Spokes, wonderful spokes...
Sep. 3rd, 2002 12:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tugrikThe short of it: The GS-ADV bike has two broken spokes on the rear wheel (!!). Today, the dealer tells me this is a 100% warranty-covered repair, and they'll simply give me a new wheel. It might take a day or two, but no worries. Whew!
I was fussing with the GS on Saturday afternoon. Nothing was going on, and my friends were all puttering about their own houses, so I was just out playing with the bikes. They could both have used washing and there's always a small list of things I should do to make things better when I had the time. The GS was on its center-stand, so I lifted the rear wheel up and gave it a spin, checking out the final drive assembly and brakes. One of the spokes didn't look quite right, but as the tire was spinning I couldn't tell which one.
As recommended by the manual, I lightly tapped each spoke with small box-end wrench, listening for tone. *tink* *tink* *tonk* *tink* *ting* *tink* *tonk* *TAK*. Ut-oh. I wiggled the spoke that made the non-musical sound, and out it came. Grrrrr. Well, the manual said I could safely replace a single spoke, so I went calling about to find one. Being 5:15 on a Saturday, the only dealer still open was BMW-SantaCruz (actually they're in Watsonville)... about 45 minutes away. They close at 6. Their service department had one spoke in stock, so I hopped on the GL and made record time, arriving at their door just before they locked up. While I was there I also picked up the steering-stop protector (one of the 'hard parts' I wanted to get) and replacement caps for the telelever joint, as one had gone missing.
I was due at Frang's to try his latest experiment: a Beef Vindaloo. However, that wasn't for another hour and a half. I took the coastal route up, following Highway 1 from Watsonville, through Santa Cruz, up to San Gregoriano State Beach. A full 30 degrees cooler than the Bay, it was only 58 degrees along the coast. The fog was beautiful and amazing... at times letting me see only 4 or 5 bikelengths ahead. For part of the route I followed some poor fellow in a rented Ferrari Testarossa (if I'm spelling that right) who was driving at a snail's pace due to the fog. That had to suck -- renting a beautiful car like that, then not being able to do any performance driving whatsoever.
Turning away from the coast and up towards La Honda, it only took a few moments to clear the fog. It was pretty cool to look back and see it clinging there along the coastline, pushed back by warmer air flowing down the mountain's ridge. This is very odd, for this area -- normally the winds blow the other way over the mountain. The sun set as I crested Sky Londa, past Alice's again, and it was dark by the time I'd arrived in Palo Alto. I parked by![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
reality_fox's bike in Frang's driveway, and went in to achieve my spicy doom.
The vindaloo was excellent. He forgot the tomato paste, but I didn't know that until he told me. I really really liked it, even as it tried to burn my face off. Mmmm.
I got home after midnight, and for various reasons couldn't get to sleep right away. I decided to abuse my new workshop lighting and do the repairs on the bike to eat up some time. The steering-stop protector went on easily. It's a small, very solid part designed to protect the swivel point where the front forks attach to the main body of the bike. The stock part on the BMW-GS is surprisingly weak; if your front wheel gets forced to the side in a fall it's very possible to damage the internal part called a 'steering stop' and end up with a very costly, very time-consuming repair. The Touratech part clips on the front support known as a 'telelever' and makes the much larger, heavier metal part take the stress of the fall. It comes with a pretty trick bracket to re-route the front brake line to a safter location. It looks good and tough on the bike. I put in the replacement telelever caps -- metal ones with good O-rings -- since one of the plastic ones had long since fallen out, and the other was loose. These aren't necessary parts; they just help keep water and dirt from getting into a joint and making it look ugly.
Taking off the rear tire to replace the spokes was easier than I thought. I wrapped the rear brake-lever in a baggie and put a NO TOUCH note on it, because if you press the brake lever when the brake calipers are off the rotors they'll pop right out and cause an expensive-to-fix situation. As I pulled out the dead spoke, another one two spaces away fell free on it's own.
Damn.
Fixing one spoke is user-doable. Two or more is not. Keeping the rim in a perfect circular shape is a hard task on most spoked wheels, but on the BMW-patented 'outside rim' tubless spoked wheels it's a nightmare. There's no tire shop in the states that'll touch it. BMW themselves use a very sophisticated robotic machine to spoke-lace its wheels. Even if I wanted to try, I'd bought the only spare the dealer had in stock (yes, I tried to get more while I was there). I left the tire off and called it a weekend, since it'd be Tuesday before I could get in touch with a dealer again. I posted about this on the ADVRider board, and found a handful out of the few hundred GS owners had experienced this problem. It's not common, but not unheard of. They suggested the dealer would most likely fix it for free, which put me a bit more at ease. Being it was 4:30am, I was finally tired and crashed out asleep.
As I wrote at the start of this... today the dealer said the replacement would be free. Whew! They also state that the first spoke break is often caused by manufacturing defect -- rare, but it happens -- and the stresses caused by a spoke being loose cause the 2nd, 3rd, and more breaks until wheel failure. Once they replace the wheel the chance of having that initial spoke-break again is very small; they've not had a single person at their dealership come back twice for broken spokes. I hope this is the last time I have to, as well.
