How To Restore Old Bike Tires
This happened for jon on his commute when someone was giving away a vintage bike.
How to restore old bike tires. What you ll need will depend on your bike s wheel size and if you want to go tubeless or not. They are dirty and slightly hard from setting in a metal box in a hot attic for 60 years. All the sheet metal appears to be in good shape. So this tire is almost 45 years old.
I have a couple of old toy parts made of rubber that is old. Thankfully braking systems on older bike without abs are pretty easy to restore. Uv rays break down the rubber over time resulting in a dull looking tire that may show a few cracks. I want to clean them up the best i can and maybe restore some of the oils in the rubber that has been lost over the years.
A lot of people overlook the wheels and the tires of a vintage bike when doing a restoration and it s a huge mistake. Key to a beautiful vintage bicycle. You ll most likely have either drum brakes or hydraulic disk brakes. While there are several different tire restoration products such as sprays and foams.
Once in a while you may be lucky enough to find a hidden gem while walking along the street. This bike which looks like it may have an amateur restoration started on it is very complete and would not take much to restore. So this is great for vintage bicycles or bikes. This lackluster look is the result of too much sun.
The tire i clean in the video is on my 1969 raleigh rod brake bike and is probably one of the original tires. I m a fan of tubeless tires since you re less likely to get a flat which can be handy if you re in a city with bike lanes that aren t kept up you can help with that or you re riding on dirt trails a lot. Even if some of the paint on this bike is original it appears that some of it has been re painted by an amateur at one time so a complete re paint would not be out of the question. There is nothing more dangerous than a faulty braking system.
If there is one single component you absolutely need to check and restore on an old bike its the braking system. Old gray tires can ruin the aesthetic appeal of your car even after a detail. In this tutorial. Road bikes with the skinny tires are usually between 100 120 psi commuter bikes with the fatter wheels are typically 60 80 psi and mountain bike tires are usually between 35 60 psi.