Various factors necessitated no riding for a couple weeks. Today looked very promising; forecast high of 50 but 39 when I got up. Planned a good riding day so geared up early including the Warm n’ Safe package and liners in the jacket and pants.
When I started to roll her backward, something didn’t feel right and something didn’t sound right. Hard to tell immediately due to the rear run flat but sure looked soft. Alas, no air pressure but still would stay up leaning against the side stand!
I found the screw in the center of the tread and pulled it out. Tire showed some uneven wear and had obviously been run for a while with no air pressure.
My fault doubly. The screw was one of mine. I have a bucket of 2” deck screws with TORX heads and use them around the yard on a variety of things. The head was partially worn off and had some mileage on it but enough was there to show the TORX head.
A couple rides back I had an alert that the front tire GARMIN TPMS sensor battery was low. I changed it. On my last ride I remember an alert that it could not read the rear TPMS sensor. I assumed it also wanted a battery so I ignored it. Won’t do that again.
No one to blame but me.
Given the age of the tire (16,000 miles) and that it had been run flat for an indeterminant time, I was not going to plug it. I already had another Driveguard mounted. Decision made.
Next choice. Do I remove Air Wings, highway pegs and lay it over? Clear the junk off the lift table? Try out the new to me Pit-Bull lift that I recently bought? Let’s go with Pit-Bull.
The second lock notch was fairly high but just not quite high enough for the tire to come out. Had to go all the way up.
New tire went up easy enough. Centramatics balancer was mildly uncooperative but, in the end, all went back in place. New battery in sensor just because.
Got a ride in, although less time than I had planned. Late enough start that I did not need to turn on any heat. New tire felt the same. All is good again. Now, when can I find another day before the white stuff shows up here?
