Hey guys/gals, just a heads up type thought; go check your tire pressure!
Last week I got ready to go for a ride, and did what I always do, always have; get on bike, and rolling forward hit the front brake hard; front shock compresses, and weight hits front tire hard. Watch front tire, and if it deflects/bulges, I check air pressure.
I started that years ago with dirt bikes, and then my Rebel 250 street bike…
As i recall, several pounds low and they’d show it. Apparently the tires on my V-Star are a lot stiffer of a side wall!
As I said, I did that test this last week and had the tire flatten a little. So I checked them.
Rear was 10 psi!
Front wouldn’t read at all!!
Zilch. Nada.
So, I’ve been ridding on basically FLAT TIRES. Thankfully God is gracious, and it hasn’t killed me!
Aired them up, and the bike rolls better by hand than it has in a LONG time. Now when I clutch to shift while moving, it will roll faster, where before it would slow/drag. (Be interesting to see how much this improves my gas milage!)
Talk about stiff side wall tires! Run flat is an understatement! Apparently they’re just so stiff my little test has never really worked on this bike.
Lesson learned. I’ll now gauge check pressure every month, and seasonally when the bike comes out of storage(yeah, should have been doing that anyway).
Can you imagine a tire run too low suddenly shifting or rolling sideways on the rim at highway speed?
Eek.
Or for instance, a couple weeks before this, a moose ran out in front of me. I locked front and rear brakes and slid 20ish feet in a basically straight line at 60mph (didn’t know I could do that!).
If the tire had flattened then, or rolled sideways?
Option on hitting moose; bad enough…
Tire coming off rim binding up the wheel and cartwheeling me and the bike through the moose; uhuh…
So…
GO CHECK YOUR TIRE PRESSURE!!
Alaskan, Adventurer, Engineer. 
That would be a bummer!