What are you doing to get the tire off the rim? If you're doing it wrong, maybe thats the problem. In something like 40 years of commute and utility cycling, I've never, ever had a need to use some kind of gook to get a tire off of a rim.
TOTALLY deflate the tire. Usually I press the valve while the air deflates, then as it gets to zero I press the tire to the ground, and press down on it from above to deform the tire and squeeze it so that when I release the valve, and then the tire, it stays squished. Perhaps a better method is to use a valve core remover and remove the core, which works for both Schraeder (aka 'American' or car tire) and Presta (any higher quality bike) valves.
With the air out, ideally you push the tire bead back from the rim's hook bead. This is to get one side of the bead into the center area of the rim, which is typically depressed a little, which makes the next step a whole lot easier
Flip the wheel around and, on the other side, push in a tire lever under the tire bead and lever it up. Hold it up a bit and get a second lever in next to it. Spread the levers apart and maybe get a third lever in there, so you have up to three levers perpendicular to the wheel, being held that way with your two hands and maybe a forearm. Finagle the levers so you can get them spread apart a bit and get first one then a second lever (two adjacent to each other) to flip completely over and get the bead out of the rim channel. Once you get two levers to lift the bead off like this, use muscle to push one lever apart from the other so the break in the bead grows. Once you get it past maybe 8-10 inches, the job suddenly becomes easy and you have the tire off.
Super SUPER important to use the right kind of levers. And levers do break. Pedros levers are both cheap and strong. Strong so they can usually get the job done and cheap so you don't cry when one breaks. They are also pretty substantial so easy to grab onto one and do the brute force thing in the step above. For really REALLY stubborn wheels, the temptation is to use really strong levers. Ther best made of emtal, that are coated so they don't also tear into the tube or gouge the rim, are the thin blue-plastic-coated Park levers. I have tried MANY different levers and the Parks are by far the safest/best insofar as doing the job, not bending and not tearing up the tube are concerned. If you want a fail-safe, motorcycle tire spoons that are 1-piece solid metal are the final solution, but you are going to damage your rim at least a little cosmetically by going to this extreme.
I know there are some he-men cycling experts who will tell you not to use levers at all, but again after decades of this, I'm all done doing things the hard way. Let the purists suffer if they insist.
In the last few months, I’ve made a few changes to my standard on-bike tool kits. Lets take a look.
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