I fit all my own tyres and often the modern ones can almost be just trodden on with minimum use of tyre levers. But I have used pieces of thin plastic (milk bottles) to protect the rim against tyre levers. But even so the inevitable scratch can happen. In which case I just flatten the small area with some fine W&D and touch it in with a chisel shaped artist brush. Matt or eggshell paint is very forgiving. Ron
Having a tube in the rim complicates fitting. A tubeless tyre can easily be fitted to avoid modern rim damage by using zip ties. The ties are placed every 6 inches or so around the circumference of the tyre and pulled tight. This has the effect of increasing the tyre I side diameter allowing it to quite easily slip over the rims in one go. The ties are then cut and pulled out. This is demonstrated on YouTube. Wade
Oh, one thing to do if you do buy these rim protectors, you'll need to soak them in boiling water so they soften up enough to go on the rim. Put them on and let them cool down, otherwise they're very tight to get on.
