Smart Lever promises to make it easier for you to put on and take off tires

Who has not fought at some point when dismounting or mounting a tire that, first did not want to come out and later turned out to be impossible to put back on? Unfortunately, this problem still affects cyclists, especially road or gravel cyclists with tighter sizes, especially with the generalization of tubeless tires. Fortunately, companies like Smart Lever offer solutions.

Placing and removing the tires from your bike has never been so easy

Although the European Tyre and Rim Technical Organisation, known for its acronym ETRTO, has been defining the standards that bicycle tires and rims must meet for years, the reality is that both wheel manufacturers and tire manufacturers work with tolerances that are often excessive. It is not uncommon for cases where rims with high tolerance are combined with tires with low tolerance.

The result when we encounter such a situation is that it is almost impossible to put the tire on the rim, especially if it is new. The generalization of tubeless has not helped with this, as while it requires stricter tolerances, the lack of a predefined standard for how a tubeless rim section should be means that some models are very easy to mount and others are almost impossible.

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That is why, in recent times, different lever designs have become popular to easily mount tires or remove them when they are practically stuck to the rim. However, most designs are intended to be used at home or in the workshop. Fortunately, the British company Smart Lever has created a lever with dimensions suitable for our tool bag, allowing us to handle the situation if we need to make a repair on the road without risking injuring our fingers.

The Smart Lever is a metal lever in an L shape with plastic pieces at the ends, replaceable in case of damage, that act on the tire. At the long end, there is a piece that allows us to remove the tire, first by levering as we would with a conventional tire lever, and then, after rotating the lever 90 degrees, using the short side of the L as support to push and extract the tire.

When mounting the tire, the short side has a small wheel that acts as a guide and a piece that traps the tire, allowing us to slide and insert the sidewall into the rim, being able to lever on the short side vertically to help the tire follow the guide.

A simple and ingenious system that will undoubtedly help us when we have a flat tire on the road, especially on those winter days when we have to make repairs with frozen hands and have a combination of rim and tire that seems impossible.