I and my friend Vu were tired of having to take our motorcycles to the dealer or shop to change our tires every 8000 miles or so. For Vu, it's twice a year and for me, it's about once a year.

It's really not about saving money. We probably will never be able to recuperate the cost of the tools. The first time I rode my bike to the shop to have tires replaced, they didn't tighten 1 of the front brake caliper bolts and it felt off in a few weeks. It was fortunate that I noticed before the caliper came loose and jammed up my front wheel. It could be fatal. Then I removed the wheels myself. Put them in my car. Drove to the shop. Wait 1 hour or so. Then drove back home. Reinstalled the tires and made sure everything was right. After a while, we thought, why don't we learn to do it ourselves, at home? We both are engineers, nerds, hackers and rocket 'scientists'. Changing tires is not rocket science afterall.

So we decided to order a top of the line Nomar tire changer (nomartirechanger.com) to remove and install the tires ourselves at home and also got a tire balancer to balance our tires, just to make sure that everything is done right. Afterall, we are motorcycle enthusiast and riding is a passion.

The total came out to US$1000 and we split the cost. The tire changer and balancer will stay in my home garage since I already got all the tools and a big air compressor. Vu will come over whenever he needs to change his tires.