Triumphrat

shoggot

Primary issue first:

I parked last afternoon, and came out again 3 hours later to do a quick ride to return some rental movies - my front tire was flat.

Now, this is my first flat; I assume these tires are rigid enough that they don't bottom out like a car tire, which is the behaviour I was seeing (IE, it didn't bottom out - just 'squishy', more or less).

I heaved the bike off the front wheel (arm under the locked bars, so weight was on me + kickstand + rear wheel), and rotated the front; couldn't see anything stuck in the wheel, or any defect.

So, given that I can't find the leak, and I don't have a centerstand, no garage, no jack - heck, not even the basic tools to do a tire change if I -could- remove the front wheel in some fashion - what do I do?

Solutions I've thought of:

A - wipe the front wheel down with water, and rotate while squeezing the wheel, looking for bubbles. If I find a leak, get a repair kit, repair, and ride to where the tire can be replaced

B - call insurance, and try to get roadside assistance to hook me up; but I think that they default to getting you either to a repair place or home, whichever is closer, and the bike is -at- my hom

C - finding a friend with a pickup truck, and hauling it to the repair place (problematic, as I don't know anyone with an open-bed pickup; I'd be searching for a friend-of-a-friend situation

D - paying for a tow (and I don't even know how to start on finding a bike-specific towing rig (which'd just be a pickup, no?)

And second issue, less pressing. I'm considering a lot of (mainly cosmetic) modifications, and I consider that they may have the net effect of looking like crud. Basically, I like the streetfighter aesthetic, but I also like retro & cafe. I've proven myself a dab hand at fabbing my own carbon fibre parts. So, the following:

- Replacing 7" headlight with LSL Mig-lights (tiny dual headlights, essentially)
- Replacing instrument cluster with a motogadget miniscope attached at the handlebars
- Replacing the entire seat / tail / rear fender with a carbon fibre seat pan riding a bit higher on the rear frame, single seat, with a tapered seat-end/tail
- Replacing the controls with rearsets.

The bike already has ZRX front & back wheels & front forks. So, aside from dropping the resale value - which I don't care about - what are the downsides? I'd be changing the ergonomics considerably, that could go either way. The instrument cluster - am I going to run into legal issues? The odometer on the miniscope is resetable at a whim, making it a non-reliable total mileage indicator. Any clues on whether insurance would care about this? Should I inform them? Etc, etc.

Slinky

Front flats are very rare...

Seeing as you have tubeless tyres, I would aim to find the leak and plug it myself. Although these plug kits are supposed to be temporary, as far as I am concerned the repairs are good enough to be permanent. you could always plug it and ride to a shop if you are not confident in the strength of the repair.

There is always the possibility that the valve core has failed, or that you got pranked. Have you been upsetting the neighbours?

__________________
98 Thunderbird, 03 Speed Master

shoggot

Nah, I've been quite nice; I pull out without power, coast down the sidewalk to the end of the block, into the McDonald's parking lot, and start up there.

The bike's under a cover, also... And the valve caps are hard as heck to remove, so I'm going to nix the pranking.

I'll check this afternoon with a compressor, and see what happens... I hope I can find the leak.

ssevy

Three suggestions:
1- Use a spray bottle with water and a little dish detergent. This will bubble up over the leak. Water alone doesn't work well, unless you are actually immersing the whole tire in a leak tub.

2- Get free towing added to your insurance. One phone call, and you get it picked up. Mine added about $6 per year to my policy.

3- You will likely have to rebalance your tire, as the plug has weight. Someone else mentioned that their Avon Storms came with a road hazard warranty, and they were able to get a new tire. It might be worth checking into.

Avatar

" coast down the sidewalk " What are you doing driving on the side walk!?

"And the valve caps are hard as heck to remove" You could swap valve cores between the front and rear to be doubly sure.

I second the plug kit. What about putting slime in the tire? I've never had to use it so I can't recommend it either way.

Have you simply tried to air the tire back up?

shoggot

Sidewalk: I live in the middle of my block, and there's no driveways. City street. No parking on the street. EDIT: I checked w/ local cops before starting this habit. As people park on the sidewalk as is (which I don't do), they thought this was just fine...

Valve caps / cores: No idea how to remove 'em (hand tools only, I have; and these are tubeless tires. I don't even own a compressor; I'm borrowing one tonight)

Sliming: Had a mechanic say that this would be a horrible thing to do to a road bike, that under fast rotation, it'd cause it to feel like hell. He spoke well of it for slower, off-road use.

Airing: Not yet, that's going to be this evening's project, when I get home from work.

