The internet is awash with people using a spritz or two of brake cleaner or starter fluid to
bang set a bead on a tire. As you can see above, there’s a right way and a wrong way.
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Getting a tire to mount right on a rim can be a challenge. Hell, I spent a week trying to mount my first tubeless mountain bike tires a few months back and found a lot of the same tips and tricks being used there as you find in the four-wheeled off road and stance car scenes.
The central problem is you want a tire to press right on up to the inside lip of the rim and kind of lock in place. Tires have a kind of raised edge right at the inside lip, and rims have a raised edge, too, on the inside of their outer edge. As you inflate the tire, its bead pushes out to the edge of the rim and forms its airtight seal. This is called “setting the bead,” and usually it’s a pretty easy job both on a bike or a car tire. Pumping up the tire with air is usually enough to set the bead on anything