Three weeks ago my first flat on the FXD since I bought the bike in March of 2003. 29,152 miles of riding. Luckily, I was only 5 minutes from home when it happened.

I was in the middle of a long right hand turn, leaning the bike pretty well over, when all of a sudden the bike went all squirrely, as though I hit an oily patch. I had a long downhill stretch to get to my house and it looks like a series of S bends allconnected together.

The front tire was going down, and the bike was squirming all over, very mushy responding to the turns. Almost felt like a low speed tankslapper.

The tire was all the way flat as I pulled into the garage.

It turns out that the strip of rubber covering the spoke nipples inside the wheel had broke and this allowed the tube on the 21 inch front wheel to rub directly on the nipple and put a hole in the tube

 

If your running tubeless and get a flat they sell a kit that can fit in your pocket. It contains everything you will need to plug and refill the tire. No compressor needed.....just a few Co2 canisters....like for a pellet gun (or laughing gas whippets). They do work very well! http://www.jpcycles.com/catalog/2007...talog/0121.asp

 

okay so if you plug a tubless tire. . . . say the rear. . . . on the side of the road.

do you need to then replace the tire or can you run on a plug?

 

I have never run with a plug. I replace the tire as soon as I can. To me it'snot worth theworrying or worse yet, injury or death.

If you happen to find you have a small nail in the tire and and only a slow leak it might be a different story. If I could get to a dealer without plugging I would and then just put a tube in the tire and get the rest of the life out of the tread.

 

Well,

Old dirt bike trick.......take the rubber spoke liner out of spoked rims and throw it far far away......replace with duct tape.....always replace the duct tape any time the tire is off after that........

 

Wire wheels are mostly tubed tires and will lose air quick so I put American Wire Wheel tubless rims on my wifes bike. I feel better with her having tubless tires and her bike even looks better with the 18" radial spoked wheels.

 

Picked up a sheet metal screw in my rear tire outside Okemulgee (SP ), OK on I-40 while going 70 plus MPH. Screws let the air escape real quick from a tire. Braced myself to go down in the grassy median but stayed off the brakes and coasted to a wobbly stop. A preacher stopped and let me use his cell phone to call a wrecker to get my tire on my laced wheel replaced up in Tuscon.

 

Oops, .......wrong state. That was up in TULSA, OK Great dealer there.

 

I was wondering the other day....suppose you had a flat on your tubeless tire and you plugged the hole. Could you pup the tire back up with the air ride suspension pump? I don't have one to look at to see if it would work.