Going to the Dark Side

[Bustanut joker]

Ok, here's the scoop Busta - it's totally cool with some shops to mount a CT on a bike wheel. You just have to call around and find which ones will do it. I found a local to me shop that not only will do it, they have already done a bunch of them on other types of bikes and it's old hat. They only charge $25 for a walk in tire change too.

This is clearly fiction.

:blink: :angry: :blink:

See? I knew something was bound to go awry. :lol:

Double that rate in these parts..

:jester:

 

[Ignacio]

Yep, I see your still a dick-head. Some things never change.

Wow! Your intelligence is shinin through. How long did ya have to set and think of that response?

Ya gonna whine when ya get slapped?....Can't wait for that one

:jester:

And people wonder why I get grumpy sometimes? It's this kinda crap, the occasional swipe I get via PM, or other channels. I volunteer for this gig and somebody wants to take potshots from the peanut gallery. You know what? They're negative personalities and life's too short to deal with their crap OR feed their delusion that they're owed something.

Zap. warsaw can sit time-out for a week and decide if he wants to return.

P.S. I didn't come into this thread until I received two separate complaints from members about certain contents.

Now, back to the original point of this thread....which is about our friend Eric sharing his interesting if not entertaining discussion about car tires on FJRs.

Thanks again.

The Management

 

[madmike2]

Yep, I see your still a dick-head. Some things never change.

Wow! Your intelligence is shinin through. How long did ya have to set and think of that response?

Ya gonna whine when ya get slapped?....Can't wait for that one

:jester:

Yeah, Barry's right! What in the world prompted that response? This forum has always maintained a "no politics" position and that has always included the joke section and any pictures posted. I believe it is made clear when one initially signs onto the forum and, to my knowledge, it has neither been rescinded nor has any member been excused from the responsibility of self-editing or self-control.

IMO, a gentle reminder was in order.

Rant Over...I now return you to our regularly scheduled tire discussion.

 

[user 213]

Ok, here's the scoop Busta - it's totally cool with some shops to mount a CT on a bike wheel. You just have to call around and find which ones will do it. I found a local to me shop that not only will do it, they have already done a bunch of them on other types of bikes and it's old hat. They only charge $25 for a walk in tire change too.

This is clearly fiction.

:blink: :angry: :blink:

See? I knew something was bound to go awry. :lol:

Double that rate in these parts..

:jester:

OUCH! No wonder you change you're own tires.

I'm still waiting for the ordered CT to show up. The local Firestone had a great price, but called me a day later and said they couldn't get one due to a national back order on the Bridgestone 019 Grid tires. Tire Rack had them in stock, so being shipped out of NV. Tuesday should be mounting day. No Busta, not that kind of mounting, tire mounting!

 

[zip]

You know, although I think this looks really ugly and though I'd never do it myself, I admire the economical innovation in this whole experiment. For an ultra-high miler unconcerned with simple aesthetics, I think this is a fine idea. A little weird, but fine.

I heard Tom Peters once say, paraphrasing someone else, "There are 800 people in a history book, and not one of them was 'normal.'" After hearing this, I've hired and employed many wonderful, weird people and had great results.

 

[zorkler]

Well i must of mist the politics thing .So sorry i pissed off one person .(not Ignacio) I recived some pms that thought it was really funny .

 

[FJRSTAR]

Well i must of mist the politics thing .So sorry i pissed off one person .(not Ignacio) I recived some pms that thought it was really funny .

Do not make fun of Hussein's ears now. :clapping:

 

[FJRSTAR]

Yep, I see your still a dick-head. Some things never change.

Wow! Your intelligence is shinin through. How long did ya have to set and think of that response?

Ya gonna whine when ya get slapped?....Can't wait for that one

:jester:

Wipe the brown off...it's startin' to stink!

 

[ChrisW]

Wow.... one of the dumbest tire threads we've ever had, and it comes back from the dead. So there is hope. NEPRT may be like Pergatory. Enough positive energy exerted by the living on behalf of the thread, and it can be saved. Sigh....
I wonder how the car tires would do in an IBA rally? Probably be able to get through a whole event without any concern for tread depth, tire rotation, or allignment. :drag:

We'll find out next year. There will be a blue GW running a car tire and I've followed this guy through a couple twist's before.

This guy seems to be making pretty good use of the tire...



This is probably not something I would do but I would like to have a 20K mile tire for next August.

