The Park Tool BMT-1 Tyre Bead Breaker is a monster tool for monster jobs. Designed to shift the tightest tyre from the most uncompromising rim, it’s the nuclear option for modern tubeless tyre systems. And it works like a charm.
There are few certainties in life outside of death, taxes, and tubeless tyres often being a right bastard to remove once the sealant’s done its job. Back in the day, ‘downhill levers’ were used on really stubborn beads – but being metal and sharp-edged in order to get under the bead, they risked damage to the rim, tyre, tube, insert and rim tape, all in one easy package of woe.
> 9 things they don’t tell you about tubeless tyres
Riding to the tubeless rescue some 25 years on, Park Tool has solved the stuck-bead issue with a spin on the venerable vice grip, adding enormous plastic-tipped jaws that will go around tyres up to 3in in width. These jaws are able to grip the tyre and by leveraging against the opposite rim wall, lift the bead clear of the rim bed lip that holds the bead in place. It’s this lip that makes tubeless tyres ‘pop’ when they inflate fully and seat on the rim – and therefore makes it hard to ‘pop’ the bead the other way when you want to get inside to do things with sealant, or liners, or remove the tyre.
Over the years many tricks have emerged for getting recalcitrant beads free – my personal favourite was using a Feedback Sports Pro clamp (designed to clamp bikes in place on a workstand) to squeeze a tyre either side, then I’d lever the rim against the clamp head to get the bead free. Not at all couth, and prone to all sorts of mess as sealant escaped – but it mostly worked and because the clamp jaws are made of non-marring plastic, the rims were safe.
For a lot less money than a Feedback Sports workstand, the BMT-1 solves this challenge nicely. It’s a quality-feeling bit of kit as you’d expect from Park Tool – but not overly engineered, thus keeping the price point down for what is essentially a brute force implement. While it’s not edged, in a zombie-bike shop-attack scenario the heft of the BMT-1 would make it a top-five weapon of choice, it’s that beefy.
The business end of each arm is capped with plastic tips that are replaceable – yay, Park Tool once again. They even have the part number stamped in them for easy ordering.
At the other end of the tool there’s a blue powder-coated ring that you use to adjust the bite point for the vice grip action. This thread can do with a dab of grease on arrival.
This ring and how you use it is key. You first close the tool over your tyre with hand pressure, perpendicular to the axle (ie sticking straight out from the rim in line with the spokes) and as close to the rim as possible. Then you use something as a lever through the blue ring – an 8mm hex key is perfect, but a beefy screwdriver will do – to tighten the clamping and really crank down on the tyre. Then you roll the tool to one side, all the way over to lift the bead off the rim bed and into the centre. If the tyre slips inside the jaws, you didn’t do it up tight enough.
You can keep rolling all the way around the rim and between the spokes if needed, as the plastic tips are quite long. Even if the tyre slipped inside the jaws, on a knobbly tyre you’ll eventually reach the tread where it will definitely grip.
Depending on the size of the tyre, you might need to go back for a second crack at it – but I never needed to on my samples.
Once you have one side loose, you can then simply roll back the other way to unmount the other bead. If you used a tool to tighten the ring, chances are the vice grip release lever under the handle will be too tight to release with fingers – so you need to unwind the blue ring once again, no drama.
Once the bead is unseated, there’s a chance other sections of the tyre might still require some force to remove. In such cases, I didn’t need to use the hex-key-through-the-blue-ring level of tightness, just the vice grip action gripped enough to work around the rest of the tyre.
Covering pretty much all popular tyre widths and types from 23mm up to 3in, the BMT-1 is good for both tubed and tubeless tyres. Park Tool advises that there is a risk of pinching a tube, but you’d need a pretty major amount of welly to do that. Chances are, if you’re resorting to this tool on a tubed tyre, if you cause a pinch flat hole you’ll still be grateful for the assistance.
If you run an insert, Park Tool says you need to work the insert away from the rim inside the tyre before getting clampy. This is no different to unmounting a tyre with an insert the normal way, and my inserts made no difference to how well the BMT-1 worked on 2.8 and 3in enduro-spec mountain bike tyres.
> How to build your own bike toolkit, a beginner’s guide
I’d like to see Park Tool come up with a folding handle on the tension screw of some sort that means you don’t need to juggle a second tool as a lever through the blue ring – maybe that’s the BMT-1.2.
Value
A quick search suggests comparisons are few and far between; the closest is probably the £29.99 Vittoria Air-Liner Tool, which does roughly the same thing, but relies on your grip strength rather than the force-multiplier and locking nature of a vice grip design. And it’s plastic. The Park Tool has much more clearance for larger tyres than the Vittoria tool, too.
I haven’t used it, but the £35 combo of the Smart Lever and optional Bead Lever may suit you for road or gravel tyres, and it could go in a pocket or toolbag if you have stubborn tyres and don’t want to risk not being able to unmount them in the wild.
Conclusion
Overall, by evolving the vice grip concept Park Tool has invented a tool that is robust and solves a very common problem brilliantly. Though £15 more than the Vittoria version, and a tenner more than the Smart Lever, it’s not bad value for the quality, and the end result of near-effortless removal of tyres that had defeated every other method is priceless. The BMT-1 is an instant workshop classic, and I have no doubt they will sell like hot cakes.
Verdict
Excellent option for removing tight tyres without damaging your rims or fingers
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road.cc test report
Make and model: Park Tool BMT-1 tyre bead breaker
Size tested: One size
Tell us what the product is for and who it’s aimed at. What do the manufacturers say about it? How does that compare to your own feelings about it?
It’s for anyone needing to shift a difficult tyre.
Park Tool says:
“Save your thumbs and retain your sanity. The BMT-1 is designed to quickly and easily unseat virtually any bicycle tire bead with minimal effort, particularly on tight-fitting tubeless systems.
“The locking jaws of the BMT-1 are tightened against the sidewalls using the large adjustment knob, firmly squeezing the tire body. Once the long, strong handle is pulled laterally in either direction, the bead is pulled away from the bead seat and towards the center channel, allowing for removal using a tire lever or other method. Non-marring jaw covers protect the rim and tire from damage.”
Tell us some more about the technical aspects of the product?
Park Tool says: “Compatible with tire bodies from 23 mm to 78 mm (0.91″ to 3″)”
Solid. Very solid.
Once you know how to use it, it works brilliantly.
Zombie-apolcalypse heft – can’t imagine this breaking anytime this millennium.
Reassuringly heavy.
The handle isn’t ergonomic or padded, but it’s comfy enough.
More expensive than the Vittoria and Smart Lever options, but justifies the price with its quality and performance.
Tell us how the product performed overall when used for its designed purpose
Performs brilliantly – breaks the hardest of bead seals with ease, once you get the technique right.
Tell us what you particularly liked about the product
The attention to the tip design.
Tell us what you particularly disliked about the product
That you may (likely) need a second tool to make the thing tight enough.
How does the price compare to that of similar products in the market, including ones recently tested on road.cc?
It’s £15 more than the Vittoria version, and a tenner more than the Smart Lever + Bead Lever combo.
Did you enjoy using the product? Yes
Would you consider buying the product? Yes
Would you recommend the product to a friend? Yes
Use this box to explain your overall score
It’s excellent – only losing marks on the need to use a second tool to wind up really tight. And it would be good to see a knob or folding lever in place of the ring.
About the tester
Age: 47 Height: 183cm Weight: 77kg
I usually ride: Sonder Camino Gravelaxe My best bike is: Nah bro that’s it
I’ve been riding for: Over 20 years I ride: A few times a week I would class myself as: Expert
I regularly do the following types of riding: cyclo cross, general fitness riding, mtb, G-R-A-V-E-L
22 thoughts on “Park Tool BMT-1 tyre bead breaker”
Right, so just this and the
Right, so just this and the Bosch inflator to get the tank up to pressure and I’m done.
Don’t forget that Bosch
Don’t forget that Bosch inflator when you need it roadside 😉
It’s the getting the
It’s the getting the turbibooster X up to full pressure that I find a bit hard/nearly impossible. And the more pressure I can get in there, the better chances of getting it to seat first time, maybe. That and the good pulling out of the beads from the well. Recent advance for me was the discovery that I should get the tank up to pressure before I fit the tyre, this allows the schwalbe foamy seating stuff to be wetter.
If only there was a device that reminded me to place the tyrewall logo at the valve site on the first wheel.
HP gave us a suggestion on getting the bead to come away, by standing on it. It helps, but I crave something more. And the efforts required takes be back to the awful frustrations involved when I first attempted to get the tyres off their rims, when I knew nothing, and the rims had been set up with two and a bit turns of tape, rather than the done by me one and a bit.
Unfortunately, the fact that Amazon are selling this device a premium to RRP, means it may be not as simple getting this. LBS might have the Bosch, seeing it on their wall gave me the oooh, idea. And I owe them a visit, oddly feather edge patches and tubes of solution, many fixes needed on my enforced tubed bit earlier in the year. And I’m running low at work, doing fixings for others. That, and that may appreciate my cake, it don’t pay the rent.
I think tubeless appeals to my obsessional technique based ritual self. Not that I hadn’t built up many for tubed.