Re Ssevy: I have roadside assistance, unsure if that's the same thing; if the problem isn't something I can fix via re-airing or plugging, I'll give the company a call and see if they can help.

Sadly, non-Avons. And if I have to plug, I'll be replacing; will I need to rebalance for the roughly 10-mile ride to the mechanic? How badly does an off-balance wheel throw things off? Off-balance to the degree that there's a plug in it, I suppose I should stipulate.

Avatar

Sidewalk: I was giving you a hard time. Someone put a padlock on my chain for parking on the sidewalk. I learned for be more considerate quite quickly.

Valve Cores: You're looking for a "core tool" for use on Schrader valves. Any local auto parts store will have them. Sometime they can be found in Walmarts. It removes the inner core of the valve for replacement. My boss used to be a repo guy. He would remove the cores to non-destructively disable the vehicle so he could steal it later. Which begs the question: is that the motive for your bike? I've heard that thieves cut ignition wires to strand a bike until they come back with a truck....could all be old wives tales tho...

Valve core tool: http://www.amazon.com/Lisle-Universa.../dp/B00063K6IW

Sliming: no idea; good luck...just throwing that out there.

I've plugged car tires. It never put them off balance enough to notice.

ClassiclyMobile

Time to buy some tools my friend.Tools for taking the wheel off your self is no big investment - cheaper than having the shop do it. Use them again at each tire change and save the $40 or so the dealer charges just to remove and reinstall. Mounting the tire and tube to the rim will be an additional $30-$40 plus the cost of rubber. While you're at it check the condition of the break pads, wheel bearings and relube shaft.

shoggot

Balancing? Anyway... so the conclusion is a story, which starts some weeks ago.

I had new wheels (ZRX1100's), and new rubber on 'em. While at the auto parts shop, I noticed some tricky valve caps in the bargain bin, which change color when pressure falls below 32psi; perfect, early warning system. I install 'em, and keep an eye out for pressure drop; none occurs. Excellent product.

After about 2.5k miles, tons of potholes, etc - basic standard abuse - the aforementioned (well, aforethreaded) flat occurs.

I call my insurance; I can get a tow to a mechanic, yay. I don't; I want to take a stab at this myself. I swing by a bike shop, picked up the co2 cartridge tire inflator I'd intended to get weeks ago, a small 12v compressor, and a tire puncture fixing kit. If none of this works, I figure I'll slob in a can of fix-a-flat and pay the bad sportsmanlike conduct penalty when the tire gets changed. I also check around for tires; a battleaxe will run me roughly 120$, at the expensive shop (but I'm willing to pay it, if it comes to it).

Head home (car). Pull off valve cap; plug in compressor. Start bike, start compressor, fill tire. Stop periodically to check pressure; I stop at 32 psi. Odd - it seems to be holding air just fine.

I walk away, and check fifteen minutes later; pressure's the same (or as close as I can tell on a guage which measures 0-40psi in the space of 1.3"). Okay, I'll try waiting longer; I re-install the valve cap...

Which immediately starts venting precious air from its top (uncracked; the internal mechanism seems to be the culprit). Rather quickly, as well... off comes the cap, in goes more air, cap stays off.

Tricky non-excellent-product valve cap removed from rear, just in case.

Moral: avoid tricky things, if the main function they possess is to be tricky. It's a neat idea, but a point of potentially disastrous failure - I feel very lucky that it happened when I parked or just before it, and not on the highway on the way home.

Picking up some bog-standard valve caps today.

Also: Omar rearsets; they're Raask rearsets. And while they do fit, they're rather... cheap. Then again, they're about half the price of good rearsets, so go figure... Now if only someone made good rearsets to fit the TB. I may have a go at making my own...

(I'm actually rife with tools; just, none of them are of a sort capable of holding a 400lb bike off the ground, and damned few of the rest are metric. I'm buying as they're needed; the semi-outfitted machine shop is a relic from tool-sharpening days. So making my own small parts, no biggie; dealing with big parts in general, tricky. And no garage =( )

ssevy

I've seen those caps, and avoided them like the plague. They essentially hold the valve open so all the pressure goes to the spring loaded device in the cap which pushes up the green indicator. Two lessons to be learned here, both of which I have learned myself in the past:
1- While coincidence is always possible, generally if you have been working on the bike and a new problem suddenly occurs, it is probably something you did. Go back and review your work, and try to think cause and effect.
2- Most of the "time saving" type gadgets would have been installed at the factory if they really worked. I try to avoid anything that makes it easy to overlook regular maintenance, such as these caps. Checking tire pressure is part of my wheel and brake pad pre-ride inspection, and the couple of minutes it takes me might just save my life; definitely time well spent.