no rules...no politics...just ridin'

Flat Out

Rode into work last Friday from Kat's place at Kingscliff - nothing too outstanding about that I suppose, although it was a great morning to be on the road. When I had finished work for the day I headed up to my bike and started to mentally plan what I needed to do once I got home and for Saturday's ride. Kat & I were going to do the Black Uhlans Poker Run with Grizz, Panda & crew and I was heading down to her place so we could get an early start. Reached my bike, warmed her up, jumped on and off I went - something didn't feel right.

Got off and had a look at the rear tyre - flat as! There was also a chunk missing from my hugger. I found the culprit - looked like a piece of reo from one of the building sites that I had passed in the city earlier that morning, and it was big. I stood there thinking what to do - tried to ring a couple of guys to tow my bike but they were all busy. I decided to leave it in one of the car parks (the guy said I could leave it for nothing) and train it home.

Got home about an hour later and gave Dodge a ring to see if I could maybe put the bike in his ute. He suggested that I try Tyre Weld - that glue stuff in a can that you use to inflate flat tyres - something I had not even thought of. I decided to head back in to the city as I didn't really want to leave my bike in an open type car park on a Friday night. Took off for the train, calling into the servo and buying a can of the stuff along the way.

Reached my bike about 8:30pm and had a look at the tyre. I decided to remove the piece of steel as it was way too big to leave in. Took some twisting to remove and it was big - was very lucky that it had actually pierced the rubber in a groove just off centre. I inflated the tyre and watched it foam out of the hole. Got on the bike and slowly rode to a servo. I inflated the tyre to proper pressure and continued home.

I woke on Saturday and went to check the tyre out - it was still up. Packed my gear and headed off for Moss St and Brisbane Motorcycle Tyres which is on the way down to Kingy - before setting off I checked the tyre pressure and found that it had leaked a little but not too much. When I got there I spoke to the guy about either plugging or tubing. He said that you would never put a tube in this type of tyre and, because I had used the Tyre Weld, could no longer plug the hole. I reckon he just didn't couldn't be bothered pluggin it. He suggested that I leave it as is and just see how it goes - of course I thought that was a great idea coz the tyre had plenty of tread and would have cost $285 to replace.

I ended up at Kat's before lunch and decided to get another can of Tyre Weld to make sure the tyre was sealed. Put it in and Kat & I did a ride down to Lennox Head for a fantastic lunch in the sun. We had no problems with the tyre again. I have checked every day since and found that it is holding pressure, so at this stage will leave as is.

I am lucky that it was punctured at relatively low speed and I wasn't left stranded on the M1 early on Friday morning, although I was a bit pissed off that I couldn't get to Kat's on Friday evening and do the poker run on Saturday (...how did it go guys??). Oh well - such is life!

The piece of reo that pierced my tyre

The damage to my hugger - you can also see how much tread I still have left

Labels: ,

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home