no pressure

[lucian]

In my front tire that is.  I have around 7,000 miles on my custom 14 front tire, it's It's a Pirelli night dragon and I have never liked it. It is noisy  and doesn't handle any where near as good as the original metzler. It is a harder compound i guess and is reported to be long lasting and it has been.  Lately I've been feeling the steering getting a bit heavier and just assumed it was the crappy tire getting crappier with wear.  finally got off my arse and checked the inflation and it was 10 lbs. 
Suppose that would have something to do with it?  Man do I feel stupid, I've been running down the slab at speed with this thing!!  Pumped it up to 38 lbs. and it feels like a sport bike all of a sudden.  Moral of the story, don't wait,  check your pressures especially when the winter air shows up!   That's all. I'll take my licks now.

[Gliderjohn]

I don't ride daily anymore and when I do ride it is usually between 20-120 miles including a few miles off pavement. I check before every ride. Much rather catch the leak in my shop, not at a cafe somewhere. Part of "preflighting".
GliderJohn

[ozarquebus]

Heck, Ive checked tires before a run and still burned them up in a day when pressure goes down with a slow leak unpredictably. Its amazing how fast you can still go with a nearly flat rear tire and not even notice it till you slow down.

[Dave Swanson]

An old buddy of mine rode up from his house about 55 miles away on his Road King for a visit.  When he pulled in I noticed the tires looked low and asked him when the last time he checked pressure.  He gave me a blank look and mentioned that the bike wasn't handling very well on the way up.  6 lbs in the front and 8 in the back!   

[Tom H]

Heck, Ive checked tires before a run and still burned them up in a day when pressure goes down with a slow leak unpredictably. Its amazing how fast you can still go with a nearly flat rear tire and not even notice it till you slow down.

Been there, amazing when you pull off a freeway and are on a curve on an off ramp and wonder why the bike is so wiggly. Just a moment ago it was fine at 70mph.

Tom

[rschrum]

It seems to work well, real time.

[Sasquatch Jim]

  I have gone many miles at 70 with a flat front tire, dead flat.  Just scoot your ass back as far as possible and accelerate hard to get up to speed, the centrifugal force makes the tire stay on the rim in place until you slow down.  Then get ready for some very bad handling.  I was in the mountains in Oregon back in the seventies and had a flat.  My girl got off and hitched a ride and I rode the flat
 25 miles back to town.  It was shredded when I got to the shop and needed a new tire and tube and rim but no one would have helped a stranded biker so I rode it home.  I would slow down ahead of a curve and accelerate hard through the curve to keep the weight off of the front.  The bike handled fine as long as I could keep the speed up.

[ozarquebus]

sasquatch jim,
 wow, good tip!
 I will remember that when I have to run from the zombies.

[Ncdan]

I had a blowout on a CB900c police bike at around 80mph. Everything felt fairly normal until a got down to around 10 MPH then all hell broke loose.
I wish I had had Jim’s technique back in 82 when this incident occurred. I did manage to keep her upright but it was touch in go, with both boots on the pavement as outriggers 😂😂😂

[sign216]

I had a blowout on a CB900c police bike at around 80mph. Everything felt fairly normal until a got down to around 10 MPH then all hell broke loose.
I wish I had had Jim’s technique back in 82 when this incident occurred. I did manage to keep her upright but it was touch in go, with both boots on the pavement as outriggers 😂😂😂

Lucian,
I know bias play aren't too bad at little pressure.  I'm surprised the Pirelli (radial, I assume) handled that well at low pressure.

Ncdan and Sasq,
In a driving course film for autos, given at a police academy, they said on a blowout, to increase speed until you get control.   No one could believe that the answer was "go faster."  Your experience finally answers that.

Joe

[Rich A]

Anyone using tire pressure monitors? I've been thinking about getting these.

Rich A

[DougG]

Hi Rich,                                                                                                                                              11-23-20

I have a Garmin 595LM GPS.  One of the many features it has is a TPMS.  It is a great GPS (free lifetime map updates) and the tire pressure monitoring system has a user settable high and low limits with notification.  I have seen them new for sale for around $500.  You have to buy the tpms caps separately.  I have also seen them for considerable less, used, from time to time.  Keep your eyes open, if you are interested.

Think Christmas...you've been a good boy...haven't you?

Be well, stay well,
DougG

[Rich A]

Think Christmas...you've been a good boy...haven't you?

Always.

Some of the TPM systems I've been looking at connect to a phone via bluetooth. It'd be nice to just check the tire pressures as you head out to the garage--monitoring during the ride wouldn't be as important for me. The one downside I've read is that you need a tool to remove the caps if you want to add air to the tire. Evidently theft is an issue and that's why there's some sort of lock on the caps.

The cheap red/yellow/green caps looked like a good idea, but I read cases where they get broken and the tire deflates. Not so good.

Rich A

[kballowe]

Our local bike dealer changed hands, and had a complete turnover of people.

I bought a bike.  I asked the young man about the tire pressure, and so he walked up and pinched the front tire a couple of times, and said "it's good"

Maybe we're simply being too fussy about tire pressures.

 

[DougG]

Hi Rich,                                                                                                                                                                      11-23-20

A TPMS communicating with a cell phone sounds like an interesting idea.  I think that you can get a motorcycle GPS app for the phone as well.  Get a Ram Ball motorcycle mount for the phone and you're in business!

Be well, stay well,
DougG

[redhawk47]

I had an interesting issue with my V7II Stone recently. The engine would "stumble" (miss a couple of plug firings) when I pulled out, and when I shifted to second. I stopped by my dealer and the service manager took it for a spin; he agreed with the issue but had no idea of the cause.

When I got home I was looking things over and thinking about it. I had checked the tires the day before but decided I should check them now. The front was good but the rear was 10 psi.  Problem solved: The traction control was detecting the different wheel diameter and was kicking in.

So now I had a different problem: why was the tire pressure so low? (tubeless tires) I put the bike on the centerstand and examined the tire. No evidence of a puncture. So I filled the tire to 36 psi and sprayed it with soapy water and looked for bubbles - none.  I took the bike for a test ride and the stumble was gone so that was a relief, and I called it quits for the day.

Twenty four hours later the tire was down 2 psi so I decided that a closer look was in order. I sat on a stool with my soapy water sprayer and a rug and took my time.  About half way around I found a tiny stream of bubbles, and a speck of silver, about the diameter of a straight pin. Next thought: "how am I going to plug that hole?" Well, I had already gotten plenty of miles from the tire but I had recently measured the thread depth at 4mm so I was going to run it another 1 or 2 thousand more miles. But I measured the thread depth and found it was 2mm; I had scrubbed off 2mm riding on low tire pressure!  So I decided it was time to install the new tires that I had recently bought.  When I examined the perpetrator of the puncture it appeared to be a sewing needle. There was about 10mm of the needle completely thru the casing.  How it managed to do that is amazing!