ARRRGH! Puncture! Advice for replacing tyres.

So I noticed this morning that my rear tyre is flat as a pancake, was fine last night at 5pm. Clearly have a slow puncture.

Don't have anywhere locally to repair the tyre so just looking to replace the rear one. I currently have BT015's on it and my question is, if I change the rear to an Avon Storm, with it being a sports touring tyre, will I REALLY have to change the front just now?

Just for the sake of handling and stuff? Not sure about these kind of things?

[Biker Biggles]

Have you found the puncture?Is there a nail in it or some obvious cause?If not it might be a leaking valve or something.If the tyre is only slightly worn it does make sense to see if it can be repaired.

No, just home from work, gonna go and check it.

Problem is, there really is NOWHERE near here that repairs them, and I have had to go into a local McConechy's and flutter my eyelashes to ask if they will fit tyres to the bike if I get them ordered as no where evn fits bike tyres within 50 miles of here!

[Biker Biggles]

Thats tricky.You need to find out if it will stay up long enough to ride somewhere suitable,which depends how bad the leak is.Need a foot pump,and looking ahead,a set of tyre levers and the knowledge to swap tyres yourself.Easy for me to say------I got a tyre place just down the road.

We have a compressor somewhere....need to wait til dad come back home as it has gone walkies again.

But anyway, my question is...handling wise, would having the BT015 on the front and an Avon Storm on the back cause an issue?

that depends on how much you push it, it's better to have the better tyre on the front imo, as you know they always reccomend tyres are the same make and model on front and the rear, that said no it probobly wouldn't be an issue, only you can say really, it's what your comfortable with. edit, i had the same on my sv, 2 weeks after i bought it puncture in rear, fitted avon storm and had the origonal dunlop on the front, no problems in 5000 miles, apart from leaving the road once but i'm not blaming the front tyre for that, ok i am, wasn't my fault at all, lol.

can you not get hold of a tube of tyre sealant

if its a puncture in the tread part of tyre and not the side wall ,buy some puncture safe or what ever it is called these days,its like green slime but its blue and is safe for use on bike tyres 1 bottle will treat at least 2 tyres and it does work,and can be put in a tyre even if it is not punctured,so unless the tyre is nearly wore up it may be worth useing this product

[mattSV]

Originally Posted by martin15s

can you not get hold of a tube of tyre sealant

I tried to use an aerosol of that a few years ago - it failed, despite following the instructions to the letter - it just pi55ed the sealant out all over the bike, and let the air out.

I have however successfully used a plug twice - once on my sv1000 on the way back from the first North/South about 5 years ago, and last week on Quiff's VFR in France

[Drew Carey]

Hi Nic,

You may find a mis-match ok, you may not. However from my experience having a mis-match was really bad. Made the handling feel awful.