How to Check the Tire Pressure of a Mountain Bike

Video Transcript

"Another common problem that people have is understanding how the valves in your tires work. Most mountain bikes is called a presta valve is much different from the valve you probably had on your own bike or you have on your car. There's a little nut that I'm unscrew in right now which is basically that controls whether or not there's you know air comes into or out of the tire. So pressing that let's air out and when you put a pump on it it takes you to a head let's you put air in. So as you can when I close this back up I push on it no air comes out so it's a pretty you know, ingenious little head it doesn't need a valve cap it doesn't get infected by mud or moisture anything like that. And for higher pressure applications like you have on a bike for say a car tire it a little bit more inefficient to transfer air into it. So I'm going to show you how to put air into this using a floor pump which you should have there really nice for inflating your tires for your ride at home stuff like that. So I've undone the nut, got my pump you can tell it's set up for the presta valve or the schrader valve, I got presta valve for the valves on this bike. So the orphus here is smaller and most pumps you can take them apart pull them around, switch them around or they sell adapters that allow you to use a standard schrader pump with any presta tube it just screws on. So I got my wheel going to put it down on the sides so it doesn't go any where, going to take the pump head, press it down onto the tire, pull the lever to lock and going to inflate it. You always want to make sure isn't to little air in you tires, if there's to little air your likely to get a flat when the tire tube presses down a rock, root or puncture and to much air your just going to bounce everywhere. So an ideal place to start is around 45 psi, you can go you know 10 psi either way depending on your tires and the train that your riding in but a modern amount of pressure is a good place to start. I recommend getting a little digital gage it can really help you figure out what your doing or just ask experience riders in your location what kind of tires they prefer at what sort of pressure. And that should be able to give you a good idea of the appropriate tire pressure in the tire selection for where you live, so I got this all good and pumped up and I'm going to put it back on my bike."