BikeSwimLaugh
05-10-2009, 11:51 PM
Guys....
So I took my 400EX out for it's 2nd venture. The guys I rode with told me the dealer must have put way too much psi in the tires cause they were at 15, so we dropped 'em all down to 5.5 pounds.
The day went fine...I went over 2.5 hours and had a BLAST, drifting around corners, going up hills, just enjoying the heck out of the quad.
On the way back we went through some narrow trails where there were some nasty rocks..I'm pretty sure this is where I must have gotten a gash in my front left tire, we figured this out later...read on:
So I was coming down a straight and there was like nothing on the trail....SUDDENLY it was like an invisiable hand just turned the handlebars to the left, the whole quad jilted and in an instant I was eating major brush & shrub and heading up the slope of the hill on the left. I was thinking "WTF!!!!! and had the presence of mind to try to steet back to the right....but it all happened so fast. I thought the quad was going to roll and I'd go over, but it came to an abrupt stop.
The guy behind me came up and we pulled the quad off the slope. The front left tire was flat. We figured I may have broke the bead, but when we went to reinflate we found a gash on the outer sidewall...a slow leak. So it wasn't a blow-out, just a hole that slowly leaked until I was running on a flat tire. As we looked at the trail behind me, there appeared to be almost nothing...maybe a rock or two about the size of a softball or baseball. It was like an invisiable force just smacked me off the road! By the slow loss of air it wasn't an abrupt air-loss, just (as previously mentioned) a gradual loss until I was running flat.
Ughh....maybe I steered a bit to the left and the tire got soggy, almost rolled under itself and the front left being dragged-down like that sorta bump-steered me to the left and that's what happened...or maybe a rock got dragged under the flat.
I won't kid you guys...it has me freaked a bit. Had I been up high on those mountain roads when I got thrown off where there were some very steep hills.....I may not be typing this right now.
So 2 questions:
1) WTF likely happened?
2) I want new tires ALL the way around. I don't race, motocross or do track...I sport-ride desert, forest & mountains. I do enjoy drifting the rear-end around and I've noticed that some tires with less knobs are more for sliding around corners (what I call drifting) while other tires are more for straight-up traction. I'm looking to avoid what happened again, so durability and 6-ply sounds like the ticket. I'm thinking Maxxis or ITP...so please set me straight on a good tire that'll be strong, durable, have great traction and still be fun on the slide.
Really appreciate the help, sorry if I sound like a total noob...but hey, it's still better to be a noob and enjoy the sport then be one of these elitist snobs who thinks riding is beneath him! :D
So I took my 400EX out for it's 2nd venture. The guys I rode with told me the dealer must have put way too much psi in the tires cause they were at 15, so we dropped 'em all down to 5.5 pounds.
The day went fine...I went over 2.5 hours and had a BLAST, drifting around corners, going up hills, just enjoying the heck out of the quad.
On the way back we went through some narrow trails where there were some nasty rocks..I'm pretty sure this is where I must have gotten a gash in my front left tire, we figured this out later...read on:
So I was coming down a straight and there was like nothing on the trail....SUDDENLY it was like an invisiable hand just turned the handlebars to the left, the whole quad jilted and in an instant I was eating major brush & shrub and heading up the slope of the hill on the left. I was thinking "WTF!!!!! and had the presence of mind to try to steet back to the right....but it all happened so fast. I thought the quad was going to roll and I'd go over, but it came to an abrupt stop.
The guy behind me came up and we pulled the quad off the slope. The front left tire was flat. We figured I may have broke the bead, but when we went to reinflate we found a gash on the outer sidewall...a slow leak. So it wasn't a blow-out, just a hole that slowly leaked until I was running on a flat tire. As we looked at the trail behind me, there appeared to be almost nothing...maybe a rock or two about the size of a softball or baseball. It was like an invisiable force just smacked me off the road! By the slow loss of air it wasn't an abrupt air-loss, just (as previously mentioned) a gradual loss until I was running flat.
Ughh....maybe I steered a bit to the left and the tire got soggy, almost rolled under itself and the front left being dragged-down like that sorta bump-steered me to the left and that's what happened...or maybe a rock got dragged under the flat.
I won't kid you guys...it has me freaked a bit. Had I been up high on those mountain roads when I got thrown off where there were some very steep hills.....I may not be typing this right now.
So 2 questions:
1) WTF likely happened?
2) I want new tires ALL the way around. I don't race, motocross or do track...I sport-ride desert, forest & mountains. I do enjoy drifting the rear-end around and I've noticed that some tires with less knobs are more for sliding around corners (what I call drifting) while other tires are more for straight-up traction. I'm looking to avoid what happened again, so durability and 6-ply sounds like the ticket. I'm thinking Maxxis or ITP...so please set me straight on a good tire that'll be strong, durable, have great traction and still be fun on the slide.
Really appreciate the help, sorry if I sound like a total noob...but hey, it's still better to be a noob and enjoy the sport then be one of these elitist snobs who thinks riding is beneath him! :D