Good video! The Rabaconda seems like a decent way to do this!
Thanks Brian! I tried with spoons a while back, but I was either too uncoordinated or too stupid (or both?) to make them work. I sent them back and ordered a Rabaconda.
When I bought it, I math'd that if I started doing tire changes myself, rather than continue bringing my bike to Ted, I would break even on the Rabaconda after 11 tire changes. I've done 5 tires since then, so almost halfway, and no regrets!
There are other benefits too:
Riding to a shop, waiting my turn, waiting for the work to be done, riding back home, that all probably takes a lot more time than just doing the job myself, so I save time.
I also get to do the job on my own schedule. I don't have to miss work to go during office hours, or head over to the shop during rush hour, or ride in bad weather. It could be a rainy day, peak traffic time, or midnight long after all the shops are closed, I can just do the work myself. That's a nice perk.
There are a few downsides to the Rabaconda though but they're not too bad:
1) Unfortunately Rabaconda has raised the price a bit since I bought it... but then again, maybe shop rates on tire changes have gone up too? I don't know and neither effect me so, whatever...
2) I've had to pay extra for two different adapters that I need to make this work on some of my motorcycles. One is basically for bikes with single sided swing arms (like fancy Ducatis or in my case, a little Vespa). The other is for my BMW G650GS and my Talaria electric mountain bike which both need a thinner axle.
It kind of sucks to have to buy these as extras, but is the glass empty or half full? Is it ****** that I have to buy extra stuff to make it work with all of my weird bikes, or is it great that I have one product that I can buy the parts I need to make it work with all of my weird bikes? Matter of perspective... Apparently the new Rabaconda's ships with the thinner axle part now, and that's part of why they increased the price, so I guess they're trying to cover more bikes from the get-go now.
3) I've done a half dozen tire changes on it, but I don't use it often enough that it's entirely intuitive just yet. I still need to refer to the instructions every now and then because small things (like duckhead or ratchet position) make a difference.
Overall, it's not a perfect system, but it does do the job well, makes it fairly easy, saves me time, and it'll start saving me money too... (one day)
