Big Scare on Halloween - Blown Tire - Long Story

[RedRider]

Had spent the beginning of the week running around the Smoky's, then headed to Chapel Hill for a couple of days of meetings. Was returning Friday and decided to run up Hwy 52 in West, by God, Virginia. Great weather, great roads, all was doing fine until I got into a turn at about 45 MPH and the rear tire blew.

 

I inspected the tire (with about 3000 miles on it) before I left the Saturday before. Up to that point, I had added about 1500 miles. Unfortunately, I failed to inspect the tire before leaving Chapel Hill for the ride home.

 

I was pulling a trailer (had to take my golf clubs and "Goin' to Meeting clothes"). Should have just shipped them, but I did not have a hard case for the clubs.

 

Anyhoo, I wrestled the bike to a safe stop on the oncoming shoulder and breathed a sigh of relief - actually several sighs of relief. That was a really scary incident.

 

Upon inspecting the tire, it was wore thru and totally trashed. This was the tire I had installed in Erie, PA in July during my ride back from Maine so I know the exact milage of it. Dunlop D404.

 

Knocked on a local door and a young lady, about 8 months pregnant opens the door and offered any help she could provide. Let me use her phone since there was no cell coverage down in the holler I was stuck in.

 

The neighbors across the street were also very helpful calling around to find someone who had a trailer or something to get the bike off the side of the road. The local coal trucks are apparently not very concerned with radom debris on the side of the road. We also called several local (within 30 minutes or so) dealers to see if anyone had a tire. In my state of flustration (yes, I know that isn't a real word), I was asking for the front tire size. Didn't notice until later that evening. A couple of dealers in Logan has the requested tire but were closing at 5:00 for Halloween - apparently this is a big deal around these parts - instead of the standard closing time of 7:00.

 

Traded a couple of messages with Skid, but he is in another part of the state.

 

I got hooked up with Larry who owns a local bike customizing shop and was just about 1/4 mi. down the road. He came down with a trailer and we moved the bike and trailer to his shop. He then proceeded to call everybody he knew who could tow, haul, or carry my bike to Logan. After a couple of hours on the phone, we hooked up with a guy with a flat bed car hauler that would take me to Logan. We loaded it up, strapped it down, and went for a ride thru the mountains. OK so far.

 

Got checked into a Super8 and the bike/trailer placed in the parking lot. The dealer said to call about 8:00 and they would get someone over to pick the bike up and install the tire. While stewing in the hotel, I got online and started doing some checking on tires. At that point, I realized I was asking for the front tire, not the rear!

 

At 8:00, called the dealer and advised them of my oversight, they did NOT have the correct tire - neither did the other dealer in town! I was completely screwed. On top of that, the tenents in the room next door must have been honeymooning acrobats - I only got about 3 hours of sleep with the thin walls.

 

Got on the internet and the phone and found a tire at a dealer just across the line in KY - about 10 miles from where I was originally. I had called them, but they did not have the front tire in stock (which was what I asked for). Had I told them the correct tire size, they could have had me on my way Friday evening -argh!

 

Called around trying to find a rental car to run to the other dealer to get the tire. Figured this would be a little less expensive than hauling the bike to them - little did I know. No car was available. So, I was getting desperate and called the tow guy again. His boss was running errands and volunteered (OK, since I paid them, it's not officially volunteering) to go get the tire and bring it to me.

 

I sweet talked the Logan dealer to install a tire that was not purchased from their shop, which they were reluctant to do. They showed up with a trailer about 10 minutes after the tire arrived and we all went to the shop. An hour or so later, I was on the road.

 

All told, my failure to inspect the tire before leaving Chapel Hill cost me:

 

Towing: $150

Hotel: $65

Tire: $154.00

Tire delivery:$50

Installation:$185 (highway robbery, but they had me my the short hairs and they know it - this is also why I am not advertising their name - it wasn't a Yama shop).

T-Shirt from LT Customs: $20 (he wouldn't take anything for his troubles, so I paid a little extra over the asking price for one of their T-Shirts)

Lost day of riding in perfect weather: priceless

 

Got on the road at 1:00 Saturday afternoon and Iron Butted it home. 732 miles and got in about 4:00 am (actually 3:00 am with the daylight savings time change). Had to stop and take a couple of power naps on the way.

 

Could have been much worse. I am just grateful there was no traffic coming the other way when the tire blew. The bike was all over the road before coming to a stop. However, it stayed vertical.

 

OK, that's a long winded story about my final ride for this season. Time to wash the bike, put the battery on a tender, and break out the guns. It's hunting season.

 

Please check out the website for LT Customs. If you have something you want done, they appear to do good work and are really good folk. www.ltcustoms.com.

