This is a bit of a saga, so bear with it, or beer with me, I’ll wait while you grab one…
It started last year
I threw Mitas E07 tires on my G650GS last season, fell in love immediately, no issues.
But this spring on my pilot voyage the bike was shaky, and when I braked suddenly went squirmy like all heck. Turns out the tires pressure had totally dropped over winter, and was running a cool 4PSI or something ridiculous.
(yes, go ahead and lecture me on checking PSI before ride, ESPECIALLY first of season… i deserve a good admonishment for that.)
Anyway, I filled tire up, bike rode perfect again, but I was focued on “loss of pressure bad”, i set about to check valve, tire, and ended up deciding to reseat when even with a new valve.
it still had Slow**** (very slow) leak.
In the effort to unseat the existing bead without proper tools I tore up my rim and tire. bad news bears all day.
Finally re-assembled and now leak free (3rd time changing same tire, and tire changing stand on order) I notice a slight wobble at speed. Nothing at first but feels more prevalent.
I noticed it especially badly when riding on a straight of tarmac with tar snakes running perpendicular. Normally the slippage wouldn’t matter since you’re crossing over, and no sideways forces.
Anyway as I drove straight across a row of them at 90° my bike starting correcting left and right like I was in deep sand, it was wild.
Now I am convinced my tire is hosed, and that it’s seated crooked or something (I don’t know why I thought that…I did nick the rubber pretty good, bead was left with questionable seal, etc) so ordered a new one.
Change (4th now) was much easier with tire stand, seal was perfect, got a great balance on it, and then as I was taking it off the static balancer (from above) the slowly spinning wheel revealed its true self, the rim was warped.
As of Last Night:
I got a makeshift gauge to measure and it’s a good ⅛″ maybe more of variance from low to high. Being a casted alloy rim I can’t straighten it (though have seen folks with mixed luck sending them away to a few nationally known pros)..
I found a replacement at BMW for $975, ha. and later placed a winning bid for one on ebay in UK for about $300 (still way more than I want to admit I paid 😅 ) should come here by early august. Meanwhile just grateful I have this little beauty as a backup.