My topeak master blaster dx has served me very well at the roadside for maybe 25 years. I’m not getting one of those mini inflators quite yet.
ktache wrote:
I’m a total heathen – I line the tyre wear indicators up with the valve hole because a) I find the valve easier to locate than the TWI and b) it reminds me to check every time I pump my tyres up.
I probably put my socks and leg-warmers on in the wrong order too!
ktache wrote:
I think I got that tip from someone else on here, but can’t remember who.
That’s just a cheapo locking
That’s just a cheapo locking C clamp / welding clamp with some plastic wedges on the end. Nothing that couldn’t be replicated with two bits of plastic and some CA glue …
I do now realise my beloved Park Tool digital calipers are rebranded cheapies and I overpaid massively … but I still love the blue plastic case. You don’t need the full Mitutoyo to tell you what size a bolt is, do you?
panda wrote:
it’s really not. But then no-one’s forcing you to buy it.
Aragh, it’s KiwiMike, I have
Aragh, it’s KiwiMike, I have to buy this now. Still going to resist the schwalbe click pump head valve thing for a while mind. With probable regret…
I’m curious – do you think
I’m curious – do you think Park Tool went to the trouble and expense of building all the tooling to make the whole thing themselves in-house to their spec (given that, at its heart, it’s a totally ubiquitous piece of workshop equipment – I’ve got several and I’m only a hobbyist), or are you saying that they likely have outsourced the basic clamp production but used a premium product costing something approaching the <checks notes> FORTY FIVE POUNDS they’re asking you to part with?
All they’ve added is the blue plastic on the screw (which I have to admit I like) and the plastic ends which I agree are optimised for removing a recalcitrant tyre from a rim without damaging either but could be easily be designed in-house and manufactured in China for pennies. Or bodged using something lying round the garage and a few minutes with a Dremel.
A few things:
A few things:
looking at internet images, welding C-clamps don’t open that far.
Also, most of them don’t have the eyelet to wind in more grip for really tough tyres. They only have the usual vice-grip knurled knob, so it’s a certainty it won’t be able to impart the same grip as the Park tool. The one I found that did only opened 50mm. Good luck getting a 2.8″ DH-rated tyre with a liner through that. The Park one opens to 78mm for comparison.
And you’d have to find and fit your own tips, made of the right material so as not to damage either your tyre or rim, either directly, or by being cut through to expose the steel which then would cause possibly fatal damage to your £75 tyre or £250+ rim/wheel.
There’s a reason pro bike tools are designed for specific tasks – to speed up time, deliver the correct result and minimise damage/liability.
I accept some people have the time to DIY their tools (or value their time spent as better than say spending £25 over a welding clamp for a dedicated tool with better functionality) and don’t care about consequences/liability.
Cycling is a broad church, as are internet comments 😎
Apologies if my tone is a bit
Apologies if my tone is a bit off, but I’m trying to inform, not argue. You’re looking at images on the internet, I’ve got a pair sitting on my desk. Mine weigh 845g (so same ballpark) and are from Axminster (link below). As you can see, mine have nice rubberised handles, which the Park Tool ones do not. They open to 100mm (so clamp about 75mm) and the distances between the pivots are the same, so they exert the same force. If they can hold a joint together whilst I put a screw in, I promise you they can take a tyre off!
The design process was almost certainly a professional mechanic running up against the stuck tyre problem one time too many and asking for some wisdom. They might have asked a woodworking / metalworking friend who would have said “a locking C clamp would do that mate” and the response would have been “yeah, but a) the metal face plate would scratch the rim and b) I need the force concentrated into a point right by the rim” to which the response would have been “tell you what, I’m not butchering my nice clamp, I’ll get a cheap one off the internet, grind off the ends and glue some plastic widgets on, see how you go”. “Mate, worked perfectly, can you make me 500 more sets for all my other mechanic friends?”
Here’s the thing: when bicycle manufacturers solve a problem, they borrow from pre-existing solutions to similar problems, which is why what look like cycling-specific tools are just slightly adapted tools from other applications, only because the tolerances and loads are lower, they don’t need to be top grade, so they tend to be lower quality. Whoever presses bearings into the machines that make mobile phones is using something that looks like a headset press or bottom bracket tool, but a much much better quality one that not even Park Tool could get away with charging the right price for. It’s why whoever made my Park Tool DC-1, it wasn’t Starrett or Mitutoyo!
Asking UJK to make a clamp like mine but with plastic widgets where the metal discs are and a blue plastic right where the screw head is would probably cost something like £15 to Park Tool if they ordered enough (UJK would need to cover their one-off tooling costs) which leaves 200% markup for the supply chain which feels about right.
