Tuesday, Feb 25 2020 [4,716 miles]
When I came home from my ride Sunday I looked at the rear tire. The bike has not been handling right, requiring a constant steering input to keep the bike leaned over. It didn’t do that when I first got the bike. I think I see why. The dual compound tire is wearing quite unevenly. The center strip is hard and you can see and feel the boundary between the center and the softer sides.
Grumble
Delivered
Will install tomorrow
The first picture was taken Sunday. I ordered a replacement tire – Shinko E-705 – Sunday afternoon. It arrive today. I’m busy this afternoon. I’ll mount it tomorrow.
Wednesday, Feb 26 2020 [4,785 miles]
Tire changing stand
Paddock stand on lift
Getting ready to remove the wheel. The car has been moved out of the way and the tire stand set up with bead breaker. The bike is on the lift with its rear supported by a paddock stand.
Speed sensor
Need 32mm socket
Chain out of way
Getting the wheel off is easy enough. I had to open the stock tool kit as I don’t have a 32mm socket for the rear.
Doh! Later I remembered my set of metric impact sockets. Yep, that set goes up to 32mm. I’ll use the newly found 32mm socket when torquing the nut upon re-installing the wheel.
Wheel on stand
Dirty
Still heavy spot
No problems breaking the bead using the bead breaker attachment for my tire stand. I flipped the wheel over and broke the bead on the other side before removing the tire. The job wasn’t too bad. The tire hadn’t been on the wheel long enough to stick to the rim.
I put the wheel on the balancing stand. The valve stem was the heavy spot. Not surprising given the extra 15g of weight added next to the valve stem. I removed those weights and cleaned the wheel, The valve stem is still the heavy part of the tire.
Tire mounted
1 oz weight
I mounted the new tire. The beads popped into place at about 15 PSI. I brought the pressure to 34 PSI then balanced the wheel and tire. It required an ounce of weight even though I was careful to match the marking on the tire with the valve stem.
Speed sensor
Ready for test ride
I put the wheel back on the bike. Then I remove the wheel, installed the missing spacer, and put the wheel back on the bike again. I torqued the axle nut and re-installed the speed sensor. The last thing before for a test ride was wiping off some of the dirt on the bodywork with a damp rag. The clean rear wheel made the rest of the bike look bad.
The test ride was only 5 miles, but I can tell the bike handles better. I’m not having to keep pressure on the bars to keep the bike leaned over. If I get my initial steering input just right the bike glides through the turns; no extra input necessary.