NIGHTMARE

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  Posted by tiogacharlie August 30, 2012 - Filed in Personal Journal - 463 views
  

  Hello,

  I just recently had to buy tires for the Ole Bike.

  I researched and talked to my Mechanic and others as well and decided that the Commander II from Michelin was the tire for me.

  I had a matched set ordered and installed valve stems and I was good to go.

  Picked up the bike and good gosh what a difference the tires actually made in the performance of this bike.

  I loved the handleing and control when hitting the turns, the ride was amazing.

  So I am feeling good about it all and two weeks later I decide to go for a night ride which is something I really enjoy doing.

  I get up on the freeway and they had just placed the new 75MPH signs up so I decided, low traffic, lets crank it up to 75 and see how the tires handle at a high speed.

  Cruising along at 75MPH life is great and then it happened...The steering shook momentarily and I had absolutely no control at all of a Yamaha Roadstar Siverado 1700 (thats a heavy bike)....The front tire was losing air rapidly.

  I then heard the dreaded flap flap flappity flap and I knew I was in trouble, big trouble.

  I was experiencing a front tire blowout at 75MPH...Oh Crap.

  As it turned out I acted instead of reacting and held it straight with some wiggle of course and at one point the front end jerked to the left and I was headded to the right and over the bars when with everything I have in this big boy body jerked the front end back around to the center and held it there until the bike came to a stop.

  I got it off the freeway and sat there shaking and thinking that I had just cheated death I should have at the very least been spread all over the freeway.

  When I checked the bike out after about 30 mins of freaking out, I determined that the valve stem was the issue as it had blown out...Who would have thought right... A fricking valve stem front tire blow out at 75MPH and here I am...

  Had a smaller man been on this bike when that happened I really do think it would have been lights out for him, the pucker factor was determined to be Mach 10 Plus.

  My muscles were so sore for the following week as it wasnt until Thursday (4 days after) that I started feeling the muscles relax in my shoulders, back and arms.

  My girlfriend brought the trailer to pick the bike up with and later she told me I was just rambling on like I was on dope or something and that had to have been the shock from it.

  Anyway I had it all fixed up with bolt in stainless steel valve stems and like they say you gotta git back up on that horse and thats what I did but it was slow going for a while.

  God is my Savior and God had my back that night on I35 in Texas near the Texas\Oklahoma border and to change the song up just a bit "Jesus Took The Wheel " that night, and because of that my Faith is ever stronger.

  Thank You Jesus Thank You Jesus