Yeah, for work I live out in the country in SC so it's pretty much 15-20 miles for anything. Drive 15 miles to work, 15 back home, 15 miles the other way to the gym/groceries, and 15 back home. Pretty much every day. Then throw in a 1000 mile trip every month to go back home and the miles really add up. I'm hoping this tire gets replaced before the rainy season hits and I can put those kinds of miles on the scooter!

 

trade your Harley for one of these...gas is going to be $10 a gallon by the end of this week probably!!!

 

thank you Brandon, enjoy reading your thread.

I've never been crazy miles kind of rider ,always seem to average 6k miles a year on the bike. been like that my whole life, I get too tired and need a nap. about the same with the car and 07 much less just around town now.

not too many issues with the 2020, got 12500 miles on board. got my second flat in 43 years on it. added some bolt on comfort things. Did the tranny cover mod to get to the hydraulic clutch in advance to make changing fluid easier.

here's a trick I've been doing that's worked out real well. Every time I fill up with gas I buy some oil/gas stock. It feels like there paying me to get gas now, crazy

 

My first year on the bike I believe was a 15k mile year... the second year maybe 7k, then the past 3 years has only been 7k. Moved to SC for work and it rains too damn much out here to ride so much.

Ha! Classic MJ... I wish I would have kept the mini bike after Aspen!

 

Finally got the front tire replaced... WOW things are moving slow nowadays. I even downgraded to a D407 instead of the American Elite so I didn't have to wait until May to get one!

Question... I counted 17, yes, SEVENTEEN, wheel weights on my tire. All on one side, all connected. WTF. I could see a "5" on the weight (not sure grams or oz.) and "Zn" (zinc?). Really? 17? Can't be that out of shape, can it?

 

The HD weights that my dealer uses are 5 grams each. It appears they come 10 to a strip.

From the factory my front wheel had 4 on one side, and 3 on the opposite side. After the last tire change at the dealership, I ended up with 3 on each side, but they were orientated one spoke away from the factory location as I could see remnants from the factory sticky tape. I don't know enough about balancing to comment about the quantity of your weights, or why they were all on one side.

 

My original tire had 4 on one side as well. When I had the American Elite installed, it was installed with beads so no weights. I will have to take the bike for a ride when the rain stops to feel it out.

 

First of all, I count 9+3+4=16? That's just over 2.8oz. not great but I've seen worse. I use beads most of the time, but if my indy finds one that bad he'll usually break the bead & rotate the tire a 1/3 of a turn & try again. I don't think Dunlop puts a dot on their tires anymore to line up with the valve stem, quite often the wheel can be off as much as the tire & if you get them both lined up that's where the problem is, thus the reason for spinning the tire will help.

 

Dumbass me forgot that when I got a nail in the rear tire two years ago I had them put on a Michelin Commander III and I should have sprung for the Michelin to match in the front this time around. Oh well, what's done is done.

I took the bike out for a ride in the beautiful 78*F weather today and no vibration. Really smooth actually. My old front tire was scalloped very bad and I must have been living with that vibration for a while.

What's interesting is that now at high speed (85+) I'm starting to get wobble in the front end when going straight. This didn't occur before. I would think that the slight difference in tire circumference would make a difference but I'll try adjusting the rear suspension to see if I can get it under control. When I start to get that wobble, I put more weight on the front and the wobble goes away so I will look to lengthen the rear suspension.

 

I've had a lot of personal stuff going on over the past two years, especially because of COVID and I spent hardly any time on my bike. I began working in the Augusta, GA area 3 years ago (while still living in Texas) and have only ridden 12,000 miles in that time (4k miles/year). When I was working full-time in Texas, I was putting 10k miles/year on this thing because the weather was great (hot, but great). The rain out here sucks. I made a promise to myself to ride every day that it's not raining when I leave for work. If it rains in the afternoon, that's fine as long as it's not forecasted to be an absolute flood/hurricane/tornado.

I've been able to ride 1000 miles this past month and finally hit 30,000 miles! Time for an oil change. I bought Mobil 1 V-twin to replace the Motul that I feel makes the engine hotter. I really bake with the Motul for some reason (just based on feel). Not replacing the Motul trans/primary fluids this go around because they are ultra high quality, working great, and only have 5k miles on them.

I'm hoping to revive my thread and get back to the way it used to be