Saturday 25 August 2012

Ouch... Flat Tire

Ouch... Flat Tire

The return leg of Tuesday's commute resulted in a flat tire. Riding along, then I hear a rapid succession of "tap-tap-tap-tap" noises. One nice thing about electric motorcycles is there is no noise from the engine/exhaust to drown out background noises. Pulled over when it was safe to, put the sidestand down and looked at the rear tire, it was pretty deflated.

Saw one of these:
only all mangled up.

I left it in, with limited hopes that it would hold enough air to try a gas station to gas station commute home. Pushed the bike while actuating the throttle slightly to the closest gas station, in the time it took to inflate the rear tire, remove the air dispenser and return it to its holder the tire had deflated. No such luck.

I resigned myself to being flat bedded home, so I pushed the bike to my wife's workplace (it was nearby the scene of the crime), asked her to put my hot sweaty riding gear in the car, broke out the Yellow Pages and called a towing operator that advertised motorcycle towing. Over $100 later and we're home.

I removed the rear wheel from the XU, and demounted the tire. The tire is a 110/90-16 Shinko "front" tire used on the back, I wasn't sure what the tube size would be. Some sites list "front" 110/90 as requiring a different sized tube than a "rear" 110/90. The replacement tube size you want is a 4.0/4.6-16.

The local dealer didn't have any tubes of that size in stock, they never offered to order one either; just a "we don't have any" and then they ignored me like the proverbial plague. I gave up on local dealerships and decided to try online. Some of the dealerships with an online presence now have their e-stores up and running with searchable catalogs, one can order anything. I ordered two replacement tubes from http://www.gpbikes.com/ and they should arrive next week.

Now that I think about it I probably should have ordered two front tubes too...