biknflyfisher
Well-known member
Well, after many years of running on dumb Swedish luck, I had my first on-the-road flat.
I was zipping up Hiway 178 above Lake Isabella happily enjoying the 1st of 3 days on the road with my Dad and 1 other rider, and stopped at the crest of Walker Pass to wait for my partners. As I often do, I was just checking things over on the bike when I noticed an "odd" mark in the middle of the tread of my rear Metz Z6 tire. Dad and Jim soon showed up and we talked a bit, but then I had another look at the tire and gave the tread a "push" with my thumb - RATS, it's going soft!! I recalled hearing/feeling the rear tire hit something in the road a ways back, so I must have hit a rock with a very sharp point that pushed it's way through.
We immediately headed down the east side of Walker Pass towards Ridgecrest at a slow pace hoping to make it to InyoKern where I could grab some air, then limp on to Honda of Ridgecrest.
Long story short, they had no plugs that would work so my choices were to buy an auto plug kit at a local Kragen, or put on a new Metzler M3 that they had in stock that was the correct size for the FJR. Now, the last thing I wanted to do was fret about having the plug fail in the middle of nowhere (like half way between Trona and Panamint Springs), so I opted to do the safer but more expensive thing and re-tire (as such) on the road.
Props to the folks at Honda of Ridgecrest for helping out on short notice and taking great care of my bike too.
The rest of the trip to Death Valley and Beatty, NV was great (well, other than the wind on Friday) and a fun time was had by all,,,
Lesson learned though - have an air compressor along and a plug kit too - your luck will eventually run out, and usually in the most inconvenient place of course. By-the-way, no speed runs were attempted on this DV trip - Still clearly remember last time when I saw 140 on the speedo,,,
Be safe out there.
Brian the biknflyfisher
I was zipping up Hiway 178 above Lake Isabella happily enjoying the 1st of 3 days on the road with my Dad and 1 other rider, and stopped at the crest of Walker Pass to wait for my partners. As I often do, I was just checking things over on the bike when I noticed an "odd" mark in the middle of the tread of my rear Metz Z6 tire. Dad and Jim soon showed up and we talked a bit, but then I had another look at the tire and gave the tread a "push" with my thumb - RATS, it's going soft!! I recalled hearing/feeling the rear tire hit something in the road a ways back, so I must have hit a rock with a very sharp point that pushed it's way through.
We immediately headed down the east side of Walker Pass towards Ridgecrest at a slow pace hoping to make it to InyoKern where I could grab some air, then limp on to Honda of Ridgecrest.
Long story short, they had no plugs that would work so my choices were to buy an auto plug kit at a local Kragen, or put on a new Metzler M3 that they had in stock that was the correct size for the FJR. Now, the last thing I wanted to do was fret about having the plug fail in the middle of nowhere (like half way between Trona and Panamint Springs), so I opted to do the safer but more expensive thing and re-tire (as such) on the road.
Props to the folks at Honda of Ridgecrest for helping out on short notice and taking great care of my bike too.
The rest of the trip to Death Valley and Beatty, NV was great (well, other than the wind on Friday) and a fun time was had by all,,,
Lesson learned though - have an air compressor along and a plug kit too - your luck will eventually run out, and usually in the most inconvenient place of course. By-the-way, no speed runs were attempted on this DV trip - Still clearly remember last time when I saw 140 on the speedo,,,
Be safe out there.
Brian the biknflyfisher
HaHaHaHaHa Come on, it's not even midnight mountain time, go for it :yahoo: 
