Brake pads and removing the wheels I am new to road bikes. I bought a new road bike. I wanted to take the front wheel out, but it was difficult because, despite of having "opened" the brake pads (with the quick release lever found on the braking mechanism), the tire was thicker than the space between the pads. The same happens on my rear wheel.

I don't know if I am making myself clear, so an answer to any of these three questions will help:


Is this normal on road bikes? 
Does this mean the pads should be further apart? 
How far apart from the wheel should the brake pads (front and rear) be?
This might sometimes happen. The quick release is usually enough to make the pads wider than the tire, but this doesn't happen in every case.  The pads should usually be about 2mm from the rim when everything is set up.  If there is not enough room to remove your wheel after the quick release is used, you will have to loosen the cable. You can try doing this by loosening the barrel adjuster to see if that gives you the needed clearance, if not you may have to actually undo the cable, this is the least desirable solution as it makes things take a lot longer to get set up properly again.

In most cases, people only remove their wheel when the tire is flat, and so, there shouldn't be any problem getting the tire past the brakes, as the tire can be squeeze and made narrower. If you have the tire fully inflated, it can be quite firm and hard to squeeze between the brake pads. Depending on the situation, you might want to remove the air from the tire before removing the wheel, or if you are fixing a flat, don't fully inflate the tire before you put it on the bike.