It’s always a little disheartening when you go to get on the bike & are looking it over to see if some motorcycle gnome has come for a part in the night & you realize, man those tires sure are cracked.  Noted this morning that both tires have more cracking in them than I feel comfortable when riding if I know they’re there.  And I know.  Had to a) put on the center stand, b) jack up the front of the bike, c) drop tires off at a place that will do motorcycle tires & then d) wait for them to be ready.

Found out the front tire’s slow leak was due to a previous owner putting an inner tube into a tubeless tire.  Fixed that.  Tire on front was manufactured back in 2006 and the tire on the back was manufactured in 2005.

So I just happened to look at my front tire the other day & realized how cracked it is.  Just for kicks I also checked the rear tire and it wasn’t quite as bad with cracks long ways but had a few deep ones the short way.  Checking on the age of the tires reveals them to have been manufactured in 2005 (back) and 2006 (front).  Pretty old for a set of tires.  The front one’s always had a slow leak so I’ve had to put air in it every week.  Picture is my method of jacking the bike up – put on center stand, put bricks under front of crankcase, tie handlebars back with bungee cords (and put sponge between brake lever & grip to keep brake pads from being pushed out).

Now I ask myself, “If I were designing something wouldn’t I want to make it easier on myself if I have to use it?”  The answer is yes.  Now look at this picture.  Note where the exhaust pipe ends and where this lines up with the bolt at the end of the axle holding the rear tire on.  See anything wrong?  Yep.  Can’t take the tire off without taking off the exhaust system.  Now think about this.  This is a bike with an exhaust pipe on each side of the tire.  Even if you could take the castle nut in the picture off (you can’t) you still couldn’t pull the axle out.  How hard does this make it to change a tire?  Well first you have to take off both exhaust systems – all the way up to where they connect to the engine block.  Yeah, dirty job that adds time … then you can take the back tire off – provided you have a center stand in the first place …