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Rear tyre punctures and solutions

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Cheshire Cat

Cheshire Cat

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R18 Classic
Hi all
Following a trip to France on my R18 Classic for the D Day celebrations, whilst doing 75 MPH, I became aware of a change in the bikes behaviour I pulled over to check. Sure enough I had picked up a screw in the rear tyre. Fortunately, before leaving home I had added a product called 'Puncture Safe'. As a result, the tyre had deflated around 50 - 60 % before the Puncture Safe did its job and sealed the leak. I then limped 5 miles to a garage and topped up the pressure. I had to do this several times before the tyre would hold pressure fully. This allowed me to travel the 250 miles home without requiring recovery. On a Friday afternoon, none of the local tyre shops were interested in changing out the tube on the bike. It does look like a daunting job when looking at the bike however, a browse through YouTube showed this was not the case. I am now safely home and busy arranging a tube change.
During my troubles I contacted the manufacturer of Puncture Safe, who was extremely helpful and guided me through what I should do. This involved, due to my tyre having a tube, leave screw in place, top up tyre pressure to 50 psi plus if possible before riding slowly for a few miles. Ultimately I would like to use the tapes available and convert my tyres to tubeless. On tubeless tyres, Puncture Safe is even more successful and I might not have even noticed the screw outside of routine checks.
As a result of the success I had with this product I am ordering a large drum and adding to all my vehicles.

I have posted two pictures. One shows the screw still in place. The other shows the tyre as still well inflated following 250 mile journey home.
 

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Glad the repair held to get you safely home and thanks for the review!

I hate that BMW went with a tube required wheel on our R18 models and the cost to retrofit the very reasonably priced options on the current new bikes is so expensive for us as an option now. This winter I will get them sealed or source different rims.

Why I prefer non tube options..... I've ridden many trips all over the U.S. with "tube bikes" to include my Classic and was only stranded once with a puncture several years ago on a different bike. The tube was torn so no amount of pumping or goo was helpful. There was no cell service so to get help I rode down a mountain at very slow speeds with my feet skimming the ground like outriggers as the bike weaved back and forth. When I made it back to a small town where I could call for roadside assistance I waited four hours for the allegedly "be there shortly tow" to never show up. It was getting dark with no rooms to rent, etc., but friendly people in the town let me store my bike in their garage and a riding friend agreed to let me ride "Bitch" for the long ride home. This cluster phuck ended up taking several days and extra $$ as I had to pay for the recovery and repairs at a larger town and then get transport to eventually pick up my bike. I liked the R18 enough to break my vow to never have a tube tire on anything other than a dirt bike from then on, but I spend too much time thinking about repeating the above scenario to keep pushing my luck.

Cheers
🍻🍻
 
Shell out some dough and get the cast rims for your bike. They're not cheap, but you will be thankful you did when you puncture the tube and you're in the middle of nowhere.
Come on now, don't be shy. What's a broken window to a big house?
 
Calboy said:
Shell out some dough and get the cast rims for your bike. They're not cheap, but you will be thankful you did when you puncture the tube and you're in the middle of nowhere.
Come on now, don't be shy. What's a broken window to a big house?
Click to expand...
Can't say that £2000 + on wheels is really appealing to me.
 
Cheshire Cat said:
Hi all
Following a trip to France on my R18 Classic for the D Day celebrations, whilst doing 75 MPH, I became aware of a change in the bikes behaviour I pulled over to check. Sure enough I had picked up a screw in the rear tyre. Fortunately, before leaving home I had added a product called 'Puncture Safe'. As a result, the tyre had deflated around 50 - 60 % before the Puncture Safe did its job and sealed the leak. I then limped 5 miles to a garage and topped up the pressure. I had to do this several times before the tyre would hold pressure fully. This allowed me to travel the 250 miles home without requiring recovery. On a Friday afternoon, none of the local tyre shops were interested in changing out the tube on the bike. It does look like a daunting job when looking at the bike however, a browse through YouTube showed this was not the case. I am now safely home and busy arranging a tube change.
During my troubles I contacted the manufacturer of Puncture Safe, who was extremely helpful and guided me through what I should do. This involved, due to my tyre having a tube, leave screw in place, top up tyre pressure to 50 psi plus if possible before riding slowly for a few miles. Ultimately I would like to use the tapes available and convert my tyres to tubeless. On tubeless tyres, Puncture Safe is even more successful and I might not have even noticed the screw outside of routine checks.
As a result of the success I had with this product I am ordering a large drum and adding to all my vehicles.

I have posted two pictures. One shows the screw still in place. The other shows the tyre as still well inflated following 250 mile journey home.
Click to expand...
Thanks for the heads up, I’m going to buy some of that. If you can cover 250 miles (notwithstanding the extra hassles of stopping to top up) and get home that works for me. Getting a puncture is a Royal PITA no doubt about it and looking for small positives here, at least because we share on the forum we are all becoming more confident and able to deal with these irritations.
 
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