Tyre tape bodge revealed
Mechanic John Birchill got a shock with this outrageously bodged tyre repair
‘She’d fixed it by sticking loads of tape over the hole’
Stourbridge Motorcycles boss John Birchill is used to seeing people paper over the cracks, but he got a bit of a surprise when he saw a tyre repair where someone had taped over the crack!
John said: “The best attempted fix by a scooter rider we saw was a student on her way into college who’d picked up a puncture in the rear tyre of her Aprilia RS50. It was only a mile down the road, so in the best traditions of the Beano comic she ‘fixed’ it by sticking loads of electrical insulating tape over the hole. I’d never seen this before and, fair play, for ingenuity. It didn’t work of course, but I gave her a ‘B’ for effort, and if it was a boy he probably wouldn’t have noticed the puncture in the first place and racked up another 50 miles until he heard the ‘mechanical music’ as the rims made contact with the road! “Getting into a weekly habit of checking your tyre pressures is a must. And if it’s your son or daughter on a bike for the first time, make sure they do it too. Remember to check when the tyres are at ambient temperature; so before a ride, or maybe an hour after you’ve stopped. If they have lost some pressure, that should be your cue to take a longer than usual look at the whole tyre, slowly spinning it to check if there’s a nail or tack embedded in it, as well as for signs of wear, cuts or slits.” But when can a tyre be fixed and when is it fit for the bin? Over to our man John: “The law contents itself with saying repairs have to be ‘good and safe’. However, a British Standard exists for motorcycle tyre repairs (BSAU159f). As a British Standard, it is a recommendation only, but it determines the strength of the repair and where it can and can’t be made.”
In other words, bodging it up with sticky tape is a definite no, no. John continued: “The standard says that repairs can only be made in the centre of the tread area, to within 25% of each side of the centre line. Only two repairs per tyre are allowed up to the J (62mph) speed rating, and one up to the V (over 130mph with 155mph maximum) speed rating. Up to the J rating, repairs no bigger than 6mm are allowed, and up to the V-rating only up to 3mm is allowed.”