Strangely I had been worried about the front tire before leaving, and decided I would probably replace it after I got back. The rear tire was newer - the front had 13,000 miles, and the rear had 7000. The rear tire was also hard to read the tread, because the center of it had no tread.
I decided it wasn't safe to ride any more than necessary on this tire. Unfortunately, this bike has an unusual rear wheel, and most motorcycle dealers don't stock tires for it. I called Charlie, my BMW mechanic, and he agreed I should replace the tire, and thought there was a place in St. Louis. I looked it up, and it was Gateway Motorcycles. So I decided I should replace it, and had to travel the 180 miles to St. Louis on it. I talked with Don about how this affected the route, and wondered whether I should go via the fun twisty route through the Mark Twain NF, (shorter) or along the more boring US & interstate highways. I decided on the bigger roads, figuring if the tire blew while I was on the highway I had a decent chance to keep control enough to pull over, but if it blew while I was leaned over in a tight turn it could cause more damage.
So I finally got there - Don had warned me to be careful in St. Louis, as it's one of the more dangerous cities in the US - surpassing Detroit for most murders.
Here's the tire after I got to the dealer.
Frightning how quickly it got bad when two days before I was taking pictures to show off my chicken strips and there wasn't any overt sign of wear.
Spent a fair bit of time debating over what to get for a new tire. The front is a Metzler 880 with a little bit of treat left. The rear was a Metzler z6. Because of the oddball rear tire, the options were:
880 on the rear.
Z6's on front and rear (the flat middle tread of the Z6 rear tire is counting on the front tire to split the water.
Michelin pilot road II's. (Charlie recommended these before).
The 880's will last the longest, especially with the extra weight of touring and riding 2 up. The Z6's and Pilot Roads will give the best traction, and the pilot road has a harder rubber down the middle, which is supposed to give a little longer life in that area of the tire. I decided to go with the pilot road II's, and see what the life is. In the future, realizing the life of a tire on this bike is more typically 6-8 k miles, I need to take that into account before I go on the road. Changing tires on the road when you're not planning for it is a little stressful.
I got lulled into a false sense of tire security by my Virago 750 - I get 12,000 miles out of the Avon Venom X's I put on that bike. But, the bike is a lot lighter than the BMW, and I seldom loaded it much.
Okay, here's some photos of Gateway BMW Motorcycles in St Louis
Chuck, the service manager, who did a quick reinforcement of my sagging antenna:
Chuck and the owner, Hans. The owner's name is Hans, how appropriate for BMW! Also, St. Louis has historically had lots of German Immigrants.
The support staff:
That's better:
So now I'm in Bowling Green MO, which is actually part way down the road for the day 9 ride. I have the choice between an easy day today, or riding a little further and having a shorter day tomorrow. Diane is going to give me a massage when I get home, so that's incentive for me to try and get home earlier on Sunday, so maybe that's the deciding factor.
Side benefit of going to St. Louis - they have those funky hoods on the gas nozzles, so the fuel vapor doesn't leak. They've had them for years in California, but this is the first time I've ever had to fuel a bike with one. Took a couple of tries for me to figure out that you can use your hand to compress the hood, and that will allow you to fill the bike's tank up to the top. Then the little engineer brain gets going, and it would be easy to make something to allow one to use it on the bike more easily. Then I figure, well, I'm sure someone else has already done this.
One of the benefits of a long trip alone like this is it gives me a chance to look over what I really want from life, what makes me happy, what stresses me out, figuring my obligations to family, friends, work, and maybe how to balance it all. I definitely need alone time, but I think about a lot of stuff and like to communicate that. So the blogging deal is good, at least for me. Hopefully some folks are enjoying this blog, too.
Day 9 - I'm in Clarksville MO, and I am at "Cool Beans" coffee shop, indulging my coffee and chocolate habits while taking advantage of WiFi to finish yesterday's blog. So, if there are pictures in this post, then it worked.
TTFN
Virago Becky
2 comments:
The belt isn't a chain mail accessory. You're supposed to keep it inside the tire.
Right you are - part of the reason I switched to a different type of tire is I did a really lousy job of reading the wear on that one. Chain mail works for other places, but not tires :)
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