Monday, April 12, 2010

Tires, Tires, F'n Tires

A break from farkles to discuss tires. I am so pissed right now and it is all due to my tires. The last set of tires I had on the bike were Michelin Pilot Road 2 model tires. I didn’t know anything about tires at the time and they were on sale so I purchased them. They are a sport-touring model tire and since the RT is a sport-touring bike I figured they would work well enough. I was only expecting to get about 8,000 miles out of them. They performed flawlessly and I put almost 12,000 miles on them. I rode them in just about every road condition possible. They never lost air, no punctures, perfect. I know I needed new tires for this long 9,000+ mile trip I was going on so I wanted a tire specific for touring. I did some research and Metzeler has one of the best reputations for tires. The general consensus is that they are pricey, but worth it. In December 2009, I decided to get the Metzeler ME880 Marathon model tires installed. I was expecting to easily get 12,000 miles from these tires. I have had nothing but problems with the rear tire and it is driving me nuts. I never had to “plug” a tire before and after only about 1,000 miles on these, I got a flat. Then a few weeks later I got another flat and now I have a weird super slow leak or maybe no leak at all and it is driving me nuts. It went flat and I filled it up with air and 12 hours later it went flat then I filled it up again and I couldn’t find the leak because it was so slow and weak. Yesterday, I filled it up with air again and this morning I checked it and it is fine. I have no idea what is going on and I am not comfortable at all with this tire. I ordered another tire from Second Wind BMW in Merrimack NH. It should be in this week. I really hope it is the tire and not something more serious like the rim or something. A word on Second Wind BMW… I had been using Greater Boston Motorsports for a couple years. They are Boston’s BMW dealer in Arlington MA. I was using them because they were close, but their customer service has always been really bad. They deal with too many bike models so their parts personnel don’t have a clue. They have ordered the wrong parts for me on a number of occasions. I decided to try Second Wind back in December. They picked-up the bike and I had them do a major service for me. Very responsive customer service and they only deal with BMW and Triumph bikes so they have a specialized focus. The location is not too far away and it is a good launching point for some great roads in NH.

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