It would appear that the Road King Classic has an inner tube in the rear tyre, this is why the puncture repair carried out in France didn't work. To have fixed it correctly, they wheel would have to come off, the tube repaired and everything re-installed. Now, to those who aren't intimate with the rear end of an RK Classic, that is not a roadside job. The other options would appear to be the use of an emergency "gloop" product or a rubber liquid "liner" which coats the inside of the tyre and is forced out by air pressure in the event of a puncture. However, these products seem to be only relevant to tubeless tyres - so I'm told by my local HD dealer.
If the above is true, then long distance touring on a spoked-wheel Road King starts to become a bit of a lottery...!
More investigation needed I think.
The unfortunate truth with spokes is they require a tube. When you have a failure the tire deflates at a rapid pace not alowing any time to react, slow and stop. The same is not usally true with tubless tires. Personally I refuse to ride with tubes because of this. There is a widelyly used product that midigates this problem...its called Slime. Slime has the consistency of pudding, when a blow out occurs it cannot escape as rappidly as air giving you that extra second or two to maintain control.
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