Just set a new personal record for wrecking tyres - 379 miles from new to big hole. Previous record was ten days which equated to about 450 miles. Expensive hobby, this...

A Tyresome topic upon witch one cannot comment

Dai wrote:Just set a new personal record for wrecking tyres - 379 miles from new to big hole. Previous record was ten days which equated to about 450 miles. Expensive hobby, this...

About 6 weeks ago I had an appointment to get new tyres on the K1100.

The same day it decided to self destruct.

The very positive outcome is that it happened on the way to get them fitted and not on the way home otherwise I would have had won this with about 8 miles from start to finish.....so a Christmas pudding in the mail for you in due course.

At the moment I am debating...K1100LT, K100LT or another K100RS. After 50k miles on the K1100LT I am absolutely loving the very much lighter 83 K100RS.

Trouble is a shed full of K1100LT bits like injectors, relays, Remus, towbar, panniers and rails, top boxes and carriers, fairing, gauges, brand new petrol tank etc etc etc. suggests just find another Mystic Red K1100LT!!

moriarti wrote:A Tyresome topic upon witch one cannot comment

I never thought I would see Dai opening a tyre thread. 

Since we are on tyres I discovered Squirrels prefer Pirelli ( it is off a K1100RS)

It's got to be a personal choice I know, but, I've used those DIY repair doohickeys several times now and never had one fail - they've all survived the life of the tyre without issue. Fit and forget is the conclusion I've come to. Used them on car tyres a few times too.
Never used one on a front tyre though, that's just the way it's happened. Not sure how I'd feel about fixing a front 

Once you retire you may be able to afford to retyre.

RETIRE!

-between full-time grandparent, part-time bike builder, part-time 'do-enough-to-keep-her-happyer', I've never been as busy!

(currently mulling over a K100 frame & tank, and a set of KTM forks and yokes on Ebay, along with the spare K75 engine and gearbox that's kicking around in the shed, hmmmm....)

(Edit: ...and the naked K100 rad cowl that's in the loft, plus the spare K75k seat/tail unit, I think it could work out...)

Stan wrote:Once you retire you may be able to afford to retyre.

I think that plan went down the tube.

Stan wrote:Once you retire you may be able to afford to retyre.

It’s only time to re-tire when you’ve lost your grip...roll on that day.

I bought a tyre the other day - got it home and found that it had an enormous hole in it. Took it straight back to the shop only for the dealer to shake his head and tell me “Sir, that hole...that’s where the wheel goes” No wonder I couldn’t work out how to fix it to the bike!

OK, don't nail me to a cross, but I've patched punctures with a tube patch on the inside of a tubeless tyre.

Also roof plumbers silicone caulked through the hole and shaped inside to match a mushroom type repair. I've used it for windscreens too. Did roof plumbing for a year and since then used it more than Windex got used in "My big fat Greek wedding" Name any two surfaces and I can state how to stick them together. In my defence I can say I've only done it to car tyres.

daveyson wrote:Name any two surfaces and I can state how to stick them together. 

The mesogloea of a jellyfish and the dorsal surface of a human tongue.

Roof plumbers silicone.

By the way, I've also used it for BMW roundels, and all sorts of trims too.

Technology has a lot to answer for when it comes to those round things. Some months ago whilst riding my F800R that deflating, worrying feeling creeps into your mind and then your body.....the flashing orange and then red lights on the dash. You know, the ones you have never seen before, the ones you didn't know existed. Pull over on the side of the road, look again and then realise that this must be really serious, whatever it is.
When you don't know what it is, what do you do? You take off the bike seat and look under seat for the meaning of life...THE MANUAL. Ten minutes later, whilst traffic is blasting past you have attempted to read about all the possible combinations of the dreaded orange and red lights. Finally, I find out that the front tyre has lost about 2 pound of pressure, but no more and not losing any more. Good to know.
Not a good move for technology when my son went looking for a BMW X1, four wheeler. He found that it was indeed, a four wheeler. No spare wheel is supplied, just a pressure can of goo and a mini compressor.
Technology can be so deflating.

I have had to sit in "functional spec" meetings where two or three idiots from the sales/marketing department try to outdo each other on "cool stuff" they can dream up for the engineers to include in a new product.  

