Time to re-tire?

I’m contemplating some motorcycle trips between now and when the weather turns to shit and wondering if I should buy new tires for my BMW K1200GT.

Charlie and I used his No-Mar tire changing equipment to mount a set of dual-compound Michelin Pilot Power 2s back on May 22 of last year. I’ve put about 8,700 miles on them and reckon they have maybe 2,000 miles left before the tread depth gets too shallow for safe riding in the rain.

Back in June, when I thought I was going to the BMW MOA rally in Bloomsburg, Pa., I considered buying a set of tires from an online dealer and having them shipped to the rally where the No-Mar guys would mount them free, since they need tires to mount for demonstration purposes. It’s about 1,000 miles from here to Bloomsburg, so I reckoned the Michelins would be close enough to the end of their useful lives that I could discard them without wasting much rubber.

But Maria’s back problem flared up as I was about to pull the trigger on the tire deal. It was a good thing that I waited until the last minute to make the decision. Otherwise, I would have had to figure out how to retrieve a couple of tires from Pennsylvania by phone or email.

A ride to Indiana and back would only put about 1,000 miles on the tires. Ditto the two rallies on my calendar, although I heard disturbing news that the Return to Shiloh Rally campgrounds are being savaged to accommodate RVs. That could be the death knell for what was once the best local club rally venue I’ve ever seen.

So if Shiloh is out, I may have enough tread to get me through to the end of the year.

Unless, of course, I go crazy and ride to Colorado…