I'm really not tyred – Day 140

Odo 1441

Well I rang the dealer as suggested by Phil. I explained that I'd bought a Zero DS from them recently and I'd been told by the distributor that they'd fitted a different front tyre for another customer.

“Yeah mate, bring it in and we'll find something”

“So, do you know what you'll fit to it?”

“Mate, just come in and pick something you like”

“I'm wondering what you've got that will fit, thing is it's 500 km round trip for me to come in”

“Mate... I'd have to go upstairs and look..........”

I considered swearing at him but instead I just hung up and wrote a letter of complaint to the distributor.

Tyre Anxiety - Day 139

Odo 1411

I've never really trusted the front tyre. I don't like the idea of a front knobbie and a rear dual sport tyre. It hasn't been too bad so far but my lack of trust means I need to slow down more for the corners and correspondingly use more brakes and waste energy.

So I've been on a mission to find a replacement tyre.

Not much seems suitable but the new 2011 DS has just what I've been looking for, a tyre that matches the existing rear. So I emailed Phil (with requests for a bunch of spares) and the tyre I want. First response was “I'll have an answer next week”. Two weeks later I got a price on the spares and the tyre was “Sorry I didn't get the word on the tyre”. Couple of emails later I got the response (just over 2 months down the track) “with regards to the front tire it might be worth giving (a zero dealer about 250 km away) a call and ask him what type of tyre he fitted to the front of a Zero DS that He recently sold.” Which I translate to mean, no I can't supply you with a spare part for the current bike.

So I emailed Duro (who make the oem tyre) and asked them about both the front and rear tyres. They responded. “Unfortunately those sizes are not currently imported, at this point there are no plans to bring those sizes in.”

So the tyre is completely unavailable in Australia. Great.

However the rear tyre has now appeared on the Zero website as a spare. It's $197.05!!! for goodness sake! 197.05???? It's a 16 inch commuter bike tyre!!! That's at least triple the right price for a tyre like that! Closer to 4 times the correct price really. They're worth about 50 bucks. Bridgestone BT45 (good quality japanese road tyre) is 84 dollars. A similar quality, similar size dual sport tyre (shinko 244 3.0 x 16) is 23 dollars from  BikeBandit.   How a they think a Taiwanese cheapo is worth 200 bucks...