Dad and I drove an Bun Burner Gold in the Chevy Silverado to get back. 28 hours for 1900 miles. Back home in my comfortable home with DVD’s full of memories bouncing around my head. My agenda is a shower, some nappy time, reintroduce myself to my slightly confused cat, and figure out why my home computer won’t boot up.

The IBR was a good thing. Another life list thing done.

Sunset somewhere in Western Nebraska riding home with Dad.

——–

Although I think I ultimately made a fine choice of a Metzler ME-880 tire and had plenty of tread at the end of 9700 miles……it cupped very badly. Riding a tire on straights for a very long distance (say from New England to California)…then doing some twisties (like to Lick Observatory) seems to do some weird things to the treadblocks on a tire. Combine the cupping with some fatigue on Night 9 cruising across Nevada and I thought my rear end was doing a BMW impersonation and trying to grenade itself!

First pic shows general center wear expected of a tire in the IBR.

Right of center shows a canyon that has a huge amount of extra tread on the right side and a shortage of tread on the left side of the cut. At 60 mph or so, going left or right around a corner on a two-laner and one seriously wonders if the rear end is going to explode. While riding down the Interstate dead straight at FJR nominal, however, it is fairly quiet.

That’s the kind of thing that will play serious mind tricks on a person in the as they crest Donner Pass in the dark hours of night headed to Nevada.

Fortunately, after talking with Warchild around Reno about the symptoms he gave me some reassurance and I run what I brung. He called it “tire howl”.

In the clear morning light of Wendover……things seemed better again…in their proper context.

Tire happy when going straight…..tire unhappy when cornering. Go straight if possible.

By the end of the rally even when going straight there was some howl.