Back at Jeff's New York Motor Works. I'm itching to get to the track, but I need new tires.

I bought the Ducshop 848 race bike earlier this year with Pirelli race slicks already on the bike.  Slicks are great, but they're incredibly costly (running $4-500 a set), and require an even greater investment in an already expensive hobby.
Not only does a pair of race slicks run close to double street tires, but you need to run tire warmers ($2-300), and to power them, you probably need to bring a generator along with you to the track ($200 and up).

My buddy Jeff recommends Pirelli Rosso Corsas, which run the SuperCorsa compound (a slick-like race tire) just on the outer side of the tire, but are quite a bit cheaper.

Even better, he found an amazing deal on Pirelli tires through Scott from Moto-D in Mahopec.  And even better than that, my 848/1098/1198 track bike came with an extra set of wheels.
Jeff has a tire mount at New York Moto Works, and offered to get me race-ready before our first track day this weekend.  After work, I collected the track bike from my other friend Jason's house in White Plains, and drove out to Huntington, Long Island.
It took me about an hour and half after work to get my bike transported.
My bike's previous owner had safety-wired EVERYTHING...
from the titanium bolts down to the wheel nut clip.
Jeff has an awesome machine that takes some of the manual labor out of mounting tires.

Jeff has a great setup.
If you've ever used tire levers, it's a bit of a pain.
Mounting tires still takes some muscle, but theres a technique to it.
But Jeff (pictured with a mess of tires),
managed to get my wheels sorted, and handed me a "gravity balancer,"
sink to the bottom,
which you then offset with wheel weights, measuring the travel with different weight allocations.
It took a while...
and I didn't get home till 2am (back to the city)...
But now I'm prepped and ready for the New York Safety Track this weekend.






© 2018 Tigh Loughhead