I think car tires would be fine on anything with 3 or more wheels.
I think car tires would be fine on anything with 3 or more wheels.
'You can say what you want about the South, but I almost never hear of anyone wanting to retire to the North.
Black 86 R80RT Brown 03 R1200CLC
The dynamics at work for car tires is so disparate from (2 wheeled) motorcycle tires that it seems like a terrible idea from my layman's position. Of course, I've seen it over and over again on all sorts of bikes. I wouldn't do it purely from an overly conservative safety/engineering concern, but I'm sure there are hundreds of thousands of miles logged each year by motorcycles wearing car rubber. If I were considering it, I would probably seek out better technical advice than a bunch of guys on the internet - maybe an engineer working for a tire manufacturer. If you could find one of those guys who tells you its a good idea, then giddy-up. I'm betting that's not how the conversation will go though.
Why would a tire company make a motorcycle tire last 20,000 or 30,000 miles when the average joe will never see that many miles on their bikes?They have us all buying tires way to soon! wow a tire conspiracy! Have we uncovered something here?
81 R100RT
just to add information for the darksiders.. ( I live in the light totally)
At a recent bike school at a track, you could use their bikes or your own. A valkyrie showed up with a car tire. He had called ahead and asked and they said it was ok. He had recently bought that bike and it came that way. After discussions about it over the two days, he wasn't totally committed to keeping it that way but wasn't totally negative about it either.
One of those days was mostly in the rain. He ran pretty well, didn't feel unsure of it. He did say he could tell in the turn in that it was a little more effort but once on a line it seemed to hold it well.
Surprises thus for me was
One the school allowed
Two it did as well as it did
Three, it did it in the rain too.
Go figure.
NCS
03 K 1200RS (Black is Best)
03 Honda RC51
74 Honda CB750 K4
I don't know that the tire companies don't want to supply a tire with longer life. I think it has more to do with traction, and I would think that traction is more important to us riders than it is to cagers. The softer the rubber the tire is made of the better the traction. But then the softer the rubber, the shorter the tire life. Would we be happier with a longer lasting tire that had a better chance of sliding out from under us on a tight curve?Originally Posted by brewmeister
Hey Michael B. now you know what everyone thinks.
Joe,
What about placing more rubber on the tire? ,more to wear off?
81 R100RT
The average car tire 10-12/23 of tread, Most sport/Sport touring tires 5-6/32. But heat buildup may be an issue as well as weight
Put a sticky high performance tire on a car with some horsepower and/or cornering power and see how long they last. I used to burn through Michelins cornering the mammaries off an Audi at a brisk clip, under 20K miles per set. The outside edges would wear out first from all the hard cornering. That gets expensive, but I like to play in the canyons with cars and bikes.
There are tires out there for track day use that are notionally DoT legal, but are really slicks with a couple of bare 2/32 inch deep grooves cut into them to make the shysters happy. That "tread" is gone in a couple of laps and the tires last maybe a weekend. High performance has a high price. Pay it or be satisfied with the view from behind.
Experience is what you get when you don't get what you want.
I think you might be at least partly right. If a tire lasted that many miles the Average Joe would have rotted and dangerous tires long before the tread was gone. He would ride on the old tires and put himself and others in danger.
'You can say what you want about the South, but I almost never hear of anyone wanting to retire to the North.
Black 86 R80RT Brown 03 R1200CLC
Ever notice how much better your bike handles after replacing your worn out--flat profile tires? Why would anyone want to start out with a new tire that is made to be flat in the first place.
Besides, car tires on motorcyles is a HONDA Goldwing thing. Kinda like riding a bike with your hands above your ears is a Harley thing.
74 R90/6 and 09 R1200GS. member of Christian Motorcyclist Association. Ride for Jesus!
I used to road race a 91 Talon TSi AWD. I used Bridgestone RE71 tires. I would get about 8k on a set. Mind you, all four wheels got power. Most of my friends with power to one axle got just less than half that. Mileage sucked, but they were were the most sticky, treaded tires I have ever had on a car. They used to run me about $1k a set. Running them around the track used to really kill the mileage......
I do not think there is a motorcycle tire conspiracy. I would say the higher price on motorcycle tires has more to do with supply and demand. There are many times more car tires bought each year than bike tires. That makes this a more specialized type of manufacturing, which usually carries higher prices in any item type. I would also think that manufacturers keep bike tires on the sticky side for our safety. I know I have no desire to put a $30, rock hard doughnut on my bike. I never much enjoyed lack of traction on two wheels, less I be on dirt with the appropriate bike....
02' K12LT ~ 83K '97 F650GS ~ 32K' 81 XS400 ~ 9K
MOA #184190 Club #231 48035
Well lets see,....trained engineers with specific experience in motorcycle dynamics and tire construction, versus,....a bunch of $$$$ focused unknowing everyday joes,....making decisions about handling, ride quality, safety focus and especially traction in a much wider application realm than simple car dynamics. Not to mention that mistakes made on motorcycles are highly likely to kill you or permanently disfigure you. Hmm,...doesn't make me think very hard who has the brains in this comparison.
No loss in handling or traction? C'MON,...the guys saying that probably never lean their bike much more than 15 degrees from vertical at speeds a Geo Metro could outdo on four space saver spares. Motorcycle tires are designed to actually INCREASE the size of the contact patch when leaned over from vertical to about 3/4 of the lean angle capability of the tire. A car tire, when leaned over (not rolled over as car tires do when cornering, the carcass deforms laterally to maintain the contact patch) IMMEDIATELY and CONTINUALLY DECREASES the contact patch. Anyone with common sense can see that by simply comparing the tire profiles and the way a cycle leans into a turn versus a car relying on lateral acceleration to deform the tire.
Most cycles, in the sizes we commonly ride, 750cc and above, actually produce higher contact patch loads per square inch than do tires on most cars. That is one of many reasons cycle tires wear out faster. That, and the focus of cycle tires on traction over mileage, which also accounts for higher wear rates.
I'd say most every "car tire on a motorcycle" rider never has found what a cycle is capable of in turns, and also never learned/trained himself to be able to use even 1/2 of what a cycle can do. So sure, to them, "no loss of handling or traction" is a viable statement. That's equivalent to someone from Kabul Afghanistan saying "its a great place to live" if that person has only lived in Kabul.
Let them make their claims, but I pass them off as misguided fools riding themselves to their eventual demise.
Woodenshoe to Cheesehead
I agree with everything you've said...but I'm still going with tire manufacturer conspiracy.
Oh yeah, made a slight change to your Kabul statement as well.
HA!! The company I work is headquartered in Cleveland (well, actually WAY out on the east side, near Dublin).
I get your humor too, about the "tire conspiracy" aspect. I'm sure we'll see an episode on CNN or FRONTLINE real soon about that. All these decades, poor motorcyclists being abused by the high and mighty rich tire manufacturers.
I for one, would never want to go to court to argue my cycle crash for support of dollars/livelyhood/loss of limbs, etc, to have the other attorney ask, before a jury, "just why did your motorcycle have CAR tires on it?"
On a sidecar rig, sure, makes sense. Sidecar rigs don't lean (unless you're flying the car) and they rely on lateral deformation of the tire carcass to aid cornering just like a car. But on a cycle, cycle tires only.
Woodenshoe to Cheesehead
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