 

[ChrisW]

Yep, I see your still a dick-head. Some things never change.

Wow! Your intelligence is shinin through. How long did ya have to set and think of that response?

Ya gonna whine when ya get slapped?....Can't wait for that one

:jester:

Wipe the brown off...it's startin' to stink!

I'm amazed at the number of douche bags on this forum that talk out there ass while hiding behind a screen name.

Volunteering to moderate is thankless enough without dicks like you taking jabs. :****:

 

[fossilrider]

I tried to just start this in NEPRT, but you can't start threads there. I'm sure a helpful admin will move it for me shortly, at their discretion, of course.
I read about mounting car tires on bikes years ago. Mostly cruisers and HDs. I even rode an old Pan Head with one way back in the day. More recently I caught some discussion on one of the lists about it and read some more. Recently I decided to give this a try. At least to discover if it would work on the FJR at all.

I bought a used Cooper Zeon ZXS summer performance tire for cheap to test fit and today with DougC's help we mounted the tire and installed it on the bike. Below is a short report and some pics.

Apologies if you get this multiple times. It's going out to different lists.

So, things went fairly well. First off, it's a bitch to mount a stiff performance tire to a moto rim, even with the NoMar tire changer and three people, but it can be done. It takes all the tools you have though.

Tools

More tools stuffed in the tire

NoMar in use

And a 205/50-17 does fit on the FJR's 5.5" wheel, and fits on the bike, JUST. I think it just barely rubbed off the tops of some of the lettering on the sidewall with the brake caliper arm. There was about 1/8" clearance to the side stand legs as well. FYI, it rubbed a little when flat. :-( But not so much you couldn't push the bike around.

On the bike

Ready to go test ride:

Ready to go test ride

What did I learn? The car tire is wider than the rim, so mounting it requires more effort to get the first bead in the 'valley' of the wheel while you work the second bead on. And since the tire sticks out farther from the wheel, that means it doesn't like to sit flush on the NoMar pads. It's dished pretty good once you have both beads on the wheel. No need to seat the bead with high pressure, they are THERE. Possibly due to the rim design, the tire sticks out at the rim edge more than on a car. Not a problem, just an observation. Think rim protector beads X2.

For dismounting, it's very challenging to get the wheel lip onto the NoMar pad clips and locked in. I had to stand on the wheel spokes to exert enough down force to allow a second person to push the wheel into the pad clips and locked down.

I also learned to check used tires better for damage. :-/ The Cooper tire I bought for testing turned out to have two vertical slits in the side wall. Same side and they didn't leak with the tire inflated and just sitting there. They only leaked when the tire side wall flexed. I got a slow speed test ride in, but couldn't do an 'at speed' test due to the severe leakage.

The Cooper Zeon ZXS has very stiff side walls. It's a summer rated performance tire, so that was expected. Not much flex at 30 psi and one side would lift off the pavement when doing turns. I suspect a softer sidewall all season tire will not be as bad in this regard, but didn't feel it was a deal breaker on it's own, and didn't get the chance to play with different pressures due to the leaks. We could have patched it, but having learned 85% of what I wanted to learn, I didn't feel it was worth the effort to dismount the tire, patch it in two places, (making a total of three inside patches), and re-mount it.

What I noticed in feel is that during slow speed turns you can do everything you always could and it feels fine, traction wise, it's just that you get feedback in the bars when turning. A very noticeable pressure against you. You push left, it wants to keep going left to a tighter turn. You have to hold the bar position you want noticeably. This is parking lot drill speeds though. On the one short ride at faster speeds, (35 mph), I noted that the bar pressure seemed less and wasn't really that big a deal. Again, not a great test, just tooling down the neighborhood and making some swerves and a few turns.

I'm going to go ahead and order a new all season tire and give the Dark Side a try. I now know it will fit on the FJR and while handling is different, it's not so different or bad that I feel unsafe. There is just an adjustment period. I don't think it's a big deal to adjust to the car tire at this point.

I'll post more when I have the all season tire on and have some miles on it.

Eric Vaillancourt

Oregon City, OR

Eric, here's an interesting vid of the dark side and a Triumph Rocket3

Rocket III

John

 

[v65]

Eric, here's an interesting vid of the dark side and a Triumph Rocket3Rocket III

John

If you are riding fast the throttle is coming on when you are at full lean (with trail braking). On an FJR you are putting a lot of horsepower to the ground at a pretty steep lean angle. I still suspect that this combo will reduce the handling performance of OUR bike when ridden aggressively, and so for me it's out no matter how much money it saves.

