Flat tyre woes
At some point, every motorcyclist will have to face the reality of a flat tyre. Whether it's a nail, pothole, rock or even a snakebite, you must deal with air escaping your rubber. When you have a flat, there a few ways to deal with it that range from quick fixes to permanent repairs. Depending on the type of wheels that are fitted to your bike will determine the course of action you will need to take. Where you are when you get the flat will also determine what you can and will need to do.
Related: When to replace your bike tyres
Motorcycles are fitted with two types of wheels: tubed and tubeless. If you are running spoked wheels, you often have a tube inside the tyre that will need repair. If you have mag wheels, there won't be a tube to fix, and getting the tyre off the rim without machinery will be very difficult.
How do I choose the right motorbike tyres for my riding style?
Roadside repairs
Roadside repairs will mean that you need to carry a repair kit and tools. For adventure riders, this is a given; for sports bike riders, you may have a small repair kit. For bikes running tubes, you will need tools to remove the tyre from the rim, which will mean a set of tyre levers and a tube repair kit. For tubeless tyres, a good quality plug kit is all you need. You will need a reinflation method, such as a pump or air cartridges in both instances. These fixes should not be permanent, and once you've self-rescued, they should be addressed as soon as possible.
Take it to a shop
If you have a flat and have access to a trailer or are close enough to a tyre shop, take the bike to them and have them sort it out. The shop will have the proper tools and machinery to remove the wheel and tyre and fix the issue properly.
Tubeless
Most top-end bikes will have mag wheels that run tubeless tyres. If the penetration is not too big and the wheel is not damaged, you should be able to plug the hole with a simple tyre plug kit.
- Find and remove the object that created the hole
- Use the file in the kit to clean out and enlarge the puncture hole
- Using the insert tool and a piece of lubricated plug, push into the hole and plug it
- Inflate slowly and check for further leaks
If the tyre has been cut or damaged or the rim is bent, this fix may not work, and you will need to seek out a shop to help with the repair. A tyre shop will remove the tyre, remove the cause of the puncture or the plug, and patch the tyre from the inside with a vulcanising patch, which will become a permanent repair.
Tubed
If you had a bicycle as a kid, you would have become familiar with this method. You will need to get the wheel off the bike, get the tyre off the rim with tyre levers without damaging it, get the tube out, locate the hole, patch it with a patch kit and put it all back together. This is not an easy task considering motorcycle tyres' size and bead thickness. You may be tempted to try a "tyre slime", but if the hole is too big to fill, the leaking solution will prevent proper tyre patches from vulcanising to the tube later on. Smart riders will carry a spare tube with them if they will be far from civilisation.
