infonaut

Thanks for the welcome back. Hope to see you again some time soon next time we make it to an event together!

Great meeting you too. Yep, got home just fine after an epic 14 hr. non-stop ride home. And no tornadoes that I saw...

Soooooo glad you were shooting all these great pix!

So where is everyone posting links to their Vogel photos from this year? Can't wait to see them! Loved meeting everyone btw. Thanks for making me feel so welcome!

Wasn't me but I'm going to try to make it this Sunday on my 87VR. Peter Harris Norwalk, CT

After a couple more of weeks of travelling/vacation/interviewing I finally made it back home to CT. It was great meeting everyone at the rally and I hope to make it to another one soon. And special thanks to BradT (and family) for letting me invade their home on such short notice! I'll try to get my pix/video up somewhere soon, but in the meantime here are a few. Thanks to all the organizers for a fantastic event! Peter Harris Norwalk, CT and Philadelphia, PA 1987 Venture Royale (blue-green)

Eastern Pennsylvania! Lots of Ventures here, fantastic roads and countryside, and I'd love to be part of organizing it with some other local riders.

Any chance anyone out there knows of a trunk (or even the top half of one) for a white 1988 Venture Royale someone would part with? A friend of mine is restoring one he recently rescued. If so, please contact him directly at maleneym@aol.com (or reply here and I'll pass the messages along). Thanks!

Got mine from Alaska Sheepskins too and I love it, great in the winter and summer. My passenger loves it too. I got the full pelt with long hair (or whatever that's called) and it runs all the way from over the gas cap cover to behind the passenger seat. Droops over the side covers too which I like - lots of soft cushioning while allowing air circulation.

YamaMama: Ended up getting another Venom. I stuck with it to match the Avon front tire I put on two weeks ago when its predecessor hit a nail. I've generally been very happy with the brand - I can't blame them for my own mistake - plus their customer service was fantastic. (See below for more on this.) Anyway, when I picked up the mounted replacement on Wednesday, I asked the dealer to look at the dead one again. He stuck with his previous judgment that it was a bad tire/tread failure because "it looks like a Metzler of mine that had the same thing happen." (I guess he must unwisely run his tires bald too.) But after a closer look and reading your responses, I'm sure that you all are right on this one. I just plain wore that tire out and consider myself lucky that nothing worse happened. Definitely learned some lessons on this: 1) I'd seen many threads on this site (and another) where people got 15k+ on their Venoms but now I understand that it doesn't matter what someone else's bike gets out of them. 2) I was also stupid to assume that the shop that mounted the front tire two weeks earlier would have alerted me to a rear tire that was obviously worn out when they had it up on the lift. (The offered lots of not-very-informed opinions about other stuff, but not the rear tire.) 3) Now that I know what it looks like when a motorcycle rear tire is worn out (from a closer look at the blown tire in the areas where the stitching wasn't visible yet), I know that I've got to do a better job at looking at the center tread surface and not being fooled by the less-worn side areas where the grooves were still deep. When I'd checked it before, I think I was somehow thinking it would wear more like a car tire so that as long as there were deep grooves still on most of its surface everything was okay. Now I know better. As 86er said: "I've had an Avon on my Intruder that looked good every time I looked at it walking up behind the bike. Then suddnly it was in the cords like your's! I think the Venom is deceptive because the way the tread is cut, it looks good because you can't always see the groove that goes all the way across the tire , your mind tells you it's still good. The only safe way to check that tire is inspect it all the way around and check the tire wear indicators." 4) I've always run those Avons at full pressure (50 lbs.), checking the pressure before nearly every ride, and I thought that was appropriate given the weight of the bike plus me (in excess of 1100 lbs total). After sending that photo to the manufacturer and describing the circumstances, they recommended that I run a little lower - 42-44 rear and 34-38 front so I don't wear out the center of the tire prematurely. Here's the Avon rep's full reply: The psi on the side of a tire is not always the recommended operating psi. The Venom belted tire is amazing in that it can be inflated to 50psi when under very heavy loads but we recommend for your bike 36-38 psi up front and 42-44 psi in the rear for normal use at around 180 lbs rider weight. If the rider weighs more or if you are riding two up or just have a lot of luggage then we recommend inflating 2-4 lbs on up to 50psi if needed. Running the tire at the max psi and going on a trip where you are doing a lot of straight line riding will naturally wear out the center of the tire before the edges. My guess is that the tire was almost worn when you started your trip. During the long trip it wore through the center of the tire, causing the blowout. A simple case of over use of a tire. My recommendation to everyone before they go on a trip is to evaluate their tires and see if they can make the trip safely taking into consideration the amount of miles they intend to ride and the amount of tread left on their tires. All tires have wear bars in their tread grooves. The wear bars stand 1mm above the casing and when reached the tire is considered 100% worn and should be replaced as soon as possible. It is a good idea to become familiar with where these wear bars are and become familiar with the rate at which your bike wears tires so that when looking your bike over before each ride you can have a good idea how much life your tires have left in them. This is something that all riders have to get a feel for themselves because it differs greatly depending on the bike, the rider's weight, the rider's style, how much they ride in the rain, what the climate and conditions of where they ride are like, ect. There are many variables that affect this. Again, thank you for the pictures and the feed back. I am glad to hear that your accident was no where near as bad as it could have been. Thank you for your support of Avon tyres. If you have any other questions in the future that we can answer for you please feel free to drop us a line. (BTW, Avon was VERY prompt and thorough in their responses. Kudos to them!) 5) I need to be more diligent about logging my maintenance, including tire mounting dates and mileage. 6) Once again, Ride-On saved my bacon! That's the second time now. BTW, I didn't get a chance to take those better pix before leaving Philly because of a fast-approaching storm but I'll try to post them in a week or so along with a cross-section for GeorgeS. Thanks to those of you who had friendly, patient and thoughtful responses. You folks make me proud to be a VentureRider. Finally, to those eloquent scribes like XXXXXXXXXXXXX who can't write a coherent sentence but have somehow earned the right to be sanctimonious, sarcastic XXXXXXXX who can't tell the difference between an honest question and "*****ing," XXXXXXXXXXXXXXX. Most of us come here to learn from other riders' experiences, not to make ourselves feel better by putting others down and being complete XXXXXXXXXXXX. (Reviewed and edited by Black Owl to keep this thread from headings south. Too much good information to scuttle it )

I'm curious to see what you guys think about this one. On Sunday I was headed home to Connecticut from a friend's in Philly and about 15 miles outside of town I started to feel a strange wobble in the rear end of my 87VR. As it got pretty nasty, I pulled over as quickly as I could and discovered I had a completely blown rear tire including bead separation on both sides. Once I got the bike towed home and up onto the center stand, I discovered that I had 3-4 patches on the tread like the one in the attached photo - including 1 about 6 inches long and worn completely through thus causing the flat. (Incidentally, I'm convinced my Ride-On saved my life again by giving me enough time to get to the side of the road). The tire had less than 15K on it (at least I'm pretty sure of that) over about a year and a half of use. Any idea what caused this? The dealer mounting the new tire asked if I'd been doing burnouts but I explained that I couldn't spin the rear tire on that bike if I tried. He figures it was tread separation caused by a bad tire but I'm not sure that makes sense - especially on an Avon Venon. Any ideas? Sorry the photo sucks. I'll upload better ones when I get the old tire back tomorrow with the newly mounted one.