From Passenger to Rider...
To Passenger Again
By Ashley Roy Jones
What to Know About a
Tire Change
with Brad Bateman
When Brad Bateman needed new tires for his
bike, we invited him over to the shop to learn how to
do it himself. He rode over and strapped his bike on
the HiLift, and began to tear it down.
Before doing work like this, or having it done
somewhere, I always recommend taking pictures.
This helps you keep track of your parts, and also lets
you compare before and after shots. It is surprising
how often new tires come back with the same balance
weights in the same location as the old tire. Also look
out for tires that were balanced with the labels still
stuck on.
Brad's tire was a tubeless Dunlop 100/90-19
in front, on a cast rim, which made it fairly easy for
his first tire change. 100 is the width in millimeters,
basically 4". 90 is the aspect ratio of height to width,
19 is the rim diameter. The tire machine makes easy
work of breaking the bead, removing the old tire, and
mounting the fresh rubber. When mounting the tire,
you want to pay attention to any paint dots on the
side of the tire. For most manufacturers, a Yellow dot
indicates the light spot on the tire, and this should
be lined up with the valve stem, which is normally
the heavy spot on the rim. This should require less
weights to balance the tire. A red dot indicates radial
roll-out, those are less common on motorcycle tires.
Once properly mounted, it is time to balance
the tire. We do have an electronic balancer here in the
shop, but like most racers, we prefer static balancing.
Gravity is very reliable. You can easily static balance
a tire to within a gram, where most machines only
balance to 1/4 ounce, which is about 6 grams. Also,
the machines require setup and calibration, and if
this is off a bit, your balance becomes less accurate.
These are great on heavy car and truck tires, but for
motorcycles, I always go with my stand balancer.
Some people may think a shop without the machine
is low tech or out of date, but for high speed and low
weight, gravity is the way to go.
Once the new rear was also mounted, and
everything was bolted back together, we set the
belt tension with a gauge, and Brad checked the air
pressure. After that he was ready to ride away, being
careful for the first miles until the tires scrubbed off
the slickness and were ready to give good traction.
18
Beginning in our March issue, Ashley Roy Jones did
a series of articles on "From Passenger to Rider". She
began with the Harley Jumpstart Experience, then
learned about bikes and riding gear, and completed
the Harley-Davidson Riders Academy to get her
endorsement. Since then, she has gotten married and
moved away, but she gave us this followup on how her
experiences helped her upon going back to being a
passenger.
"Going from passenger, to learning to ride, to
passenger again, I looked at that seat differently than I
ever had before. I have a new respect for the bike and
the person in control of it. I pay more attention to cars
around us, obstacles in the road, whether my rider is
tired, etc. I now think of scenarios in my head of what
I would do if emergencies were to occur. I also am
grateful that I now know that I can operate the bike
to safety if need be. I appreciate the skills acquired to
maneuver a motorcycle gracefully now that I know
how much actually goes into it. As a passenger and
until I get my own bike, there's more respect that goes
into each biker wave as we ride past."