Tire Mounting

At breakfast last Saturday morning (October 29th) I volunteered to help Randy mount new tires on his R1200GS.  He had bought a set of Hendenau K60 Scout's.  Unlike many other German tire brands, these tires are still manufactured Germany.  What a beefy dual sport tire with beefy tread and sidewalls.  The cool weather didn't make our task easy, turned out to be a 3 hour job and I felt pretty sore afterwards.

The rear tire went on easy enough, sort of like the Marathon 880's did on my GSA last July - a little more difficult then a radial 170 or 180, but having helpers this time was, well sort of helpful.  Randy had some of those dynabeads for dynamic balancing.   They little beads wouldn't fit down his valve stems, so we had to re-brake the bead and then pull out the tire enough for Randy to pour the beads in.   It was an easy enough process on the rear.


The 19" front tire was another story.   It was not easy spooning it on, but we managed it and got it sealed without problem.  After re-braking the bead on one side of the tire in preparation of adding the dynabeads, the tire bead broke free on both sides.  After spending about 2 hours trying to get the tire inflated using about every trick in the book to get the tire sealed to the rim, we finally gave up and pulled the tire back off, cleaned everything, and got rid of the dynabeads.  I think dynabeads were getting tire bead area, that combined with the stiff, cold tire sidewalls was the recipe for tire mounting failure.  The second time around the tire went on easier (but with spoons again) and we got it to seal on the rim without problem.  The tire was nearly in static balance on only required one 7g weight.

I also got L's VFR torn down Saturday morning and we replaced the front tire with a Michelin PR2.  I also got the oil changed.  The Conti Road Attack which had been on the front had worn weirdly uneven.  I was planning on putting the half worn RA on the K1200RS, but the tire just didn't look right after it came off.  Some of the VFR forums have mentioned problems with that specific tire on that specific bike.  We are not going to put that brand back on the VFR.   Haven't gotten the VFR tupperware back together yet, but I'm thinking about doing a couple more maintenance before buttoning it up.