The Honda PCX / Forza / ADV150 / SH Forums

(yeah, this is a re-post, but still bugs me)
Also the day* I discovered that my AAA roadside assistance didn't have the "RV" rider.
5 mile tow was over $200 - with new tire and dealer install, total cost of this ride was close to $500.....plus coffee.




2" metal slice in nearly new rear tire.

Fish


PS: *and the day my daughter gave me remote instructions on doing a GPS locate with my phone. (I had no idea what the name of the road was that I was on, for the tow driver)

PPS: the oil dry on the truck bed was from a motorcycle involved in a fatal wreck at a rural intersection that I pass through each day on my coffee village ride. Tow driver was a real fun guy.

Ouch! When we got insurance on our bikes we looked specifically for towing. Lucky we did. When we had our accident there was no way we could ride our bikes home.

A similar situation happened to me one time . . .. It was one of those moments where everything becomes still and survival mode kicks in. Then worries and "what if" thoughts started landing on my brain like seagulls flocking to a piece of food.

One Summer years ago, I was out riding alone on my KLR and got stranded just as I was leaving a state forest. Somehow I had developed a leak in my rear tire. As luck would have it I had just passed a ranger station that was still open for the season. I dismounted and carefully walked it there. The ranger on duty allowed me to use their phone and call my Dad (retired at the time) to come pick me up with my F150. For his sake I was only about a half hour away.

I knew I had no ramps so I thought about how I was going to get that 400 lb. beast into that pickup truck bed. I looked around the area and spotted an accessible earthen mound/berm that seemed to be just about the right height I'd need. When my Dad arrived I asked him to back the truck up with the tailgate down and I'd wave him on through the mirror just to the edge of that mound. I managed to roll it in like it was part of some ingenious plan and secured it.

I remember trying to give him directions. Fortunately it wasn't that far off a major highway so at the end of the exit ramp he only had to make a right turn and then further down the road the next right turn and I'd be waiting by the station.

Other than the flat I got on the trip to Colorado this was the only other time I had a tire let me down while I was on the road. But this time I was alone, no can of "Fix a Flat", and cell phones weren't available to consumers yet.

I've had a slow leak on other motorcycle tires but at least I was able to discover it when the machine was parked at home. The most recent one was when my Suzuki Bandit valve stem broke.
FWIW I later read in a motorcycle magazine that in a pinch you can stuff grass, leaves, and other associated natural occurring items into a tire that will give just enough resistance to allow you to at least ride slowly and go the distance to get to a destination and regroup. Since you only have to pry one tire rib open a flat head screw driver from your tool pack may just be the ticket.

What do you do if you are where there are no leaves??
The only time I have ever had a tire blow was when I was riding in west Texas. There isn't much of anything out there. It was a long, lonely walk back to civilization.

Old Grinner wrote:FWIW I later read in a motorcycle magazine that in a pinch you can stuff grass, leaves, and other associated natural occurring items into a tire that will give just enough resistance to allow you to at least ride slowly and go the distance to get to a destination and regroup. Since you only have to pry one tire rib open a flat head screw driver from your tool pack may just be the ticket.

I reckon there's no way you're ever getting a tubeless bead separated from the rim with just a flat head screwdriver, even if you take the wheel off to get in about it better.

What do you do if you are where there are no leaves??

The article was from back in the early '90s and the contributor was in a lush green environment. However, if I was in your situation back in Texas. . .the land of flat and more flat. . . I'd look for anything to fill that tire (if I could get one rib off). Twigs, pebbles, riding gloves, sage brush, sweatshirt, roadside garbage, even dirt if I had to. Getting to water in your situation would have been my priority. Oh. . .and hoping that people still pick up "hitch hikers" in the area would be a plus and then try to camo the bike so nobody steals it. All and any options to maintain life and get the bike home are good options. One of my daughters married a Texan and she's been there more than once so there's been good stories about driving across that state.

I reckon there's no way you're ever getting a tubeless bead separated from the rim with just a flat head screwdriver, even if you take the wheel off to get in about it better.

The bigger tubeless tires today are tough to get off. That's why I don't bother changing my own anymore and just bring them to a dealer. But if there was any way to break a bead and be able to get the tire stuffed somehow I'd give it a go. If those efforts failed then it would be back to the "I hope they still pick up hitch hikers in the local culture" plan. I know it's not the 60's anymore when people didn't live quite so much in fear and paranoia.

Moving forward these days from what I've learned in the past, if I know I'm going to be going some distance, I try to at least bring along a Fix a Flat or Slime can or a small bicycle pump I have. And a cell phone too!

I don't mean to sound like a fatalist but,
“Hope is not a strategy. Luck is not a factor. Fear is not an option.”― James Cameron
There's also always wishing and praying.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAdTsAKvVTU

Hope this works and brings back memories.

Hope this works and brings back memories.

Wow!

It sure does bring back some childhood memories for me. . ..

I still remember hearing this classic while traveling with my parents through a snow storm in an early Ford Galaxie 500.

"Puff the Magic Dragon".

Ouch! It has never happened to me. I hope it continues like this because it is a setback.

If you carry insurance, towing would be included usually..

Deja vu.


Has it come to this?


I think we all need to get out on our bikes.