LDRydr
A Homeless Nomad
Yesterday, I'd planned a short (for me) 500 mile ride down into Oregon to pick up my last remaining stop on the 2008 Rose City MC Grand Tour. The bike was ready to go so I pretty much hopped on and pulled out about 8am. I didn't get far, the front end handling wasn't feeling like it should and I remembered I'd been wanting to get a new front tire mounted up before getting started with a month of weekend planned rides I have coming up in September. I also was remembering Ari Rankum's talk at NAFO where he mentioned sometimes his "Spidey Sense" tells him it's not a good day to be on the bike. I headed back to the barn, figuring I'd strap on the new PR2 I had in my garage and head to the local stealer to be first in line to have the tire mounted when they opened at 9am. My SmartTire monitor showed the front tire was a little low but not enough to make the alert warning light up. I added a little air and headed to the shop.
I arrived at the shop at 8:45 and was a little disappointed to see two others ahead of me in line. About 9:10am somebody finally showed up at the service counter and put on his official-looking dealer shirt, then grumbled something about the normal Saturday dude calling him a few minutes earlier. Seems he was sick (it being his birthday the day before may have had something to do with it) and would he cover his shift for him.
While writing up the first tire customer he asked if he was going to be leaving the bike, to which he replied no, he was going to wait for it. He said it may be about 3 hours before they'd get to it, they were backed up and also still had tire work left from the day before (how can they be backed up if you're the first one there?). He said he'd still be waiting. The 2nd customer left his quad for tires and got the same dire prediction of finish time. Next up was me, and I got the same story. This dealership advertises tire mounting while you wait, first-come first-served. In the past it's never been more than about a half-hour before they start the work, so a wait of 2-3 hours was unacceptable and I told him so. He restated they had work left from the previous day, to which I asked why had they left folks go home if the work wasn't done. He didn't answer me and asked if I'd be waiting (hell yes), and I told him I'd be hovering over his desk and breathing down his neck until it was done. He didn't like that and said he'd come find me when it was done. I went searching for coffee (and laughed when I saw a new '08 AE FJR with a price tag of $17,500 hanging on it).
To my surprise around an hour later the work was done. I paid my bill and rode around running a few errands and then home, mindful to be careful on the virgin tire. I also canceled my plans to write a nasty letter to the service manager and wondered if instead I should write a complimentary one. I decided not to since this work was what I had expected in the first place.
A few hours after arriving home I decided to recalibrate my SmartTire monitor, setting the tire pressures exactly where I wanted them. Basically this involves getting the pressures where you want them in the tires, then telling the system this is what you want to use as your baseline for alerts. It then tells you the current pressure and variance from your baseline. I jacked up the front end of the bike so I could spin the tire to get the sender to send, turned on the bike, spun the tire, and was surprised to see the alert light come on saying the tire had 32 lbs of pressure. A quick inspection showed no visible punctures so I removed the valve stem cap, applied some spit and saw the valve stem had a pretty good leak going. The shop hadn't tightened it down properly. Glad I found it in the garage, not going down the road. Of course my SmartTire would have alerted me.
I pulled my valve stem tool out of my tool bag (you all DO have a valve stem tool in your tool kit, right?) tightened it up and filled it up to the correct pressure. The spit test showed it to be holding. While spinning the tire I noticed the tech had applied the adhesive-backed weights in a nice pattern on one side of the wheel, the first of the weights starting near the center of the rim, and the the last one (of 4) near the outside of the rim. Ya just gotta love how some folks pay so much attention to detail. I again pondered writing that letter to the service manager, but decided instead to go have a beer and try to remember which of my friends have tire-mounting equipment for next time.
Moral of the long-winded story? Never assume anybody working on your bike knows what they're doing, unless it's you. Double-check their work, and carry the correct tools and an air-compressor.
I arrived at the shop at 8:45 and was a little disappointed to see two others ahead of me in line. About 9:10am somebody finally showed up at the service counter and put on his official-looking dealer shirt, then grumbled something about the normal Saturday dude calling him a few minutes earlier. Seems he was sick (it being his birthday the day before may have had something to do with it) and would he cover his shift for him.
While writing up the first tire customer he asked if he was going to be leaving the bike, to which he replied no, he was going to wait for it. He said it may be about 3 hours before they'd get to it, they were backed up and also still had tire work left from the day before (how can they be backed up if you're the first one there?). He said he'd still be waiting. The 2nd customer left his quad for tires and got the same dire prediction of finish time. Next up was me, and I got the same story. This dealership advertises tire mounting while you wait, first-come first-served. In the past it's never been more than about a half-hour before they start the work, so a wait of 2-3 hours was unacceptable and I told him so. He restated they had work left from the previous day, to which I asked why had they left folks go home if the work wasn't done. He didn't answer me and asked if I'd be waiting (hell yes), and I told him I'd be hovering over his desk and breathing down his neck until it was done. He didn't like that and said he'd come find me when it was done. I went searching for coffee (and laughed when I saw a new '08 AE FJR with a price tag of $17,500 hanging on it).
To my surprise around an hour later the work was done. I paid my bill and rode around running a few errands and then home, mindful to be careful on the virgin tire. I also canceled my plans to write a nasty letter to the service manager and wondered if instead I should write a complimentary one. I decided not to since this work was what I had expected in the first place.
A few hours after arriving home I decided to recalibrate my SmartTire monitor, setting the tire pressures exactly where I wanted them. Basically this involves getting the pressures where you want them in the tires, then telling the system this is what you want to use as your baseline for alerts. It then tells you the current pressure and variance from your baseline. I jacked up the front end of the bike so I could spin the tire to get the sender to send, turned on the bike, spun the tire, and was surprised to see the alert light come on saying the tire had 32 lbs of pressure. A quick inspection showed no visible punctures so I removed the valve stem cap, applied some spit and saw the valve stem had a pretty good leak going. The shop hadn't tightened it down properly. Glad I found it in the garage, not going down the road. Of course my SmartTire would have alerted me.
I pulled my valve stem tool out of my tool bag (you all DO have a valve stem tool in your tool kit, right?) tightened it up and filled it up to the correct pressure. The spit test showed it to be holding. While spinning the tire I noticed the tech had applied the adhesive-backed weights in a nice pattern on one side of the wheel, the first of the weights starting near the center of the rim, and the the last one (of 4) near the outside of the rim. Ya just gotta love how some folks pay so much attention to detail. I again pondered writing that letter to the service manager, but decided instead to go have a beer and try to remember which of my friends have tire-mounting equipment for next time.
Moral of the long-winded story? Never assume anybody working on your bike knows what they're doing, unless it's you. Double-check their work, and carry the correct tools and an air-compressor.
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