Today, I replaced the front tire. The original plan had been to use the old pusher tire but it was too worn down so I bought another K37 Heidenau tire. This one proved to be a bit of a PITA to change out, not sure why. Managed to tear the inner tube while removing the old tire, damaged the valve stem guide tool and the normally easy mounting of the new tire proved slightly harder than usual.
I chose to replace the brake pads as well even though I still had a bit more wear before reaching the 2mm minimum thickness on the braking material. It proved, like the tire, to be a bit of a PITA to install the new pads as there wasn't much room even with the pistons pushed back.
Still, got it all done, went out in the evening for a test ride to see if the front wheel would stay on or not....it did. :)
I stopped at the same spot for sunset pictures but today's sunset was a bit on the "weak" side with snow clouds moving in from the north and also from the front range mountains area.
So, new tires on both the pusher and the front wheel, the SC tire was put on 6400 km ago and it's got almost the same thread depth as the new tires!
2 comments:
Ha! I guess it's usually a good sign when the front wheel stays on following removal and replacement. I suppose that goes for the rear wheel too--and for you Uralists, the side wheel as well (hmm, there's always a third wheel with you on your rides :) ).
Earlier this week I took bolt cutters to the spokes of my GS's front wheel and then shipped the hub off to Woody's Wheel Works in Denver for Superlacing onto a brand, spankin' new--much stronger than OEM--Excel rim. Over the last five-ish years I successfully, severely dimpled (in at least three places) the stock rim beyond repairability.
It turns out--so the interwebs say--that BMW used garbage (maybe tinfoil) for the rims of the F800GS... Were they bargaining that folks wouldn't use that bike as advertised?
Surely there's no better time of year than the dead of winter to repair our toys so that we can take them out and break them come better weather. Maybe that's why winter exists, Dom.
I hadn't heard of the quality issues for the F800GS rims, ride one once during a dealer demo....nice ride.
As to Winter, while most folks regard it as a maintenance and repair period, I prefer to think of it as a chance to ride in snow-clad scenery and uphold my oath to never be trapped by snow again. :)
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