On the other hand if this setup suits how you ride, I think this is a great idea. good for you. For those of you that claim I am just a naysayer and OCFjr is the next coming of Thomas Edison, well if this works for you that's awesome. I don't see it for me, and those vids you have posted show nothing. Listen to the engines, they don't get on the throttle until the bike is well out of the lean (listen hard to the Rocket III). Like I said, if that's how you ride good for you, you're going to save a lot of money on tires.

I can't leave without commenting on the v-star vid. He dragged the floorboard once in an s-turn. Err, so?

 

[user 213]

If you are riding fast the throttle is coming on when you are at full lean (with trail braking). On an FJR you are putting a lot of horsepower to the ground at a pretty steep lean angle. I still suspect that this combo will reduce the handling performance of OUR bike when ridden aggressively, and so for me it's out no matter how much money it saves. <snip>

Emphasis added. I agree with what you are saying. If you read the first page or so, you'll see that I don't ride like that. I don't think a CT is for everyone, (said many times now), but the purpose of this experiment is to see how well, or how badly, it works on the FJR.

It's just about options. Some FJR riders put pure sport tires on and are very happy with the results. Some don't need that level of traction or want/need longer tire life. For many, normal ST tires are a perfect compromise. For some, it's still not enough life and we look for other options.

The thing the vid does show is that he keeps up with his fellow riders just fine. That doesn't necessarily mean that's your pace, or mine, or fossilriders. Looks bad ass on the Rocket III though.

 

[v65]

If you are riding fast the throttle is coming on when you are at full lean (with trail braking). On an FJR you are putting a lot of horsepower to the ground at a pretty steep lean angle. I still suspect that this combo will reduce the handling performance of OUR bike when ridden aggressively, and so for me it's out no matter how much money it saves. <snip>

Emphasis added. I agree with what you are saying. If you read the first page or so, you'll see that I don't ride like that. I don't think a CT is for everyone, (said many times now), but the purpose of this experiment is to see how well, or how badly, it works on the FJR.

It's just about options. Some FJR riders put pure sport tires on and are very happy with the results. Some don't need that level of traction or want/need longer tire life. For many, normal ST tires are a perfect compromise. For some, it's still not enough life and we look for other options.

The thing the vid does show is that he keeps up with his fellow riders just fine. That doesn't necessarily mean that's your pace, or mine, or fossilriders. Looks bad ass on the Rocket III though.

I think we are in complete agreement, well except pretty much everything looks badass on a rocket. :lol:

 

[Fred W]

The thing the vid does show is that he keeps up with his fellow riders just fine. That doesn't necessarily mean that's your pace, or mine, or fossilriders. Looks bad ass on the Rocket III though.

View that video again and pay close attention to what lean angles the rocket guy need to lay over compared to his compadres. Now that may be a product of the Trumpet Rocket and not the tire (I have no idea), but it doesn't look good to me that he has to lean that much further than the other bikes to negotiate relatively easy curves. It prolly also doesn't help that he's sitting in the middle of his bike thru the turns, but so are the other guys (actually worse).

 

[Patriot]

FWIW:

here's a response email from a respected fellow rider who also is an engineer. He currently rides a Valkyrie.

I remember telling you about the darkside regarding Valkyries and Goldwings some time ago. Since then autotires have been showing up on Busa's and almost any high-powered motorcycle you can think off. The arguments against are always the same, the tires are not made for motorcycles, they don't handle leaning over very well, and depending on the rider, some say they feel funny from the saddle. On the other hand all the pluses are the same as well. They are cheaper to buy, have awesome traction in both wet and dry situations, and last longer, not just longer but double the mileage or more longer. I met a Busa guy with one and he said he was going to have to stop riding the Busa if he did not go with the auto tire. He admitted that he rides hard and did burn outs and ate up a new $250.00 bike tire in only 2100 miles. He said some friends have changed tires in as few miles as 1500. He now had over 8,000 miles on the Goodyear Triple Eagle and the tire looked like it still have several thousand more miles left.

