These discussions remind me of the ones I see on bicycle forums about changing tires - all sorts of foolproof tricks and admonishments that good technique makes any tire change easy..... that has not been my experience in changing hundreds of tires by hand, both in the shop and out in the field. Sometimes the gizmos and tricks work.... sometimes not. There is a lot of variability in tire diameter, stiffness, temperature, etc. and sometimes you eat the bear and sometimes the bear eats you.
Unless you don't mind terribly gouged-up rims, you want rim protection anyplace metal might be touching the rim. For a true dirt bike with tubes, it's mainly a cosmetic consideration, but for a bike like the S10 with tubeless tires, you want to avoid anything that is going to gouge up the bead seating area. I mainly use the snap-on plastic rim protectors, but occasionally they're a bit bulky to use on the final "bite" of the levers.... in this case, I use a piece of scrap plastic cut from something like a 2-lter soda bottle.
- Mark
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