keepemflying What I carry when touring
By Matthew Parkhouse #13272 AS
I’VE MEN-
tioned previously, last September I attended the Land of Enchantment Rally that the New Mex- ico BMW club hosts at the Sipapu Ski
facility, outside of Taos, New Mexico. This has been one of my favorite ral- lies; it is fairly close at hand (250 miles for me), large enough to be interest- ing, and small enough so that I have time with everyone I know or meet there. I usually get to re-acquaint with folks from a state or two away. For the last ten years or so, I’ve been doing a seminar for the Airheads at the Rally. Paul Glaves usually does a mainte- nance and repair oriented one as well.
After a couple years of cracking open newly acquired airhead transmissions before an audience, for a change I presented on “what I carry with me on long tours.” When I ride into Mexico (11 trips so far) or to the East Coast, as I did two autumns ago to take a look at the new grand-triplets, I fill the bet- ter part of a saddlebag and tuck a few heavy items elsewhere on the bike—all tools and parts. It’s sort of a good feeling, as one wob- bles to the side of the road, to know you have EVERYTHING you need to carry on after dealing with a flat tire. On my very first Mexico trip, back in
1986, I had ELEVEN flat tires! Several were due to scrubbing patches of previous punc- tures off the repaired inner tube due to hot and rough roads. As this is a common occurrence down there, I was able to pur- chase additional patches and rubber cement
very easily. What do I carry for that? Well, the early airheads all have spoked wheels, which require an inner tube to hold the air. So, a spare tube (or two) is in order. Since the vast majority of flats are on the rear wheel, I carry a 4.00 X 18 sized tube. I have found I can stuff it into the tire on the 3.25 X 19 front wheel and have it hold air for a weekend of riding. In addition to the bike’s tool kit, which sup- plies all the wrenches needed to dismount the rear wheel, I have everything needed to dismount the tire, replace the tube, remount the tire and inflate the new tube. If I suffer additional flats—those 11 flats on one trip WERE an exception—I need a patch kit and a set of patches. If Susanna and I are riding together, there is a spare tube packed on both of the bikes. People do change around their cast snowflake wheels to run them as tube- less. I do not recommend this. I agree with most tech folks that the wheel rims are not made to retain a tubeless tire in the event of a loss of air. If there is a sudden loss of air, the tire can dismount and jam up the wheel, causing a loss of control. “Riding down” a sudden flat is scary enough when the tire remains mounted on the wheel. Other than very rare problems caused by
The “flat tire kit”. Across the top: tire plugging tools, patching kits and my three tire irons. The two long irons were ordered from BMW; they are a part of the “Super Tool Kit” and can be purchased separately, at a cost of $30(!) each ( Part # 71 11 1 237 871) Across the lower row: a spare 4.00 X 18 inner tube,right-angle valve stem adapter (part# 71 11 1 239 258: $15), a pressure gauge, a small bottle of soapy water and two different ways of inflating a repaired tire. It looks like a lot but does not take up a lot of space and it is VERY nice to have when a flat strikes!
42 BMW OWNERS NEWS February 2016
big hunks of sharp metal, blow-outs should mostly be avoided by replacing tires in a timely manner. There is NO reason to use up a tire to the point that the cords are showing. Along with the patches and rubber cement, the tire repair kit contains three (two long, one short) tire levers, a 50cc bottle of soapy water (for lubrication of the tire, off and on the wheel) and a 12 volt pump. I usually strip off the plastic casing of the air pump to reduce the volume they take up. I sometimes carry a backup pump in the form of a “chuffer pump” that uses engine compression to pump up a tire. Before the 12 volt pumps became common,
I used a cylinder pump a number of times. Along with the pump(s), I have one of those right-angle valve extenders for those
TECH
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