Front tyre

I have bee racking up the kilometres on the bike since the last post but none of them on a long journey. Way back I fitted a new Metzler Z6 to the back of the bike and did the fitting myself. At the time I left the Bridgestone BT021 front tyre on the bike as it still had quite a bit of life left in it.

Last week we set off on a round trip of about 1100 kms for a short holiday near the Spanish border, Jude was on her BMW F800ST and me on the ST2. We did not use any motorways at all and just stuck to the back roads. The weather was hot, in the mid to high 20s most of the time and we were not hanging about.

After a few days of hanging around the sunny Mediterranean it was time to head back, on the back roads of course.

 

We had to stop for coffee on a number of occasions, and as bikes attract bikers, so did a couple of French coppers. Judes bike got all of their attention as it is in perfect condition.

The last 400 kms saw the ST2 behaving very strangely, the front end was very unpredictable at times when cornering, and we were not hanging around. I had noticed on one of the coffee stops that the tyre was wearing very quickly, but not on the crown of the tyre, on the sides. I put that down to being a dual compound tyre. I had a new Metzler at home waiting.

I removed the front wheel as soon as we got home, if anyone else decides to remove their front wheel then make sure that you have a 28mm socket in your armoury as it is an unusual size and is needed to torque the front wheel spindle nut after refitting. You will not normally find 28mm in a socket set.

This is what the tyre looked like. You will notice that it looks triangular, well it is. There is also more tread on the crown than on the sides. The groves had started “cupping” and the outside edged were showing signs of the rubber burning.

This is what a tyre with burned rubber looks like!

I took the wheel into Dafy Motos on Perigueux this morning and paid the grand total of €10 to have it fitted and balanced. I would normally have done this myself, but thought that €10 was worth it.

That pesky 28mm nut on the left side of the axle has to be torqued to 63Nm, use a thick round shafted screw driver on the other end of the axle to hold it while you torque.