect the environment. If you are looking for cycling insurance, training courses, help to run an event or if you’d like to be a Cycle Friendly Employer we can help. You just need to learn how to use them properly, Schwalbe's instructions leave a lot to be desired in this regard. Over the years various contraptions have appeared that aim to update the humble tyre lever, and with varying degrees of success.This time you place the handle against the rim and hook the slot over the rim and push the large postage stamp sized rectangle around the rim. I can appreciate some may struggle though, and it would be nice to see an option for working in the other direction. If a tyre is spectacularly recalcitrant three levers may be needed, so it could be saving a fair bit of space in your seatpack, frame bag or pocket.

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At 21g it is roughly the weight of a single tyre lever and is pretty compact so that is good, and represents reasonable value for money. cc every product is thoroughly tested for as long as it takes to get a proper insight into how well it works. Once you've pushed a short section of bead over the rim, you clip the Tyre Glider onto the right-hand rim wall as you look down at the wheel between your legs. Once you're in, you use the 78mm of leverage on hand like a handle – the Tyre Glider sits flush against the rim, sticking out. For me, I found it impressive the way that it dealt with tight tyres and I really liked its stability once located.

Unfortunately, this shorter than normal and rather chunky tyre lever wouldn’t hook under the bead, the essential first step in tyre removal. That handle gives plenty of grip to push or pull around the rim, quickly unseating the tyre as you go.

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Our product reviews aren’t press releases; they’re written by experienced cyclists after thorough testing. This is where the 'L' of the tool becomes awkward as you can neither go easily under both beads to hook it nor can you go from the rim bed side to get in and under the bead easily. Whilst the Tyre Mate has glowing reviews, it's also huge – no way is it going in a saddlebag, and it's too big to carry as a might-need-it in a jersey pocket. There's a hook that goes under the bead, but as the tip is a blunt 3mm thick – great for strength – it's not great with tight beads where you may have fractions of a millimetre clearance.As mentioned there are some caveats around technique, and I'd like to see the hook portion be sharper to get under tight beads easier, but for most tyres on most rims it should be fine. Key is to clip them in at the 10 o'clock/2 o'clock position, lift the bead a 12 o'clock with the third lever and slide the first two levers along the rim hook towards it.