You can balance single sided wheels no problem as long as you have an adaptor to suit, I've been fitting and balancing my own tyres for years now and even repair punctures with mushroom headed patches from the inside of the tyre. As well as the Ducati, I have a BMW with a single sided swingarm, I just made up a simple adaptor from some Aluminium tube and it enables me to get the BMW wheel onto my static wheel balancer. Also one important point for anyone on here that is thinking about changing their own tyres is this - Everyone makes the mistake of assuming that the valve is the heaviest point of the wheel, without even checking it, this is not necessarily the case! When you have the tyre off the rim, put the bare wheel on the balancer and check where the heaviest point of the wheel actually is, ...I've had wheels where the heaviest point has been about 8" away from the valve, mark this point with a bit of tape stuck on the rim and align the dots on the tyre here when you fit the tyre, that way you will use less weights to balance the wheel up. I just fitted a new tyre on the back of my 899, the tyre cost me £110 from tyreleader and I fitted it myself for nowt - job done! I used to ride Enduro's so I'm used to changing tubes in the middle of a wet and muddy Stang forest with a couple of motion-pro tyre levers, so doing the road bike in a nice cosy garage is easy by comparison. Hope this helps,
Pro tyre have a price match, so I printed off an online price and the price of fitting by their local fitting partner and pro tyres matched it on ride in ride out. Saved me 20 quid!
Worth checking abroad at the min. Bought SC1 200/60 slick, best Uk proce delivered was £225, ebay from italy £189 delivered
Just bought two sets from Cheap Car Tyres Online » FREE DELIVERY » Oponeo.co.uk A pair of M7RRs for the Ducati at £181 inc vat and delivery and pair of Dunlop Roadsmart IIs for the KTM at £170 the same. £351 for two sets of tyres all in. Really can't complain at that. Ordered Monday and arrived Thursday as well, which considering they came from Germany and probably had to go through the channel tunnel is pretty good going.
I'm finding a lot of cheap stuff in Germany at the moment, in fact I seem to spend more time on German ebay than the UK version.
That's a great deal, has to be said. Just checked out the price for a front Pilot Power 2CT on there. It is £65.00 and takes a couple of days to arrive. By using ProTyres price match, I paid £70.30 plus £8.35 fitting, balancing and disposal of the old tyre, ride in-ride out same day. I don't think I lost out too much... You do need to quote a fitted price though and I took in print-outs.
I fit my own tyres on my track bike. Wouldn't touch the multi bride in/ride out and pay the premium for a pro is my attitude
In my local one at least, they employ a specialist bike fitter who only does bikes. he's a biker himself and all he does is fit tyres, sprockets and chains to bikes. You'd think he'd get quite good at it...
I used to fit my own tyres butI'm too old/fat/lazy these days. But you're right, the blokes in the tyre centres ain't there cos they're good at the job, they're there cos they don't mind getting dirty on minimum wage. They have a lot more conviction in their job than the average office worker, though...
I want to start fitting my own. Unsure which tyre changing gear to buy though. Cheap and functional would normally do but bearing in mind I may be getting some BST carbon wheels I want something fairly pukka - probably an upright system - that will be easy and safe to use with as little chance of accidental damage as possible. Fast Bikes mag recommended Bike It tyre changing gear but I'm finding their website a pig to navigate and they say they are trade suppliers only so I'm making enquiries. At the moment I'm getting tyres fitted to loose wheels at £12 per wheel including vat. (John at JB Motorcycle Services for those in Dorset. Top bloke and a biker and track rider himself so takes proper care). I don't mind that cost but I could do with the convenience of home changing.
John at JB Motorcycle Services is ripping you off mate, I normally pay a tenner for both wheels, even in deepest Surrey.
I got a new set of Supercorsas fitted at FWR today. Chris the owner seems a nice bloke. I certainly paid a fair bit more than the online prices quoted earlier in this thread so might do some looking around next time. I like to make sure I've got the best I can manage on the Panigale for track though so happy with my SC1 and 2 Pretty sure my off at Rockingham was caused by rider error, stiff suspension and bumpy track but I can't help having a nagging suspicion that it wasn't helped by a front tyre that had already done a couple of hard days at Donnington. One thing that made it worthwhile going there was that they noticed I needed new pads which I hadn't as I only fitted them earlier in the year at Jerez. They bled my brakes for me and the result is far better than when I do it myself. I need to work on my technique!
I'd say that's exceptionally cheap, rather than the other being a rip off! Don't they pay a few £ for disposal also? I think your fitter likes you....:Kiss:
