NomadGal's Year on the Road

[Cuttle]

Originally Posted by NomadGal

Hahaha Silke! You should have seen me pumping away with my little hand pump until I was red in my face.
I really had no desire to go higher than 40 psi. There's a gas station near my friend's house, I think I might just tie the rear tire on her bicycle and paddle on over there to break the bead.

is there a second bike around? if so, use the side-stand to break the beat


(but watch out if it's a KTM with the super-mean-high-powered-spring-loaded-shin-killing-sidestand.... don't ask me how I know)

[NomadGal]

Originally Posted by Cuttle

is there a second bike around? if so, use the side-stand to break the beat


(but watch out if it's a KTM with the super-mean-high-powered-spring-loaded-shin-killing-sidestand.... don't ask me how I know)

Sorry Silke, I meant to type seat the bead! Haha, breaking it is easy now with my handy dandy C-Clamp!
I just didn't want to have to try and pump the rear tire up to 60psi by hand in order to seat the bead. Hence a trip to the gas station

[Feyala]

Originally Posted by NomadGal

Sorry Silke, I meant to type seat the bead! Haha, breaking it is easy now with my handy dandy C-Clamp!
I just didn't want to have to try and pump the rear tire up to 60psi by hand in order to seat the bead. Hence a trip to the gas station

I have one of these which works pretty well. Mine came in a large box of crap the PO gave me, so I don't have all the neat attachments, but I've used it successfully several times now. Much easier to seat than pumping by hand. Kind of a pain in the ass to get to the battery terminals, (I only have the alligator clip attachment), but somebody on my RR mentioned that I could use the starter relay as a jump point, which is easy to get to under one of my side panels, so I don't have to take off the seat.

Obviously you want to turn the bike on if you're drawing from the battery for any length of time, but it's a good use of the power that you already have with you. Now that I know about the side panel thing, I'll probably be less reluctant to air down my tires offroad too.

[Merlin III]

Use a ratchet strap to compress the tire and make setting the bead easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0nr...e=results_main

[tommu56]

Originally Posted by NomadGal

Sorry Silke, I meant to type seat the bead! Haha, breaking it is easy now with my handy dandy C-Clamp!
I just didn't want to have to try and pump the rear tire up to 60psi by hand in order to seat the bead. Hence a trip to the gas station

When it gets to 60 psi and it isnt set dribble it, bounce it down on ground hard and catch it and bounce it again and work your way around the tire till it seats.


tom

[Louisiana Rider]

Originally Posted by NomadGal

To all of you "helpful" guys who thought I had the tire on wrong, and didn't think I knew how to read





Thanks bk brkr baker :) At least one person who did

Hey...glad you got it right,what threw me is my Kenda's are facing the front:

[arraflipper]

I am glad you have it the right way, sure hate to have to pump it up again with that little pump. I changed a tire on my skidsteer and was able to get it on the wrong direction. Not a happy day at all.

[just jeff]

Originally Posted by Merlin III

Use a ratchet strap to compress the tire and make setting the bead easy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0nr...e=results_main

Hi MerlinIII
The ratchet strap trick is more for beading tubeless tires. It doesn't really do anything for tube type tires like the KLR has.
Regards....justjeff

[NomadGal]

I can honestly say that I have absolutely and utterly no desire to ever change a rear tire again for the rest of my life!
If I get my wish is another matter.



Of course taking the tire of is something I can do in my sleep pretty much, but what followed afterward is Quite another story.
Got the air out, and the valve, grabbed my handy dandy C-clamp and started to clamp the tire down.
Yep! the front tire is way easier. When turning the handle on the clamp I realized that the further down it went it got harder and harder to a point that I had to use a wrench to turn it.



After about half an hour I realized that getting the tire to go down was easier with the bottom of the C-clamp on the lower rim, and using a tire iron to press down on the tire while tightening the clamp. I also poured baby powder between the rim and the tire for easy removal



Another hour later after I had pressed down the tire on the rim on both sides, thinking I had broken both beads, I tried to wedge the tire irons in there to pull the edge over the rim.
I got nowhere!



I have to admit that the thought to just cut/saw the old tire off was sounding very tempting. Had I had another tube I might just have done that!!! As it turns out I didn't have another tube, and my stubbornness would not let me quit!

So Again I pressed down part of the tire and got it so low that I was able to wedge the hook of the tire iron finally in there. Yay! It felt like I reached a milestone! LOL
Moved the clamp about 6 inches over and did it again with the other tire iron. Putting the wheel straight up I pushed down on both irons with no result, they didn't budge.
What was I doing wrong? ????
Finally after clamping down one more section, a part of the tire went down further and I then realized that I had not broken the bead at all! It seems like just removing the tire from the top part of the rim was not breaking the bead at all! What the heck did I know?
Yep! I felt real stupid that's for sure! Now I know that when you break the bead you can actually see the fat rim of the tire, and the area where the spokes attach. For those of you that have never removed a tire, let this be a lesson to you!



After this realization it got easier to press the tire down on both sides and have it slide into the center part of the rim.
Pulling it over was hard, but nothing compared to braking the bead.
I yanked out the tube, checked it for holes, and took the other half of the tire off,( I did struggle for a while to do that)


Yay! an empty rim, finally!!

