MX60 tyres (or why I won't be selling the WideWheel)

The MX60 is proving a very interesting experiment for me. Yesterday marked a month of ownership. Over easter I've taken the opportunity to put a few more miles on my MX60, making it to 500km in this time. So I've now got some experience with it to make some sort of evaluation.

One of the things I "knew" before even buying my first scooter was "I wanted to avoid pneumatic tyres". So within a month of ownership I've already had my first example of why this was. I went to go for a ride on Saturday morning and found the tyres were very low in pressure.

Already (I thought) - Fuck Me!

A quick inspection confirmed I could ride it to the local servo (1.5km) and there I found that the pressure was down to 10PSI in the back and 15 in the front (they'd been 30 each the morning before).

Got to the servo and with the hose attached (found the pressures) but when I put the first squirt of air into the valve dust blew out from all around the rim where the tyre bead had seated. An obvious indicator of what the cause was. Dust gets in around the bead.

So what happens is that as the tyre flexes (bumps right) all that dust (thrown up by the front wheel) bathes the rear wheel in a perpetual dust cloud. Then the flexing of the tyre allows dust to get snuggled into the crack between the tyre and the rim. Slowly but surely this pushes down into the crack like a wedge and allows a tiny amount more dust in behind it (rinse and repeat with every tyre revolution).

Note this segment from the above pano (which I took out on the road that day).

See how much dustier the back is from the front?


So I nipped into town on the motorcycle (doing you know, like normal highways speeds such as 100kmh, so its hard to get wet about 40kmh that scooters do) where I got some slime to put into the tyres.

I pulled out the valve stems (there's a tool included in the cap of the bottle) and put in what I determined was about the right amount (scaling my wheel for volume on their charts) added about 4oz to each wheel. I did this with the scooter lying on its side to maximise the chances of it getting "up" into the bead area. It takes a few goes of spinning the wheels to make sure it spreads around and then I flipped it over onto the other side.

Yesterday I did about 80km with about 1/3 of that on dirt farm roads (like above) and its still doing ok.

So yeah, while the better suspension and pneumatic tyres allows me to take this scooter places I couldn't take the Widewheel it also comes at a greater cost. I was fortunate to be observant enough to notice this before going out on a ride (and also living near a servo) so that I could essentially "nip this in the bud". It could however have been a lot worse including a deflation and damage to the rim (and also me). Yet  in the (almost) year that I've owned the Widewheel I've had (of course) no such problems.

In contrast to this, in the time that I've had the Widewheel:

• I haven't had to do a bloody thing to the tyres, no perssure checks, nothing.
• I've hit some pretty good obstacles on the Widewheel, ones which would have caused a flat  on a tubed tyre. So I've not had to do any work on that area, and having changed tubes and tyres on bicycles I can assure you that I'm not looking forward to doing that on a tiny 10" rim (because that makes it so much harder).
• I've pulled nails out of my Widewheel rear wheel and just kept going ... a tubeless or tubed tyre would be toast, probably even with slime.

That single aspect (the foam cored tyres and not having pneumatic tyres) has probably saved me many hours (not including the walk home or the taxi ride to work) right there.

When you add to this that both my Widewheels are light enough that you can easily put it in the car, and indeed have been used extensively to chuck into the car and go somewhere to be used as "last mile" (or last 10 miles) it makes the Widewheel not only a fun scooter to ride, but bloody practical. Indeed the uses its had are (but not limited to):

• commuting to and from work from my accomodation in the city
• being able to park outside controlled parking space and get to and from places without paying for parking
• stuff into the car to take it to get something done at the workshop (where I can then scoot back home or to work while that's being done), then scoot back again.
• just nip up the shops to get something
• visit friends that are just a bit far to walk to, and I'm probably too lazy to use my bicycle

Most of these things can't be done by the MX60 (because its so bloody big and heavy) and indeed I've already needed other transport to get stuff to fix the tyres MX60.

So while I enjoy it, and while its interesting its not as much sheer fun to ride as the Widewheel, nor is it as fast and practical transport as my motorcycle, nor has it replaced me using the Widewheel for quick trips in town. Worse its not fun at all until you're pushing it at speeds which are still laughably slow by motorcycle standards and far riskier than a motorcycle if you have a fall; whyich is more likely on the scooter.

Meaning that its really mainly a play thing or something someone who's too lazy to get a motorcycle licence (or perhaps any drivers licence). If you lived in the city in an apartment (a good case situation for owning one instead of a motorcycle or car) then its still probably too big for daily use and too big to wander into the supermaket with (and parking it at shops? hello?) Putting it in the uncomfortable category of being a wankers toy.

I'm comfortable with that, but then I live my life being honest with myself.

I have not yet bitched about the electronic fault that occurred with the speedo ... perhaps another day.

While its a holiday I'll take it out for a ride soon.

PS: it was flat again this morning (of fucking course it was) and so I went down to the local car workshop (I get my 4WD serviced there) and used their compressor and work space to:

1. pull out the valve stem to let the air out
2. push the tyre off the bead (back down into the wheel)
3. generously paste slime around the bead on both sides of the wheel, where it will seat
4. bring the tyre up to 40 PSI to make sure it seated on the rim nice and straight
5. put the valve back in the stem
6. reinflate
7. spin up the tyre
8. clean up the crap flung everywhere

holding pressure well at the moment ... lets see what tomorrow brings

PS-2: ... pressure down 10PSI overnight

PS-3: seems to be fixed. My view is that it went like this:

1. deflation #1 was caused by dust between rim and tyre
2. subsequent to addition of slim seem to have been down to a faulty valve (perhaps it got slime on it? Because:
3. replaced valve with new valve and no deflations since

FMD