A New Front Tire

Yesterday I went ahead and bought a new front tire, Metzeler ME880 for my R1150RT. The thread depth had reached the TWI or Tire Wear Indicator marker on the tire and with the Two Bits Rally starting in a couple of days, no way to do a rally on a worn front tire!

You can plainly see the bump that is the TWI is flush with the top of the thread!

Trouble was, the beemer dealer could not fit me in to swap my front tire for me till 18JUN, over two weeks from then. No way I could wait that long.

On a chance, I called up Pete Homan of Bavarian Motorcycles West and he graciously agreed to see me first thing this morning to swap out my front tire. I think my having the tire on hand made it easy for him to say yes.

So off I went early this morning and got near Pete's shop way too early since he was not expecting me until 0730. I stopped by a bagel shop and had a couple of onion bagels and some coffee.

I arrived at Pete's shop just before 0730 and was greeted by his black dog "Harley". A friendly dog who's always hanging out with Pete as he works.

Harley

Some of the vintage bikes in process of being fixed/rebuilt by Pete

About 30 minutes and $35 later, Maria had a new Metzeler ME880 Marathon front tire and I was on my way to work. I kept the old worn tire to possible use as a standoff someday when I get the gumption to try changing out my own tires. In the meantime, will use it to practice plugging punctures. Dissapointingly, I only got 9291 miles out of the old tire, where I had gotten almost 18K out of the last front tire! Not sure why the big difference though. Oh well.

Just have to take it easy on the front tire for the next hundred miles or so to make sure I scrub off the protective coating that it comes from the factory with, it can make things "interesting" if I don't.

Now Maria is all ready for the Two Bits Rally!