They replace a set that had been on the bike since July, 2002 and had about 8,400 miles on them. That’s not a lot of miles, but 10 years is way too long to ride on a set of motorcycle tires.
We figured it would be a breeze, since Charlie mounted a set of tires on a friend’s K75S back in July with no problems.
We figured wrong.
The old tires came off of the rims easily, but getting the new ones mounted and the bead seated was another thing entirely.
We concluded that the tires needed to be warmed up to be sufficiently pliable, so we laid them out in the sun outside of Charlie’s shop and Charlie was finally able to wrestle them onto the rims. The bead seated on the front tire after some fiddling, but we had to cinch a tie-down around the circumference of the rear tire to force the bead close enough to the groove to pop in under air pressure.
Start to finish, it took about 3½ hours, but the price was right. And the cost of the tires was $188.98. Total.
I paid Revard BMW $327.43 for the previous set of the same model tires. Corrected for inflation, that would be $421.18 in today’s dollars. I think I got a good deal from Motorcycle Superstore, even if I did let the tires sit around for 13 months before mounting them.
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