It gets even worse when the engineers decide to play the game too.

F-ing microprocessors!

Point-Seven-five wrote:I have had to sit in "functional spec" meetings where two or three idiots from the sales/marketing department try to outdo each other on "cool stuff" they can dream up for the engineers to include in a new product.  

It gets even worse when the engineers decide to play the game too.  

F-ing microprocessors!

And at work we are force fed all the latest and greatest in the woke world of inclusion.  In an ageing workforce we don't do change easily.  Especially when it makes our job harder.  

So Grrr and double Grrr.

The wife's car will limit its maximum speed if a tyre starts to deflate. If it gets too low, it will tell her to pull over and press a button in the roof console. This alerts a service centre to turn up and recover the vehicle to a tyre garage. The car has no spare, no compressor, and no goo. The wife? well I suppose she just sits there. There is absolutely no technical reason whatsoever to prevent normal removal and replacement of the wheel, apart from the lack of any kit to do this of course. It is purely a marketing feature.
I guess this absurdity crass stupidity is the idea of those guys you are on about.

Just what you need when on a motorway without the HARD SHOULDER I don't think

Put a few extra lines in the software and a little wire with a switch to get rid of 20kg of spare tire and tools. Sounds like the engineers are getting desperate to meet the CAFE requirements. On the other hand, how many urban "men" under the age of thirty are able to change a tire?

So glad I went out on my own before the company I worked for got PC and women took over all the executive positions and drove out all the guys who built the company. Being primarily a defense subcontractor, it was necessary back in the 90's to keep the government money coming in.

Point-Seven-five wrote:So glad I went out on my own before the company I worked for got PC and women took over all the executive positions and drove out all the guys who built the company.  Being primarily a defense subcontractor, it was necessary back in the 90's to keep the government money coming in.  

And now Microsoft, having announced that they will be bringing in more non-Caucasions to fill upper management roles, have been told by the YouEss gov that they are breaking the anti-discrimination laws and are likely to be prosecuted for it...

Go figure...

Two Wheels Better wrote:

I've actually not had great luck with these in bias ply tyres, they seem better suited to radials - perhaps the steel cords help keep them in place? But I've had a few fall back inside the tyre when riding. I like the sticky brown strips better, they don't do that..

Snod Blatter wrote:

Two Wheels Better wrote:

I've actually not had great luck with these in bias ply tyres, they seem better suited to radials - perhaps the steel cords help keep them in place? But I've had a few fall back inside the tyre when riding. I like the sticky brown strips better, they don't do that..

Yes, they do seem to work better in radial tyres, tho' I often have to attempt a second plug injection when the insertion tool tears the StopNGo plug to shreds because the plug has to pass through such a narrow opening. Perhaps 90% of the time they're successfully inserted and hold air. I've also worn out tyres with them in it. Before dismounting the tyre from the rim, it's sometimes difficult to find where the tyre was plugged, such is the rubbery-ness of the material, it blends into the carcass so well. I did plug the R100 Mystic's tubeless bias tyres with one recently. It's holding air at the inflated-to pressure after many weeks. I've used them on my then-bias ply tyres on the OZ-based RS. They're compact for travelling. I have both the Allen-key tool version and the caulking gun tool version for home garage use. I always pull the protruding bit back outwards away from the tyre's tread, then carefully razor off the excess. Having a rubbery willy wagging round on the tarmac as the tyre rotates is a sure-fire way to force them back inside the tyre.

I have two of the Allen wrench versions on my bikes.  So far, I've only had to plug one tire where I picked up a roofing nail.  After a summer of riding and about 3,000 miles the repair is doing a good job of keeping the air in.  

My K75RT has carried one of the Allen wrench kits for 5 years and so far it has done an excellent job of not being needed. (You never get a flat tire if you have the stuff to fix it with you.)

Two Wheels Better wrote:I always pull the protruding bit back outwards away from the tyre's tread, then carefully razor off the excess. Having a rubbery willy wagging round on the tarmac as the tyre rotates is a sure-fire way to force them back inside the tyre.

I make sure to do this and it can look fine but sometimes it'll just keep working its way inwards.. Definitely seems to depend on the size of the hole, the smaller the better.