Wards Discount Tires and Wheels

Friday was the end of the Blue Knights International Convention in Chesapeake, VA.  We left at about 10:00 ayem, planning on taking some LONG rest stops so that we would reach New York AFTER 7 or 8 PM  in order to avoid hitting the traffic from NY City out to the Hamptons.

Four days before the trip, I found a screw in my rear tire.  I plugged it (using a Stop n' Go mushroom plug) and carefully monitored the tire pressure for the four days.  The tire maintained pressure, so it was OK for the trip.  Made it down to Chesapeake with no problem, and rode around all week with no problem.  I think the last time I checked it was Wednesday morning.  Thursday night, the tire was low.  I re-plugged it, with a larger mushroom plug, but it wasn't holding air well, so I threw in a can of Fix-A-Flat.  Checked it a while later and it seemed to be good.  I just wanted to get home and then put a new tire on.

About two hours into our ride it was losing air again.  One of the guys riding with us had some "gummy plugs", so we tried two of them.  I looked OK, so we rode on, but kept a close eye on it. 

The guy riding behind me told me that he was noticing that every time the plug hit the ground some of the Fix-A-Flat was squirting out.  That's not good!!!  We were at a gas stop, and it turned out that  the nearest bike shop was 30  miles away!!   The only thing I could do was ride slowly, stop to refill the air and try to limp along for 30 miles.

Just a few miles up the road though, we noticed a tire shop and stopped there.  The hope was that he might be able to plug the tire, or maybe even sell me a car tire to ride home on.  Unfortunately, the guy told us his insurance wouldn't let him even TOUCH a motorcycle.  He was, however, EXTREMELY helpful.  The first thin he did was call somebody to send over a "good" patch kit (he didn't carry them.)  It turns out this was the same "gummy plugs" we had tried before, so this time we were going to put more of them in and see if it wou