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Originally Posted by diffluere
down here in florida the weather has been crazy!
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Yeah, no kidding. I read that the tropical fish farm ponds are freezing down your way, killing the fish. It must be having a terrible effect on tourism. My wife and daughter were going to go down there in January to get a break from the cold, but there's no real point right now, and it doesn't look like it's going to change before Rachael has to go back to college.
It's supposed to hit 40 here by the end of the week, and I expect to get another short (under 100 miles) day ride or two in before it turns cold again. We'll see.
How far do you have to ride to get to an air pump? If it's more than a couple of miles your tires have started to warm up, and any reading at that point won't be completely accurate. When I'm on the road, I check them cold before riding. If they need air, I note how many pounds to increase. Then, when I get to a service station, I check again, and increase the number of pounds I noted earlier from that reading.
Being also a bicycle rider, I have a bicycle pump. While I do have a compressor, it's actually quicker to put a few pounds in a motorcycle tire with the bike pump than it is to fire up the compressor, use it, and then let the air back out of the tank. You can also go to Sears and get a small, tankless compressor pretty cheaply, which will be fine for a motorcycle, or your car if you're not in a hurry. The very small compressors that come as part of roadside emergency kits (these plug into a car cigarette lighter socket) will work to put a few pounds in a motorcycle tire. I think they can be bought separately, although I never have. Some motorcycle touring folk take these and strip the working parts out of the casing, leaving a lightweight and compact package for use on the road. To do this you have to make some adjustment to the power cord, usually shortening it and putting clips or whatever on the ends of the wires to connect to a motorcycle electrical system.
Motorcycle tires don't take much air compared to car tires, and it's better to get your adjusting done cold, before you ride, for the sake of accuracy.
Some of the "stick" tire gauges are way off, and some are quite accurate. It seems to be mostly luck of the draw, and paying more for one stick gauge as opposed to another doesn't seem to make much difference in my experience. They all do seem to be consistent, though, if they are kept clean, free of grit, oil, and etc. A good strategy is to take your stick gauge, if it's in good shape (or replace it if it's not) to a tire place, and check it against the (presumably) high quality gauges they use. If it's off, just make a note of how much it's off at a few different readings, so you can do a mental calibration when you use it. Then keep it in a plastic baggie or something similar.
As a final note, if your tire was down to 13 psi, it would be very wise to keep a close eye on it for a while. Going from 70 degrees to 10 degrees should only drop it 5 or 6 psi, and you were down twice that much, so you may have a leak. Since the GZ has tubed tires, if you have a slow leak it's either got to be a slightly loose valve stem, or a small nail, brad, staple, or some such in the tire.