Many of you knew Phil "Pkiser" Kiser here on TWT. He was a long time personal friend from the very early days of TWT. For years he has always graciously helped me change tires whenever I needed a set done. It was always a time I looked forward to because we'd bang out the tires pretty quick and then typically spend a few hours hanging out in the garage or sitting on the tailgate of the truck talking about life, family, church, politics, bikes, and pretty much anything else you might think of. The last time I got to see him was early this Spring when Daniel and I went over to do a set of tires for my GS. Unfortunately, this was not one of our typical visits and we pretty much just banged out the tires and we all had to get going because of other plans.
He left us far too soon May 11th, 2023
So it was with trepidation that I spoke with his wife recently and she agreed to let us use his shop to mount new tires for all our bikes in preparation for the upcoming big trip. She's doing as well as can be expected, taking things one day at a time. While I had fun teaching the kids how to do the tires, everywhere I looked in his shop just made memories come flooding back. His "Man Cave" was not grand like some, but it is cozy and fully functional. It just really made me miss him something bad...
Sarah learning how to replace the stem core after getting her new front tire on the rim. The bead snapping back in place made her jump pretty good
Daniel showed up a little while after we got there to help. We were doing his tires as well.
Ranchel... well... she's a crazy little sister, but she was actually helpful this evening!
I can't even begin to count how many tires we've done with this old machine over the years.
Someone has been slipping this boy some growth hormones or I am shrinking... maybe both...
It took us about 2-1/2 hours going slow and taking our time. We mounted the Dunlop Trailmax Mission tires on all of our bikes. I had seen comments on Facebook and here on TWT about them being hard to mount. We had no trouble at all. I did use liberal amounts of the Yamaha spray tire lube. It is a bit messy, but that stuff makes tires slide on/off the rim super easy! While we had the tires off my rims, I replaced the TPMS sensors for both wheels. The rear sensor battery was going out and both are six years old, so I just went ahead and replaced both while we were at it. Once done, we cleaned up the place and visited with Bambi (his wife) for a bit and then grabbed a quick dinner before heading home.
All three bikes waiting patiently for their new tires!
Daniel's 2020 KTM 390 Adventure
My 2017 BMW R1200 GS Rallye with the new Mosko Moto tank bag. The laptop is hooked up to the bike via the GS-911 so I could make the computer recognize the new tire pressure sensors. The little red thing on the chair is the doohickey that makes the sensors "wake up" so the bike will recognize them. It has one button. Push and hold that for five seconds, job done. So easy even an Aggie could do it... WHOOP!
Sarah's 2022 KTM 390 Adventure.
The two 390s are getting new chains and sprockets. The original chains and sprockets are really only good for about 5K miles from everything I have read online. Daniel's bike is right at that and the chain is pretty well used up and the sprocket tips are showing a good bit of wear. I got a nice kit for each bike that slightly lowers the gearing by using a bigger rear sprocket rather than dropping from a 15 to 14 tooth on the front. From what I have read, going to a 14 front is great for the low end, but really cuts off the top end. Going with the bigger rear sprocket and staying with the 15 front puts me halfway between stock and dropping to the 14. So hopefully, it will help a little on the bottom end without killing the top end because we will have some places where we have to cruise the highways on our trips and I don't want to get run off the road if we can't run freeway speeds. So pretty much all that is left now is to do their chains and sprockets, and then an oil change and air filter replacement. All the luggage is setup and we've figured out how to pack everything.
Now we just wait...