Apr 26 - Tire Goo… Reaching beyond shoe goo

I’m sure some of you may have used tire goo before so you already know what it is. For those of you who don’t, think of it as a semi-liquid goo that you squirt inside your tire through the air valve. Manufacturers’ claims vary from one outfit to the next as to what it does but the general concept is pretty much the same; the stuff coats the insides of your tires and by doing so it seals small punctures and acts as a sort of balancing agent which helps extend tire life.

There are some brands which caution against riding above certain speeds so if you’re going to use one of these products make sure you select one that allows higher speeds. The brand I use, Ride-On by Inovex Industries also has some built-in corrosion inhibitors which help protect wheels against rust. All told not a bad deal, particularly for me since I have an aversion against changing tires alongside the road. In fact I don’t even like to change them in my garage. Now that I think about it I don’t even like to watch tires being changed.

My first experience with Ride-On was on my trip to Alaska last summer, riding my Aprilia with a Sputnik sidecar. In spite of the challenging roads I never had any flats and the tires lasted way longer than what I’d anticipated; several thousand miles in fact. That was proof enough for me and I decided the Ninja would benefit from a similar application.

I’d ordered one of the motorcycle kits from Ride-On a couple of weeks ago and finally found time to install it this afternoon. Installation is simple, just let the air out of your tires, squirt the appropriate amount of goo into the tires, re-inflate, and go for a ride. Ride-On includes 3 eight-oz bottles of their goo, plenty for any bike, plus a short piece of plastic tubing and one of those metal valve caps to use to remove the valve stem. They also include a chart with tire sizes that you use to reference the amount of goo you inject in each tire. The cost for the kit is nominal, $41.26 plus shipping which came to a total of $55.63 delivered to my house.

Hmm...I wonder if they'll divy up with something for all my kindly words?