RS Rear Wheel Spacer

["Tom Brown" <tbrown@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Jim:

My message was in response to Bob's experiment with rear wheel shims.  Has 
nothing to do with how your bikes handle.  Since none of your bikes pull to 
the left or to the right, you don't need to concern yourself with this.

If you don't have an alignment problem and you're not experimenting with 
shims to fix it, you can run your tires as long as you want.   There's 
nothing wrong with "used tires" if your bike handles OK.   Technically, 
tires are "used" the minute they roll out of the shop mounted to a bike.

My point was that tires with miles, especially straight-line miles and 
especially when there is an alignment problem with the bike, will throw the 
handling off because of their uneven wear.  If Bob is going to the trouble 
to fabricate shims and experiment.  He needs to use fairly new tires for 
testing or his results will have that variable mixed in.  If he does his 
experiments with new tires, the shape will be ideal and his results will be 
much more meaningful.

I'm glad all your bikes handle well.  Bob's bike also handles well, but he 
has this issue that bugs him a bit and he's not alone.   Some Oilheads 
exhibit this problem.  Some are really bad, in fact.   My '99RT was fine. 
I've never heard of the problem on GSs or Cruisers.   Different tires, 
different geometry etc.

-TB


Date: Mon, 5 Feb 2007 10:34:11 -0500
From: "James H. Nazarian" <microdoc@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: RE: RS rear wheel spacer

I'm not sure where to place the limits on what I should define as a used
tire, but if I borrow your "thousand mile" guideline, then all three of
my oilheads are shod with used tires, and I don't find anything unusual
about the handling of any of them. In my opinion, they all handle quite
well, actually. (The '99 R1100RT has BT020's, while the R1150GS and the
R1200C both wear Metzelers.)

Jim