Monthly Archives: May 2017

Learning to break the bead on a tire

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I went on my first adventure trip on a bike that had tubeless tires, so I was only carrying a puncture repair kit of the kind that plug a hole in the tire without having to remove it from the rim (not that it helped much when I dented the rim…)

The new bike has tube type tires, which mean that when I get a puncture I will need to remove the tube and either patch it or replace it. I have had the bike for over a year now, and although I do carry a couple of spare tubes, a set of tire irons and the tools needed to remove the wheel from the bike, I have never actually practised how to remove the tire. I kept telling myself that I had to learn how to do it before I find myself facing a puncture while travelling, at night, under the rain and in the middle of nowhere, but I never found the moment to do it.

Now that I had to take the V-Strom rim to have it repaired after this incident it was the perfect moment to see if I would be capable of breaking the bead and removing the tire. The V-Strom wheels are tubeless, meaning that the tire walls are reinforced and it is more difficult to break the bead. If I could do it on this wheel, I should be able to do it on the AT.

With the help of a friend, I set about it. We removed the wheel from the bike, laid it on the floor and tried with the tire irons first. I used a rim protector to prevent damage to the wheel, and even though the tire irons went in easily, it was impossible to break the bead with them, as I was expecting.

There are several ways of breaking the bead out on the road. The one I wanted to try did not involve any blocks of wood, clamps or specialist tools – it consists of using the sidestand and the weight of the bike to break the bead.

We put the wheel next to my friend’s bike (mine was too close to the wall to lean it properly), leant it to the right, slid the tire under the sidestand, leaned the bike back over to the left and, easily enough, the sidestand popped the tire from the bead. So, the method works.

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A close shave on the motorway

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A few days ago, as I was riding to work on the C-17 motorway, I changed lanes to overtake a car and suddenly saw a block of wood that must have fallen from a truck.

I could not avoid it, and the front wheel hit it at about 100km/h. The block was rather big, and I felt the motorbike lift off the tarmac and the block graze the back wheel. I was airborne for an instant only, but I had time to be perfectly aware of the situation and think that if the bike went into a tank slapper when it landed, things could end up really, really bad for me, so I held tight onto the handlebars and prepared for the worst.

The hit the ground and wiggled a bit, but it kept going straight almost immediately. Knowing that such an impact could have destroyed the front tire, I let the throttle go and braked gently with the back wheel to shed speed without loading the front wheel. The handlebars seemed to vibrate a little, but that was about it, the front tire had not gone flat. As the traffic was heavy and mi exit was the next one, I decided not to stop on the hard shoulder, as it might be dangerous. Out of the motorway and with the bike parked, I took a look at the front wheel and found this:

The impact had been only on the right side, and even though the rim had visibly bent, it still held the air, unlike the time this happened in Kazakhstan.

I called my insurance to see if that was covered, but didn’t held much hope, as this was my commuter bike and had a rather simple policy.

As I suspected, I was not covered against own damage and if I had not seen which truck the block fell from or had a written police report stating that there was a dangerous object on the road, I had to pay for the repairs myself. So, lesson learned: if you happen to be in a similar situation, stop right there and call the police to report the presence of the object on the road. If necessary, take pictures, and do not leave without having obtained a written copy of the police report. Only with that do you have a chance to claim the repair costs from whichever authority is responsible for that road, but even so, there is no guarantee…