Tire Change Reflections

Last night I posted this photo with a very short write-up then decided to delete it. The trouble with doing that is Blogger doesn't delete it from the blog lists of others.

Next Friday it will be a year since the truck arrived at our house with the Beemer. I've put 14,000 miles on it this year. When I got the bike it had a little less than 12,000 miles and the previous owner had just installed a new rear tire. In the last couple of weeks the tire had worn through the wear indicators. Since I plan on making a trip to Southern Oregon next week I figured I needed some fresh tread.

I bought my tire online from my favorite motorcycle supply house, which happens to be in Oregon. The tire was waiting on my porch the next afternoon. Wednesday afternoon I stopped at the nearby Honda/Yamaha/Suzuki dealership to work out the installation. They wanted to check out the rear wheel to make sure it would work on their balancer. Everything check out okay so I told him I'd call Thursday to make the arrangements.  Before I left I popped a couple of shots of the FJR next to me. I'm pretty sure some people in the service department thought I was weird to take several pictures of the side case of an FJR waiting for its owner. I just thought it was a Kodak moment.

Here's where the glitch came into play on the tire thing. Wednesday was a nice day with high clouds but Thursday was clear and sunny and very beautiful. This caused anyone with a motorcycle to call the dealership and want their bike worked on for the upcoming beautiful weekend. The service department was slammed and he said it would be two weeks before they could look at my bike. Wow, things change fast when the sun comes out.

So this morning I strapped my tire on the bike and rode to the BMW dealer across town by the airport. It's first come first served so I made sure I was first. Actually I was the only one. An hour later I was back on the road.

Before I left, a man and a lady each pulled up on 1200GS's. His bike had two new tires strapped on the back. I couldn't help but notice that the two tires on his bike looked okay, so after he went inside I asked her about the tires. She said that they were cupped and because they're leaving for Alaska in a few days they need replacing.  They're both tour guides for trips from Portland to Alaska. We spoke for a while before she gave me her card. The company is MotoQuest and the trips look very interesting. It's not necessary to have a dual sport bike because they have all sorts of tours. Maybe someday.

While I was waiting for the shop to open I couldn't resist another reflection shot with the FedEx truck.