 

I believe the premature death of the tire was caused by many miles with a heavy load. I put about 3500 of the 4500 miles on this tire pulling a loaded trailer, and about 1200 of the 3500 towing miles with the addition of my 150 lb son going to and from PIP.

 

After this tire wears out, I am going back to Avons. Hopefully, I will have the opportunity to change out the next time voluntarily rather than under duress. Sure will be cheaper and not as scary.

 

RR

[Guest tx2sturgis]

Having a tire blow on a bike while cruising at highway speed has one of two outcomes:

 

Bad, and Terrible. Yours was only bad. A few hundred dollars later, all is well again. You were skilled and lucky, to keep the bike under control. I had a rear tire 'slo-blo' last April, by slo-blo I mean it took a nail or screw or bolt or something, that then was blown out and the tire dropped to zero pressure in about 5 to 10 seconds.

 

The Ventures are large heavy bikes and dont handle well at all when the rear tire goes offline. I had a very scary 15-20 seconds getting my bike hauled down to be able to ride it off onto the shoulder and then onto the grassy median. You can do a search for "venture gets towed" to find my story.

 

After the towing bill, tire replacement, and then the resulting rear diff problems, I STILL consider myself very lucky to be alive. Several hundred dollars is a cheap bill compared to a funeral!

 

 

Ride on.

Edited November 3, 2008 by tx2sturgis

[Skid]

Glad you are home safe Jeff. A very interesting story, sure glad it had a good ending. Sorry I wasn't closer, but if you had no other way I would have been there......

[juggler]

That has got to be the most expensive tire in history!

 

Glad you stopped the bike safely. That sounds like the only part the went right.

[Squidley]

Thank your stars you didn't crash....I know how that one works out

[JimRoberts]

I've been in your shoes before. The only difference was I had to replace the seat as well. Seems one of the pieces of flying debris came up and tore a large round hole in the seat right where I was sitting.

[royalstarjac]

Glad you weren't hurt! I will NEVER run a D404 again. They're not stout enough for the RSV. Last one I had was showing cord after 2k mi. It went from looking ok to showing cord all the way around in less than 200 mi. The Avons are a good choice.-Jack

[juggler]

Glad you weren't hurt! I will NEVER run a D404 again. They're not stout enough for the RSV. Last one I had was showing cord after 2k mi. It went from looking ok to showing cord all the way around in less than 200 mi. The Avons are a good choice.-Jack

 

 

I do not understand that. I have 6k on mine this year and that's riding two up most of the time and pulling a trailer for about 1800 of that and my Dunlop 404 WWW look like new. I replaced my last set at about 12k when the hit the wear indicators. I suppose I could have ridden more on them but figure why risk it.

 

As far a weight on the tires, I weigh close to 300 and my wife is not petite. Plus loaded down a trips and pulling a trailer. There has to some other factor here otherwise my D404 would have blown by now.

Edited November 4, 2008 by juggler

[FJR Rider]

Sure glad you made it through that without going down!

 

There has to be a difference between 404s that come on the bikes as original equipment, and those purchased as replacement tires. Going back through threads here and elsewhere, it seems fairly consistent those with aftermarket 404s got/get lousy mileage, pulling a trailer or not. I have a couple of friends on the western side of Wisconsin who both had replacement 404s wear out 5,000 miles (one of the two, two tires in a row)...however, I had over 10,000 miles on the original equipment 404 I took off our 06 this spring. That tire would have easily went another couple of thousand miles....and, the majority of the mileage on that tire was two-up, pulling a loaded camper!

 

And now I feel bad for having just under 10,000 miles on an E3 rear, with 9,500 miles of that with a plug in it.

 

Curt

[sarges46]

Good story Jeff and we are real glad you are telling it! Scary for sure. The tire....well what are ya gonna do....carry vasoline so it dont hurt so much when they give it to you!

You are caught by the shorts for sure. I paid over 500 hundred for new tires at Sturgis one year....actually 200 for the tires and 300 for the installation.

 

You did good riding it to a stand up stop...many havent.

[Guest tessa c2]

Glad to hear that you kept the bike up right i know there has been lots of talk why a tire's tread just vanishes and there must be a factor that we are missing

in 07 comming from pip my metz, was doing the same, everytime we would fuel up you could notice the difference, towards the end of the trip i was even picking my butt up to take the weight off,

this was the tire i had on when the bike got rear ended, so i was thinking that i might have had a bent swing arm, even though everything looked perfectly aligned, and i hadn't any buff marks on the tire right after the accedent, i had time to check that out while the bike was on it's side waiting for the cops.

