Flat Tire at Speed - Best Way To Stop Bike

[HarryB737]

Propflux01,
Thanks for sharing your experience, and how you reacted. Good Job! I'm also glad you kept your cool & the story ended the way it did. There are several things I picked up on.... How you handled the bike,... How you were prepared,... How you taught the mechanic after you got home via the phone call. The mechanic needed to know what happened so he too can learn from what happened. Thanks for Sharing. :newsmile071:

 

[Rubyred]

Propflux01,
Thanks for sharing your experience, and how you reacted. Good Job! I'm also glad you kept your cool & the story ended the way it did. There are several things I picked up on.... How you handled the bike,... How you were prepared,... How you taught the mechanic after you got home via the phone call. The mechanic needed to know what happened so he too can learn from what happened. Thanks for Sharing. :newsmile071:

Maybe we need to Make the MOCO aware of what happened so they can put out a service bulletin recommendation. I will contact HD to see if I can get their opinion on this.

 

[Hoople]

Maybe we need to Make the MOCO aware of what happened so they can put out a service bulletin recommendation. I will contact HD to see if I can get their opinion on this.

In this case it would have done no good. Indy's (where these tires were done) don't get factory service bulletins.

Ask them why did a 2009 Dyna FXDL come from the factory with metal valve stems,, but a Superglide in 2010 would not.

 

[judgeman6970]

Glad that you are ok. I agree with Don, any braking will need to be done very lightly, if done at all.

The best flat tire if you are going to have one at all is the one that greets you when you walk to garage in the morning to make your commute to work or take a weekend ride.

Once again, glad you made thru the experience.

LOL, this is exactly how I found my "flat rear tire" a few weeks ago(nail)...now I kinda feel lucky....Glad to hear no-one was hurt

 

[propflux01]

Thanx for all the goodwill! My only issue about all this is it was almost impossible to let the bike just slow down on its own, Even though it got worse using the brake, as it was just getting too violent. My mindset was on how bad it was gonna hurt hitting the ground, and how fast can I slow the bike so it wouldn't hurt as bad!

The guys at Twin Falls HD removed and replaced the stem, and all has been well since then. I guess the good and bad is, I had the tires replaced as that was the one thing I did not want to have to worry about.. It (thankfully) was the ONLY incident I had the whole trip!

 

[pappy42]

I was taught at the California Highway Patrol Motorcycle course to close the throttle, and shift down through the gears with no brakes, for rear tire flats.

Only had one in almost 50 years of riding and that was on a personal bike with the wife on the back, coming down out of the mountains. Used the technique as taught by CHP and it worked fine; if exciting.

 

[glimmerman]

i've had 2 flats on the rear of my rk. the first was at speed (70) the second was at about 25. i know that squirrelly feeling too well. i found that by keeping the engine speed up (3000) it helped stabilize the bike and keep it from wobbling too much. i feathered the clutch and was able to make it across about 5 lanes of traffic to the shoulder. i downshifted when the speed was about right for each gear 4th at 40, 3rd at 30 until i was coasting on the shoulder. glad you made it safely. sure ain't fun when it happens and i was sure i needed a change of clothes.

 

[deucedog]

The following happened at 75 mph, next to an 18 wheeler. This is off my buddy's bike, but I was behind him getting hit in the face by pieces of the tire. He was extremely lucky that the trucker was alert and backing off to give us room. Believe it or not, the tire still have 10 lbs pressure in it when we got stopped.

 

[Hoople]

This is off my buddy's bike,

Have to ask. What brand tire. Firestone 500?

 

[TripleJ]

The following happened at 75 mph, next to an 18 wheeler. This is off my buddy's bike, but I was behind him getting hit in the face by pieces of the tire. He was extremely lucky that the trucker was alert and backing off to give us room. Believe it or not, the tire still have 10 lbs pressure in it when we got stopped.

Wow! that looks like it happened due to brakes locking up?