I was fussing with the GS on Saturday afternoon. Nothing was going on, and my friends were all puttering about their own houses, so I was just out playing with the bikes. They could both have used washing and there's always a small list of things I should do to make things better when I had the time. The GS was on its center-stand, so I lifted the rear wheel up and gave it a spin, checking out the final drive assembly and brakes. One of the spokes didn't look quite right, but as the tire was spinning I couldn't tell which one.
As recommended by the manual, I lightly tapped each spoke with small box-end wrench, listening for tone. *tink* *tink* *tonk* *tink* *ting* *tink* *tonk* *TAK*. Ut-oh. I wiggled the spoke that made the non-musical sound, and out it came. Grrrrr. Well, the manual said I could safely replace a single spoke, so I went calling about to find one. Being 5:15 on a Saturday, the only dealer still open was BMW-SantaCruz (actually they're in Watsonville)... about 45 minutes away. They close at 6. Their service department had one spoke in stock, so I hopped on the GL and made record time, arriving at their door just before they locked up. While I was there I also picked up the steering-stop protector (one of the 'hard parts' I wanted to get) and replacement caps for the telelever joint, as one had gone missing.
I was due at Frang's to try his latest experiment: a Beef Vindaloo. However, that wasn't for another hour and a half. I took the coastal route up, following Highway 1 from Watsonville, through Santa Cruz, up to San Gregoriano State Beach. A full 30 degrees cooler than the Bay, it was only 58 degrees along the coast. The fog was beautiful and amazing... at times letting me see only 4 or 5 bikelengths ahead. For part of the route I followed some poor fellow in a rented Ferrari Testarossa (if I'm spelling that right) who was driving at a snail's pace due to the fog. That had to suck -- renting a beautiful car like that, then not being able to do any performance driving whatsoever.
Turning away from the coast and up towards La Honda, it only took a few moments to clear the fog. It was pretty cool to look back and see it clinging there along the coastline, pushed back by warmer air flowing down the mountain's ridge. This is very odd, for this area -- normally the winds blow the other way over the mountain. The sun set as I crested Sky Londa, past Alice's again, and it was dark by the time I'd arrived in Palo Alto. I parked by
reality_fox's bike in Frang's driveway, and went in to achieve my spicy doom. The vindaloo was excellent. He forgot the tomato paste, but I didn't know that until he told me. I really really liked it, even as it tried to burn my face off. Mmmm.
I got home after midnight, and for various reasons couldn't get to sleep right away. I decided to abuse my new workshop lighting and do the repairs on the bike to eat up some time. The steering-stop protector went on easily. It's a small, very solid part designed to protect the swivel point where the front forks attach to the main body of the bike. The stock part on the BMW-GS is surprisingly weak; if your front wheel gets forced to the side in a fall it's very possible to damage the internal part called a 'steering stop' and end up with a very costly, very time-consuming repair. The Touratech part clips on the front support known as a 'telelever' and makes the much larger, heavier metal part take the stress of the fall. It comes with a pretty trick bracket to re-route the front brake line to a safter location. It looks good and tough on the bike. I put in the replacement telelever caps -- metal ones with good O-rings -- since one of the plastic ones had long since fallen out, and the other was loose. These aren't necessary parts; they just help keep water and dirt from getting into a joint and making it look ugly.
Taking off the rear tire to replace the spokes was easier than I thought. I wrapped the rear brake-lever in a baggie and put a NO TOUCH note on it, because if you press the brake lever when the brake calipers are off the rotors they'll pop right out and cause an expensive-to-fix situation. As I pulled out the dead spoke, another one two spaces away fell free on it's own.
Damn.
Fixing one spoke is user-doable. Two or more is not. Keeping the rim in a perfect circular shape is a hard task on most spoked wheels, but on the BMW-patented 'outside rim' tubless spoked wheels it's a nightmare. There's no tire shop in the states that'll touch it. BMW themselves use a very sophisticated robotic machine to spoke-lace its wheels. Even if I wanted to try, I'd bought the only spare the dealer had in stock (yes, I tried to get more while I was there). I left the tire off and called it a weekend, since it'd be Tuesday before I could get in touch with a dealer again. I posted about this on the ADVRider board, and found a handful out of the few hundred GS owners had experienced this problem. It's not common, but not unheard of. They suggested the dealer would most likely fix it for free, which put me a bit more at ease. Being it was 4:30am, I was finally tired and crashed out asleep.
As I wrote at the start of this... today the dealer said the replacement would be free. Whew! They also state that the first spoke break is often caused by manufacturing defect -- rare, but it happens -- and the stresses caused by a spoke being loose cause the 2nd, 3rd, and more breaks until wheel failure. Once they replace the wheel the chance of having that initial spoke-break again is very small; they've not had a single person at their dealership come back twice for broken spokes. I hope this is the last time I have to, as well.
