The rear tire on the Benelli has been almost slick for a few weeks. It was a KTM purchased from and installed (on the loose rim – I pulled the rim from the bike) by the dealer that sold me the bike. I got less than 4,000 miles out of it after the original blew out at just short of 1,500 miles.
This morning, I replaced it with a Kenda that I bought on Amazon. I chose to do the work myself because the dealer gets $30 to do it. For a tire that costs less than $50. And they don’t/can’t balance twelve-inch tires, so it’s a ninety second process on their machine. Car tires don’t cost but $25, and they get balancing included in that price.
I spent less than $20 on a tire spoon set around the same time I bought the tire. It had been decades since I did a tire myself, and never a motorcycle tire, but I’m frugal.
Changing a tire by hand isn’t a lot of fun. I removed the valve stem and did several laps around the yard, trying to unclench it. No joy. So, I used the corner of the front-end loader bucket to get the job done. Then I fought the old tire off the rim, cleaned the bead area, and wrestled the new tire on. That was so easy to write, but was a bit of a process. It felt like longer, but according to the camera, it only took eight minutes to get the old tire off. Twenty-three minutes to stretch the new one onto the rim.
Then it was time to seat the bead. My air compressor is small, weak, and has a tiny tank. I had to wait for it to get up to pressure, then try to get the tire to seal enough to allow pressure to build up. That process took twenty-five minutes, including several delays to refill the compressor tank between attempts.
One hour and twenty minutes from pulling the axle bolt to sliding it back in. All to save $30 and a trip into town. It was worth it. I mean, what else was I going to do on Valentines Day with temps in the high 60s?
Grumpy 