this dunlop tire is wearing good this year:confused24: so i don't know if it is the age of the tire, or what, this year on the way down, lenny had to put a new tire on in n dakota, his tire was just feathering, and he didn't have that many miles on it, his could be air pressure, i know his recomendation for tire pressure is a bit low, and his previous tire wore on the outside edges, and i finally talked him into putting more air in it, guess this is where the burn outs come in handy, keeps the tire worn flat:crackup:

if it was cross tracking, one would think you would pick that up instantly, i know one time i had a yammy dealer spin on a new rear tire, and i hadn't gone 10 miles and kept saying this didn't feel like my bike, and the next day hazel and i where pinning it doown to sturgis, and had to take it into a bike shop in Great falls, mont. and there they found out that they never tightened up my axel bolt,

the only other thing that would be a factor on tire wear is the type of pavement, on the trucks that see a lot of gravel roads, they don't get the mileage, compaired to a vehical that is on pavement all the time, that and the grade of rubber of the tire

[saddlebum]

What can i say that hasn't been said already other than to add my personal thank God your OK to the list .

[Iowawegian]

Sorry to hear about your troubles, but really glad to hear your ok!!!

Gary & Deb

[dynodon]

Glad your OK, be sure to check the tongue weight of your trailer loaded. You want right at 10% of the total trailer weight on the ball mount. You can go a little over and a little under that, but not a LOT under or over!

 

Also, be sure your air pressure is at the high end of the allowed scale when hauling the trailer and passengers.

 

IT is a good idea to check your tires at EVERY stop, especially in the summer and when heavily loaded Put your hand on the tread, and if you can't touch it without burning, something is wrong. Same with your trailer tires, and on the trailer, also touch the axle/bearing area, same deal, they should be cool to warm, but if HOT, then something is wrong (too little grease, too tight/too loose).

 

Takes just a second at each stop, carry some wet wipes to clean your hands if necessary.

[cecdoo]

Sounds like an adventure, glad you are around to tell it. Like you and everyone else mentioned, it could have been alot worse, I am gonna go check my tires. Craig

[Grandpagak]

glad that you came to a safe stop, jeff.. the good lord was with you that day.. besides we want you to make it back to P.I.P. next year.. our god is great..

[BradT]

Glad to hear you made through safely.

 

BRad

[Marcarl]

Glad to hear you made it through all right, now you are more experinced, but maybe not the experience we are looking for.

I think pressure has a lot to do with thread \ tire life. Too soft and you heat things up too much and wear the edges, too hard and you burn out the center for early failure. My recommendation is to start with what is recommended by the tire manufacturer according to load and then adjust as you watch the wear of the threads. The nice thing about running gravel (even just a parking lot) is that you can look at your tire to see how much of the width of the thread you are using and judge things from there.

[ediddy]

Hey RedRider,

Glad you didn't get hurt. Not to say you did but I never stretch tires. Three weeks ago my wife and I rode to Virginia to the Maryland state line and then went over to West Virginia. We rode over 1400 miles. I have avon venoms and I had almost 10,000 miles on them and the tread was still good. I believe I could have gotten 14,000 to 15,000 miles out of them but with us going on a long trip riding two up loaded with luggage I put new avons on before we left. If I was riding by myself and would have rode with the old tires but with my wife on back I went with new tires. I don't want to take any chances to just to save $150.00. Even with new tires I know that I still could have a blowout. I'm saying you were trying to save money by not buying new tires but that I'm not going to take a chance.

[RedRider]

Hey RedRider,

Glad you didn't get hurt. Not to say you did but I never stretch tires. Three weeks ago my wife and I rode to Virginia to the Maryland state line and then went over to West Virginia. We rode over 1400 miles. I have avon venoms and I had almost 10,000 miles on them and the tread was still good. I believe I could have gotten 14,000 to 15,000 miles out of them but with us going on a long trip riding two up loaded with luggage I put new avons on before we left. If I was riding by myself and would have rode with the old tires but with my wife on back I went with new tires. I don't want to take any chances to just to save $150.00. Even with new tires I know that I still could have a blowout. I'm saying you were trying to save money by not buying new tires but that I'm not going to take a chance.

 

I wasn't trying to save any money on the tires by continuing to run them. When I inspected them before leaving on the trip, they were in great shape and only had about 3000 highway miles on them. I put the bike up on lift to change the oil and inspected the tires all the way around while it was up there. If they were worn, I would have changed them.

 

The difference is that I should have checked them before beginning the return trip. I didn't even check tire pressure since they were still at full pressure when I did the pretrip inspection. That was a mistake that was very costly - and could have been worse. Never again will I overlook checking the tire pressure before leaving on a day's ride.

 

It may have been that I picked up something while riding down to NC that provided a slow leak and the pressure may have been low. Don't know. The tire was so trashed after the blow out there was no way to tell.

 

Live and learn. It was an expensive lesson.

 

RR