Therapy & Maintenance

After our snowy ride my bike was in dire need of some maintenance. The chain was so badly stretched it was making clanking noises on the last day and was well beyond the red zone on the adjustment and it was still loose.

The rear tyre was also cactus, with less than 1mm of tread left. I got 12,256 kms from the Motoz Rallz which was less than the Motoz Adventure and it was noisier than the Adventure also, so I went back to the Adventure tyre on the rear.

I had two weeks off at christmas so it was time to get cracking. So the day I went to do it was surprise, surprise going to be 41°C. F*ck this heat. There's always tomorrow.

So next day I picked up a new rear tyre from Tyres for Bikes at Dural and started the process of replacing the tyre and the chain & sprockets. Plus the bike needed a good wash. 

I replaced the rear Tyre and rear sprocket first and put it back into the bike and then gave it a wash. 

I was fearing the front sprocket change as I remember how hard it was on the R1, but in actual fact is was quite easy. I Jammed a screwdriver through the chain from underneath, then undid the nut. I came off quite easy. I was surprised to see that it was heavily rust stained. inside where the shaft contacts the sprocket. I put the new sprocket on with some marine grease to hopefully stop the rust. We shall see how it looks at 60,000kms. Front drive sprocket 54nm. Rear drive sprocket nuts 100nm. 

I'd bought the new DID 525 Chain and sprockets before the trip but thought it better to put them on after the trip. The chain didn't get oiled the whole trip as it was coming off anyway. I'd bought a chain breaker previously when I was at AutoOne and time to actually use it. I ground the head off the pin with a grinder The chain breaker made quick work of pushing the pin out.

I was wondering what the f*ck a x-ring chain actually is. To the naked eye the x-rings look quite like o-rings, but on closer examination you can see they are actually made in the form of an 'x' or a '+'. Probably easier to say x-ring than +ring.

Using the chain breaker to make the new link was also easy, I've not used one before so I searched the University of  Youtube for knowledge. Pretty easy really once you know how. I used the rivet link as I don't trust using the circlip link. 

This is the 4th rear tyre I've put on the bike now with 33,600km on the dial. I would have been on the 6th on the R1 by now. Hopefully I'll get another 15k from this tyre.

I must say that working on the bike was quite therapeutic, not as good as riding it but just spending time on the bike was good for my soul. A well earned beer was required during after a job well done.

Scottay & Joffrey and I went out for the last ride of 2024 just to test out the new chain and tyre. How good does the bike handle with a new tyre eh?

Cheers Everyone hope you had a Merry Christmas & Happy New Year. Sadly it's back to work....

The Worst Tyre ever

So finally the rains had stopped nad I managed to get the bike out for a ride on these new tyres. I always check my tyre pressures before every ride, however I didn't check today as I checked them 2 weeks ago, seriously how much could they lose in 2 weeks. 

Immediate as I pulled out of my driveway and into the round about 30m away I felt that the tyres were absolutely horrible, in only 2 bends. WTF?

I got to Geoff's and immediately asked for a tyre gauge, front was down 6 psi, back was down 5 psi. In only 2 weeks, wow. Maybe this is something tubed tyres do perhaps? As my tubeless tyres on my R1 would last months before losing this much pressure.

Now pumped up to the correct pressure we headed off. I noticed that they were better but not that much and there was something seriously wrong with how the bike was now handling on the front tyre.

We rode out on only a short ride to Nattai and viewing the Warragamba Catchment area. In 50kms I had recognised that this tyre was shite, the 50km return confirmed my initial thoughts.

After all the recent rains we've had the catchment area was brown and murky from all the run off, this flowed out into the ocean from the Hawkesbury river and could be seen by satellite.

My issues with the front tyre:

• Wanders around the road
• Unstable at highway speed, easily starts into weaving/wobbling.
• Turn in on slow speed bends is unstable.
• Noisy at any speed above 40km/h
• Due to knob size and height i believe on the tar this tyre is completely useless and a little on the dangerous side as it rolls around on the tall knobs.
• Unstable under brakes into a corner on any lean angle.
• Doesn't want to change direction easily
• Falls into bends and you actually have to counter steer out of the bend to straighten the bike mid corner.

This is the WORSRT TYRE I HAVE EVER USED in 30 years of riding make no mistake, I have no confidence in this tyre whatsoever.

Thoughts crossed my mind, would I get used to it?, or would it be the cause of me crashing due to these issues on my next ride. After  less than 100kms on this tyre I decided it would be much safer to get another tyre, any tyre to replace this one with. Anything would be better.

I had ridden Geoff's AT and he had Karoo3 on it. They felt 1 million times better than the Motoz front tyre. My choice was for a pirelli STR but they had none in stock, Dave suggested a Bridgestone AX41 another tyre I didn't know. At least I knew the Karro3 was good after only 20km ride, so I choose one of those to replace the Motoz Tractionator Adventure. What a crap tyre, I don't know how they sell any of these. Looks like my research let me down. Maybe some of those Youtubers were sponsored as I can't believe them saying how great this tyre is when in fact its absolute rubbish.

Karoo3

So only 1 week to go until my ride comes up and I'll be away this weekend at a wedding, so no trying out the new tyre. It will be run in during the trip.