My take on all this is a little guarded. For my Valk and 800 pound Goldwings with 300 pound riders (me) the autotire is definitely in my future. Lighter weight hi performance bikes like FJR's will probably have to trade off straight line performance and tire life with a sacrifice of the peg dragging ability. I believe this to be true because of the weight difference alone. In my Valkyrie forum I have developed close friendships with some respectable honest guys that can articulate effectively how the darkside works for them. The best ringing statement that shuts down all the discussion for me is this: Bike tires have not changed much over the last 20 years, car tires have. The quality of the two types of tires is night and day. Car tires are high quality large sales volume. Bike tires are much lower quality for a higher cost for a lot fewer sales. The R&D dept for bike tires is not very well funded because of the sales volume.

The one thing you want to never lose sight of is the tread type. Directional tread patterns are the best chance of success for a bike. Directional tire tread auto tires are not as common but they are available. Toyo and Goodyear are the more popular brands for bikes. Most directional tires have a tread similar to the one you sent a picture of. It means if you cut the tire down the middle you could not tell the difference between the two halves.

Before I get my next tire I will have the benefit of having watched all the others before me nit pick the various choices. The level of this discussion for me so far is side wall rigidity. I have a very good high performance rider friend with two Valkyries, a FJR and also a R1. He loves and says so loudly the darkside for the Valk. He tried the darkside on both his FJR and the R1 and did not like the feel. He said on leaning the lighter weight Yamaha bikes the transferring of the centerline was more obvious on those bikes. That is going straight the center of the tire is also the center of the bikes CG. On a leaning over you can feel the centerline CG move a few inches to the outer edge of the car tire as the center of the tread lifts from the pavement. On the much heavier bikes this is not so noticeable, probably because the center of the tread does not lift.

big dave

Best of Luck & Please Ride Safe,

Mike in Ole Nawlins'

Check out my Gathering Ride March 6-9, everyone here is invited

https://www.fjrforum.com/forum//index.php?a...&pid=522878

"Sometimes You Have to Use the Whole Speedometer"

"Riding is Life...Everything Before & After Is Just Waiting"

"The Best Pilots Have a Great Wingman"

"If you can't Ride, Fly or Sail it, Why Bother?"

"Go like Hell...worse that can happen is you go to Heaven"

 

[Fred W]

Yikes!!

First off, whoever claimed that "Bike tires have not changed much over the last 20 years, car tires have." is on crack. Motorcycle tires today are incredibly more capable than 10 or 20 years ago. They must have just come to motorcycling or something. I just don't know how to respond to that.

Second, I would not base any decision about tire choice on the recommendation of guys that are doing "burnouts" and getting only 1500 miles out of any tire, sport or otherwise. Puhleese.

Also, you are apparently confusing the terms "symmetrical" with "directional". A directional pattern is one that ios meant to rotate in one particular direction. These can be either symmetrical (ie mirror image as you describe) or non-symmetrical. A motorcycle should obviously not run non-symmetrical treads as it would cause the bike to run like a lame dog, sideways down the road. Whether the tread is directional or not, I don't think would make a big difference. FWIW, directional tread tires are very common in mid to high performance car tires.

 

[Bustanut joker]

Yep, I see your still a dick-head. Some things never change.

Wow! Your intelligence is shinin through. How long did ya have to set and think of that response?

Ya gonna whine when ya get slapped?....Can't wait for that one

:jester:

Wipe the brown off...it's startin' to stink!

I'm amazed at the number of douche bags on this forum that talk out there ass while hiding behind a screen name.

I assume I'm correct in thinking this isn't directed at me...

Volunteering to moderate is thankless enough without dicks like you taking jabs. :****:

And jus a lil bit 'o' this is, right?

:jester:

 

[FJRSTAR]

Eric, here's an interesting vid of the dark side and a Triumph Rocket3Rocket III

John

I think this is a great idea. good for you. For those of you that claim I am just a naysayer and OCFjr is the next coming of Thomas Edison

Don't you mean Tesla...maybe?

 

[FJRSTAR]

Yep, I see your still a dick-head. Some things never change.

Wow! Your intelligence is shinin through. How long did ya have to set and think of that response?

Ya gonna whine when ya get slapped?....Can't wait for that one

:jester:

Wipe the brown off...it's startin' to stink!

I'm amazed at the number of douche bags on this forum that talk out there ass while hiding behind a screen name.

Volunteering to moderate is thankless enough without dicks like you taking jabs. :****:

Senor Nut does not need help. Go back to sleep. :finger: