A Throw-Out Day

I was heading for the mountains to ride the last of the classic rides I planned to do back here, called the Devil's Triangle http://www.devilstriangletn.com/.  It was raining like mad and the clouds were so low I knew I was going to be riding in fog as soon as I gained some altitude, when I crossed a freeway with an on ramp that said "Knoxville".  That was all it took and I bailed on the planned route.  So I rode 90 miles of freeway (oh, the shame) in the rain and got to Kingston about noon.  I guess having only one rain-out so far is not bad.  I did have time to get my new rear tire mounted today instead of tomorrow.  The one I was replacing had 5400 miles on it and still had quite a bit of tread left, but not enough to get me home.

 The shop that did the tire change had an interesting rig for raising the bike:

While waiting for the tire to be changed, I was looking around the shop and saw that they had the same Shinko tire that I had ordered on line and brought to the shop.  Their cost for the tire was $140 plus tax.  My cost from Chaparral Motorsports was $96.62 including shipping and no tax.  They charged me $50 to install and balance the tire, so I guess one way to look at it was that you can buy your tire on line and have them install it for less than buying the tire from them.  (I'm sure they charge something for mounting the tire even if you bought it from them).  Good reasons for buying on line and learning to mount a tire yourself.