In case you think I’m totally anti- Park Tool, I’m not, I own a lot of their kit. if you only need one of these, then the ring so you can hang it on a tool wall is a superior solution which they’ve thought through. Nice blue rubberised handles would be even better, but might have pushed the RRP past significant psychological price points in USD or EUR so they skipped that. But it would have been an active decision when negotiating with their supplier.
https://www.axminstertools.com/ujk-technology-clamp-for-pocket-hole-jig-503727?queryID=86f3b7a12299829a073ae5b436d3056c
No worries Panda, I’m always
No worries Panda, I’m always up for the craic 👍
So that costs £23.28 – you’re arguing that people should buy one of those instead of spending about £20 extra give or take shipping, to then have to faff about hacking the ends with random material until they grip well, don’t slip and don’t damage anything? Oh and there’s no hole at the end to *really* tighten it up, so you aren’t comparing functional apples with apples. Park didn’t add that for fun – gripping a slippery rubber tyre sidewall strong enough to do the job really does require a huge amount of force.
Plus the warranty on these is one year instead of lifetime from Park.
This isn’t the value burn you think it is. Of course people are free to read this review and thread, assess whether the extra £20 or so is worth it for a bike-specific tool, and crack on.
Noting there are literally hundreds of examples of bike-specific tools where you could look at their general DIY origin, balance with your own budget against how often you’ll use it and what your time is worth, and surmise the ‘bike tax’ isn’t worth paying. I’m good with that.
No, I was trying to poke a
No, I was trying to poke a little bit of fun at whole “look at this amazing solution we invented!” thing.
If I were in the business of removing customers’ tyres for a living, I’d definitely buy one, because the crucial bit is the little plastic widget that bites the tyre without damaging the tyre and it’s not worth an hour of my time trying to improvise one.
My main poke is the idea that Park Tool are selling a premium piece of engineering. They’re not. That’s not a twenty quid UJK clamp under the hood, it’s a cheap one. Instead of charging me £45 for that piece of crap, charge me £50 for one with decent rubberised handles. If I’m using hand tools all day, the handles are as important as the engineering!
Like the digital calipers, for *this* application, it doesn’t need to be any better than what Park Tool provide, so I don’t have a problem with the solution, it’s the marketing that irks me! See also: hi-fi.
Comparing with a number of
Comparing with a number of vice grips I have about, the quality of the Park one is good. I’d have noted otherwise. The fact they don’t come with rubber grips doesn’t bother me.
You need to appreciate the automotive/welding/construction industry is orders of magnitude larger than the bike industry, which drives costs down. Economies of scale for production and distribution exist that cycling doesn’t have. The ‘cycling tax’ isn’t a product of profit gouging – it’s a product of a relatively small industry. Park is a private company so we don’t get the same visibility re financials – but capitalism is pretty ruthless and if they were extracting excessive profit for sub-standard products they wouldn’t be in business for as long as they have been.
panda wrote:
This seems to be a thing you’ve just imagined in order to poke fun at it, though. The review says in the second para that this is “a spin on the venerable vice grip”, and then later on that it’s “not overengineered” (my emphasis), so no-one’s pretending that they’ve come up with something entirely novel or hugely advanced – just that it’s well-suited to the use case.
panda wrote:
.
In my attention deficit way
In my attention deficit way of the modern world (note – blame others rather than yourself) I read this initially as Bread Maker. Wouldn’t mind a Park Tool one of those, if you could take it with you.
The Kennedy Locking C-Clamp
The Kennedy Locking C-Clamp is £10.55 online. It will do the same job, coz it’s pretty much the same design.
Park Tool fanboys will disagree, for reasons.
Benthic wrote:
First, it’s more like £25.
Second, it will only do ‘the same job’ once modified to remove the pivoting tips and replace them with something that won’t mar your rim or rip your tyre. Plus you need to tap and then tread in a ring to allow tightening beyond what fingertips can manage.
er, you mean people who can see the glaring differences will disagree, for reasons
There seem to be some
There seem to be some misapprehensions expressed in this debate. The knurled knob on a set of Mole grips (or, on the Park version, the gimmicky blue ring) is used to set the limits of closure/pressure at the jaws. The pressure at the jaws is applied by closing the levers. I’ve never used ( or had to use) the knurled knob to increase pressure with the jaws closed. If the jaws aren’t closing tightly enough, then release them, adjust the knurled knob by an eighth of a turn and close the jaws again. Still not tight enough? Repeat.
If the lever action of a set of Mole grips isn’t sufficient to release a tyre from the rim, then my next suggestion would be dynamite.
Also, I’m firmly in the camp that says these are just a slightly modified set of Mole grip style assembly clamps.
Park Tool themselves say
Park Tool themselves say
This thread really is a great
This thread really is a great collection of commentary from people who didn’t read the review 😎