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I plan on opening a can of worms here, but, I am good at that so here goes. I was sharing brews with an engineer buddy I went to school with who doesn’t ride but is a smart fella who does some finite element modeling for his work. He is a huge sports car buff and tire freak and grease under the nails kind of guy. So we get to chatting about car tires on a bike and he almost blew beer out his nostrils. He made a few quick points that I found interesting in my reduced mental state from consuming hops.
1) My buddy thought the turn in and handling of the tires would suck and that alone would kill the deal. I said, nope try harder, I know several people doing this and all log high miles or they wouldn’t bother with a car tire. If the handling sucked, somebody would fess up. So we agreed, handling is a non issue – I have my doubts though.
2) Now here it gets a little better. Car tires are designed so that the contact patch forces (acceleration, braking, and side slip) for the most part are perpendicular (at a right angle) to the wheel and always act in the same plane. A moto tire must tilt, so the forces are not directed the same as a car tire and change with the angle of the lean. He went on to state that car tires have a softer sidewall since they don’t have these varying force directions to deal with. And on a bike, in a turn, the braking and side slip foces are at two different angles. My eyes started getting glassy and I was trying to change the subject now to hot women.
3) A continuation of 2) is his belief that a bike in a lot of turns will build up heat from this side wall loading and could over stress the radial tire internal cordage that provides the load carrying capacity. Then he gave back and commented that a car tire would be designed for a heavier wheel load and started talking in circles a little.
4) The sidewall of a car tire is thinner than a moto tire. I am not as sure of this as he was.
5) A moto tire has a softer and therefore higher grip compound. Thus reduced mileage potential. I bought that.
6) And the best one for me, and I just remembered so I edited, is that the contact patch size and shape on a moto tire should not change much with lean angle. With a car tire, this is not so and the patch gets smaller as you lean and the car tire shoulder starts to roll under the bike. This could be embarrasing if riding near the limits of traction and you start to turn tighter or need to brake.
He commented he would rather play with loaded guns than try it and asked what it was like to have a blow out on a bike (he is a non rider). I told him it scared the smelly solids out of me when mine blew out from valve stem failure.
Yawl be safe, I just orderd two new Tourance tires for my strom, it was painfully expensive.
1) My buddy thought the turn in and handling of the tires would suck and that alone would kill the deal. I said, nope try harder, I know several people doing this and all log high miles or they wouldn’t bother with a car tire. If the handling sucked, somebody would fess up. So we agreed, handling is a non issue – I have my doubts though.
2) Now here it gets a little better. Car tires are designed so that the contact patch forces (acceleration, braking, and side slip) for the most part are perpendicular (at a right angle) to the wheel and always act in the same plane. A moto tire must tilt, so the forces are not directed the same as a car tire and change with the angle of the lean. He went on to state that car tires have a softer sidewall since they don’t have these varying force directions to deal with. And on a bike, in a turn, the braking and side slip foces are at two different angles. My eyes started getting glassy and I was trying to change the subject now to hot women.
3) A continuation of 2) is his belief that a bike in a lot of turns will build up heat from this side wall loading and could over stress the radial tire internal cordage that provides the load carrying capacity. Then he gave back and commented that a car tire would be designed for a heavier wheel load and started talking in circles a little.
4) The sidewall of a car tire is thinner than a moto tire. I am not as sure of this as he was.
5) A moto tire has a softer and therefore higher grip compound. Thus reduced mileage potential. I bought that.
6) And the best one for me, and I just remembered so I edited, is that the contact patch size and shape on a moto tire should not change much with lean angle. With a car tire, this is not so and the patch gets smaller as you lean and the car tire shoulder starts to roll under the bike. This could be embarrasing if riding near the limits of traction and you start to turn tighter or need to brake.
He commented he would rather play with loaded guns than try it and asked what it was like to have a blow out on a bike (he is a non rider). I told him it scared the smelly solids out of me when mine blew out from valve stem failure.
Yawl be safe, I just orderd two new Tourance tires for my strom, it was painfully expensive.