The wheels on the bike go round and round, but not up and down or side to side!

Good day. School has restarted and I have a few posts backed up needing editing and posting from my projects over the winter break. If you follow my Instagram, you can see my projects in real time. During the break, I went into the rebuild process of the CRF450 flat track-supermoto bike. You can read about it in my last post. During the process I needed to do a bit more work on my wheels. I decided to make a post about just them. Sit back, relax and read on to see what went into getting the wheels ready for some dirt track fun!

Here is my starting point. I have two, very well used, but very functional flat track rims on the CRF. In flat track you use 19" wheels front and rear instead of a more common MX/trail bike 21/19" or 21/18" combo. My particular wheels are a combo of an Excel Takasago front rim in 3.00" width and a Sun rear rim in a 3.50" width. Both wheels run stock hubs and unknown spokes. As evidenced by the pitting and scars on the rim in the picture, they have seen a hard life at the track. They have no cracks or flat spots and I haven't had any issues with them in my limited racing experience. Before getting the new tires mounted I wanted to clean them up and inspect them to ensure I'd get full use of them going forward.

I bought a Harbor Freight balance stand a few years ago. It makes a good stand for checking wheel runout and overall wheel health in between tire changes. I set up my dial indicator and checked both horizontal and vertical runout of the wheel. My manual has a 2mm spec for both lateral and vertical runout. I was getting 20 or 30 thousandths of an inch. This checks out to less than a millimeter of runout putting these wheels in spec. I also checked the spokes for general health by pinging them with a wrench and listening for a dead tone indicating a loose spoke. While these wheels aren't perfect, they are generally round and don't have excessive movement from side-to-side or up and down. If they did, I'd have tried to tune the spokes by tightening or loosening the spokes to pull the rim into the proper shape.  

I have a love/hate relationship with changing tires. I love to be done with it, but I hate to do it. One of the reasons is that I always end up pinching a tube with my tire irons. For two wheels, I usually use three tubes. Every time it is my fault generally from rushing and not thinking through the process. I get better every time, but because I don't do it every week I still end up needing to get a tube. Maybe one of these days I'll get a tire changer and some additional tools to make things easier. These Shinko SR267/268 tires look great when spooned onto the wheel. They are the best value in flat track tires. Time will tell how they perform on track. I doubt that my skill level will let me feel their limit however.

And here she is with her new shoes on. Ain't she a beauty! The big meaty flat track tires give the bike a serious look. Combined with the underbelly exhaust and lowered suspension, she looks mean and ready to ride. Now that the bike is fully back together with new tires I can get some neighborhood testing done. To help with that, I took the front wheel back off and mounted up the front brake. The CRF450 has plenty of horsepower to overcome the rear brake when these tires grip well. From my limited testing it seems to be running well. I also didn't die on my first test drive so I guess I did something right!

As I mentioned, I have a few other posts in the can from my winter break that I will be posting shortly. School is ramping up and project progress will slow somewhat. The break re-energized my desire to get out and ride and I have been scoping out some riding areas. News on the results of that soon. In the meantime, ride safe friends!

Mat