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Front tire blowout at speed!

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    Front tire blowout at speed!

    This was an adventure that happened some years ago on my 79 1000EZ(80 cast wheels ,yosh pipe, Kerker can).
    It was on a rainy day just so happened on Thanksgiving. I was heading across town wearing full raingear head to toe with my little headphones stuffed into my helmet to listen to tunes.
    I was merging onto Interstate five a quarter mile before it wound up onto a local bridge crossing the Willamette here in Portland.
    I glanced over my left shoulder noting my position selection in the traffic, when I looked up I came upon a fist sized rock directly in my line a mere twenty feet ahead at sixty or so.
    The big Suzuki rode both tires over it WHAP WHAP!!!. The first thought racing thru my brain was Hmm... no damage everythings OK!. No sooner than the thought was complete POOF....The front was flat.
    The sensation that most stands out was the nature of the vibration. An oscillation side to side perhaps eight inches at a frequency of one turn of the tire, and at sixty it was rather violent.
    I stayed cool realizing I was still upright so I did'nt change a thing I just closed the throttle. In top gear it could have taken some time but I knew I was heading uphill but I was also going to have to negotiate a slow left turn followed by a right.
    My first instinct on the left at about thirty five or forty was to put my feet down keeping the machine bolt upright. It worked !! All OK , still upright bleeding off speed until I chugged to a stop stalling the motor halfway thru the righthander on the bottom deck of the Marquam bridge.
    I did'nt realize just how banked the turn was until I was stopped.. odd prespective!, could'nt budge the thing with the flat especially with the wet and banking . After some BSing with the cops & overseeing the tow truck driver slinging it up, I arrived at my parents house for some turkey & stuffing non the worse for wear.
    Rick........

    #2
    A couple of years ago, back when I was only thinking about owning a bike, I was behind a bike who had a similar experience at about 50mph. My first instinct was to use my car ('75 Plymouth Land Barge) to block both lanes and give him plenty of room to try and recover.

    Needless to say I got a good view of it from where I was and I thought he was going to dump it for sure. 8O He pulled it out and I got to see one of the scariest situations I can think of.

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      #3
      I am gald you were able to ride it out!

      hap

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        #4
        Keeping cool

        Yeah, quite the happening,
        I think the key was not trying to alter the dynamics (brakes,turns,etc) of a situation that seemed stable.

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          #5
          I have had two tyres suddenly have all the air go to the top, one on the front and the other on the rear (GSX1100) it was the rear one that dumped me and the front one was fairly benign. I actually rode the last few K's home on a flat front tyre by keeping my weight rearwards and riding it like a trail bike and using the gas appropriatly without touching the front brake. With the rear tyre flat the rear wheel hung out and after a short tank slapper, I was flying..!

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            #6
            Haven't had it happen on a motorcycle, but on my regular bicycle a couple years back I had a rear tire go down while going as fast as I could down a reaaaal long hill.... It was an instant flat, but the bike weighing so little it wasn't too too bad. In that case I used a handful of front brake and no back brake. It seemed to work, but I don't know how it would do on a heavier machine like a motorcycle.


            -=Whittey=-

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              #7
              I've found that it's the tire wall stiffness that really affects how a flat feels. I had Dunlop 81s, 91s, & 291s that handled flats like it was a mere inconvenience. The flat with a Continental Supertwin was completely different. It was the front tire and only 40 MPH, but I had absolutely no steering control! The bike went to the left slowly, hit a median curb and redirected itself to the right where I slowly came to a stop on the shoulder. I vowed to never again put a tire on my bike unless it had some substantial wall stiffness.

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                #8
                Originally posted by Don Lobacz
                I've found that it's the tire wall stiffness that really affects how a flat feels. I had Dunlop 81s, 91s, & 291s that handled flats like it was a mere inconvenience. The flat with a Continental Supertwin was completely different. It was the front tire and only 40 MPH, but I had absolutely no steering control! The bike went to the left slowly, hit a median curb and redirected itself to the right where I slowly came to a stop on the shoulder. I vowed to never again put a tire on my bike unless it had some substantial wall stiffness.
                I had a set of those Dunlops and a flat. I had to stop and inspect the bike to find out why it was handling a bit sloppy. That's the only indication I had that the rear tire was flat...

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