Putting the new tire on was fairly easy, the last part was a bit of a challenge, but I used the C-clamp on the opposite end to clamp the tire flat and give me some room to maneuver.


Wow! I'm exhausted!

I got as far as 250 pumps, only about 20psi, when I decided tomorrow is another day. No more steam left in me.
Time to crash on the couch, eat, and watch a movie!

[just jeff]

Originally Posted by NomadGal

I can honestly say that I have absolutely and utterly no desire to ever change a rear tire again for the rest of my life!
If I get my wish is another matter.



Of course taking the tire of is something I can do in my sleep pretty much, but what followed afterward is Quite another story.
Got the air out, and the valve, grabbed my handy dandy C-clamp and started to clamp the tire down.
Yep! the front tire is way easier. When turning the handle on the clamp I realized that the further down it went it got harder and harder to a point that I had to use a wrench to turn it.



After about half an hour I realized that getting the tire to go down was easier with the bottom of the C-clamp on the lower rim, and using a tire iron to press down on the tire while tightening the clamp. I also poured baby powder between the rim and the tire for easy removal



Another hour later after I had pressed down the tire on the rim on both sides, thinking I had broken both beads, I tried to wedge the tire irons in there to pull the edge over the rim.
I got nowhere!



I have to admit that the thought to just cut/saw the old tire off was sounding very tempting. Had I had another tube I might just have done that!!! As it turns out I didn't have another tube, and my stubbornness would not let me quit!

So Again I pressed down part of the tire and got it so low that I was able to wedge the hook of the tire iron finally in there. Yay! It felt like I reached a milestone! LOL
Moved the clamp about 6 inches over and did it again with the other tire iron. Putting the wheel straight up I pushed down on both irons with no result, they didn't budge.
What was I doing wrong? ????
Finally after clamping down one more section, a part of the tire went down further and I then realized that I had not broken the bead at all! It seems like just removing the tire from the top part of the rim was not breaking the bead at all! What the heck did I know?
Yep! I felt real stupid that's for sure! Now I know that when you break the bead you can actually see the fat rim of the tire, and the area where the spokes attach. For those of you that have never removed a tire, let this be a lesson to you!



After this realization it got easier to press the tire down on both sides and have it slide into the center part of the rim.
Pulling it over was hard, but nothing compared to braking the bead.
I yanked out the tube, checked it for holes, and took the other half of the tire off,( I did struggle for a while to do that)


Yay! an empty rim, finally!!

Putting the new tire on was fairly easy, the last part was a bit of a challenge, but I used the C-clamp on the opposite end to clamp the tire flat and give me some room to maneuver.


Wow! I'm exhausted!

I got as far as 250 pumps, only about 20psi, when I decided tomorrow is another day. No more steam left in me.
Time to crash on the couch, eat, and watch a movie!

I am very impressed! You now know that the tools you carry with you will do the job. More importantly you know YOU can do the job and what to expect. This is very important on the side of the trail in the middle of nowhere. Or worse on the side of a busy highway.
On a road trip one time I paid 130$ to have a tube tire repaired. Six hours later I got an other flat. That one cost me over 200$ to have repaired. I had no tools or parts with me. I vowed never again!!!
Best Regards....justjeff

[TwilightZone]

>"I also poured baby powder between the rim and the tire for easy removal"

Sigh... baby powder doesn't work as tire lube. You put powder on the tube before installing...
it just lets the tube slide around inside the tire and avoid creasing or a pinch flat.
Powder doesn't do much on the tire bead. :>(

You were really close in the photo here. I think if you'd used WD40, Windex or a
mixture of dish soap and water, the tire would have come free of the rim.
I usually don't need a clamp, only tire irons, I work in a little area,
add some lube and continue with the irons till it breaks free.
Not adding lube - makes for problems.

You're learning! Next time the tire change will go much easier.

Have you checked your spoke tension yet ?




Here's a photo of my Tusk fender bag. $15 and you get 2 tire irons.
Tube is packed in a freezer bag... along with powder. Also in the freezer bag are patch materials

Extra tube, Patch stuff, CO2 inflation gear, Smaller hand-pump inflater (backup), Irons, Extra rim patch, small can of WD-40.

[livewire]

Why did you replace the rear tire? Tread looks good to me.

[luckychucky]

Hate fixing flats.

[NomadGal]

Originally Posted by Feyala

I have one of these which works pretty well.

That looks like a handy thing to have! It's pretty small by the looks of it, hmmmmmmm.
Maybe at some point in the future! I already have an access point hooked up from the battery, for my battery charger in case my battery is ever dead or low.

[NomadGal]

Originally Posted by livewire

Why did you replace the rear tire? Tread looks good to me.

On the side the threads were great, but in the center I was down to about 1/8 of an inch.
I could have ridden it a bit longer, but seeing as I never know where I will be from one day to the next, I figured I'd take advantage of actually having an address to ship a tire to. I've also discovered that smaller towns with motorbike shops rarely have dual sport tires, let alone Shinkos. And I'm just not into going to big cities that might or might not have them.
As might have noticed from my report, I avoid big places like the plague! Don't like them, period!