With a slight rustling of my hackles, I look up from the frame bearing I’m pressing in and see there’s a customer standing at the counter. He’s schlepping a pair of wheels and a very sheepish facial expression. A 360° glance around the work area confirms that I alone am the focus of his gaze. I meet his eyes and forcing a smile I ask, “What’s going on?”
“I was hoping you could inflate a couple tires for me with your air compressor?”
Slowly circling the situation I ask the first three questions that come to mind.
Tubeless? “Yes.”
Did you try a floor pump? “Yes.”
With the valve core removed? “Yes.”
I extend my hand, and one of the wheels rises up towards me. Picture the Lady of the Lake, passing Excalibur’s glowing, magical, majestic, replacement to King Arthur. Aethereal mists. Rapturous singing. Yes, it was absolutely nothing like that.
It’s the front wheel, with a fresh, bought elsewhere, EXO+ MaxxGrip Maxxis Assegai mounted to a Stan’s Flow rim. The tire has been mounted in the right direction. More questions.
Tape look okay? “Just replaced.”
Any dents in the rim? “I don’t think so.”
Did you put in much sealant? “Yes, a big squirt.”
I take the wheel cautiously in hand and head towards the compressor hose, reaching pensively for the regulator. This is my least favourite grey area in the shop. Sure, air is always free, but what happens when a tire doesn’t just pop on isn’t always straightforward.
Wheel one is no big deal. I hold the tire just-so near the valve and it airs right up with a snap. I offer the suggestion that with fresh tires and a floor pump, it’s best to air them up overnight with tubes to give them some shape. He shrugs. I spin it once listening for air leaks, give it a wipe, and hand it back.
Wheel two has a newer Flow rim with an obvious dent and a small but equally obvious flat spot. The spoke tension feels okay. I ask the customer, and, yeppers, he’s aware of the damage. The dent is a pronounced innie but nothing special compared to the many I’ve pulled before. Sometimes I use Knipex parallel pliers, but for this case, with a very pronounced bead hook, I have the perfect tool from Wolf Tooth to do the job.
Herein lies the aforementioned grey area. The dent is certainly large enough to be the cause of his struggle in airing up this rim and tire combination. Even if I do get everything popped up, there’s a solid possibility the tire is going to leak air from this spot or burp the bead off, in use. I can fix it easily enough and I have the technique and experience to straighten things exactly not too much, so I’m not worried about creating a bigger issue. But, I hourly myself to a business that pays me for said technique and experience and as I’m stood here airing up tires I am on the clock.
I offer to fix the dent as best as possible. It’ll be a thirty buck, or about 1/3 of an hour, charge to remove the tire, pull the dent, re-mount the tire, and inflate it and I’ll do it on the spot.
“No, it was holding air fine before, so if you can just inflate it with the compressor that would be great.“
I grab the regulator and shoot some air into the fresh, bought elsewhere, EXO+ MaxxTerra Maxxis DHR2. It makes a valiant effort to bead-up but air is rushing past the dent until I push the bead over and everything snaps into place. Some Stan’s sealant is still sputtering out but after I bump the tire on the ground a few times in that exact spot it slurps up and air ceases to escape. Tire mounted.
I’m wearing my scrunchiest kung-fu-villain face and scratching my greying stubble as I haltingly hand this wheel back to him with the obvious warning that I can’t guarantee it will hold air. I can almost guarantee it won’t. He’s wearing a positively beaming I-told-you-so smile. He offers a ‘thank you’ as compensation and heads out the door.
Just going off of straight shop time, he owes the business about $8 for the interaction, but everyone knows that air is, sometimes, always free.