Riding on the Darkside Question

First off, I am new to the forum so Hello DARKSIDE!

Now to my question, I am considering going darkside when the time comes to replace my rear tire. If nothing else I want to try it out. I have read many thread about sidewalls and wear and contact patches when leaned over and contact patch mis-alignment and so on. Enough folks are running them that it can't be that "unsafe" on a cruiser. However, in all of my reading I have not read anything about having a blowout with a CT on a motorcycle. Has this just not happened to anyone? My concern is that I have seen what happens to a car tire on a car when it blows out, tire pieces everywhere. This happens not because of the weight on the tire, but rather the centrifugal forces of a rotating CT and the relatively "thin" nature of their construction compared to MC tires. This is not the case with a motorcycle tire. MC tires generally tend to just deflate due to the thicker nature of their construction thus giving you rim on rubber traction rather than rim on pavement . I'm not here to change anyone's mind one way or the other, just looking for some info/experiences I haven't read about.

Thank you for any responses and enlightening information.

Welcome sir! We are glad you have came to check us out and we are glad to help you with any questions.


So.....here we go! First of all, tires don't blow out because of their weight and centrifugal force. They blow out because of bad manufacturing or the abuse that a car/road conditions puts on them along with incorrect air pressures that build excessive heat! Now, this is out of the way....have you seen motorcycle tires blow up! It happens way more that car tires pre-maturely expiring or failing compared to the car tires that are built verses the number of motorcycle tires that are built. My friend's brand new HD within two weeks blew a front tire catastrophically on the interstate at 55 mph and was lucky to not go down! If that don't scare you.....nothing will. There is no such thing as a sure thing!! LOL

Tires will fail, but I would rather have the best tire that you can run on a cruiser and it's the car tire! Hands down the best as far as grip, ride, comfort, handling, wear, and never ending rain grooves. Your rain grooves are the first thing to wear out and lose on a motorcycle tire and my rain grooves last until the whole tire is gone. I just wished I knew how many miles and years it takes because I have failed to wear out a tire, I just got tired of looking at it and wanted another one!...

I hope this answers some of your questions and if you have more please let me know! Another myth before you go to dispell...... Car tires have softer rubber than motorcycle tires that's why they grip so much harder and better than ANY MOTORCYCLE TIRE MADE! I own a durometer and prove all the time to anyone who wants to see it.

Thanks.........................bobby


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One more point! We have guys on here that they tires went flat and limped them as far as 20 miles to the house and the tire still didn't come off the rim. The tire still looked good but he said, but changed it any way for safety sake. I mean if the weight of a car or truck can't tear up a car tire, then how much damage can we do to it...hehehehe

Plus it took a machine to break the car tire bead off my rim the last time!


................bobby

Thanks for the response Bobby!

I should clarify that I don't think tires blow due to centrifugal forces, I mean that if/when a tire fails, it goes to pieces due to centrifugal forces. I have not seen a failed MC tire but I have seen cross-sectioned MC tires and notice that they are much thicker when compared to CTs. Does that make them safer in a sudden loss of pressure? Perhaps, perhaps not. A tire failure is no fun regardless of the type of failure. I have read about many MC tires that fail and come off the rim, but that is usually after hitting something in the road. Just wondered what the darkside tire failures were like. Just gathering knowledge, not trying to stir the pot.

None taken dude!


We have had NOT 1 failure of a motorcycle with a car tire in the 2 1/2 years of the forum or the 5 years we have been putting car tires on motorcycles and the countless of years others have ridden them. That's the fact! If we would have had a failure, we would post it....safety first!!!! If we have tires that don't like the darkside...you will hear it first right here and we do post it. We have many of flats here and plugged them with no issues, but never a tire that came apart or separated from riding. We had one guy hit a 4X2 in the highway....scared him to death, but the tire took all the impact and was replaced and he bent his rim!!!!

The difference with the car tire and the motorcycle tire is the car tire will always let you know before it's too late that it is losing pressure, but the motorcycle tire because of it's construction will appear not to be flat until it's needed relatively later than the car tire! JMO


........................bobby

New to the darkside, Hello everyone. here is my question. I have heard that when riding on wet surfaces curves can be a problem with the CT. is this true. anyone with info please.

Thanks WAV

wavrunner78 wrote:New to the darkside, Hello everyone. here is my question. I have heard that when riding on wet surfaces curves can be a problem with the CT. is this true. anyone with info please.

Thanks WAV

In the rain I locked up the rear tire coming to a stop light. Rear tire went right front tire going forward. Just about to start draging the floor boards when I let off the brakes. The bike jumped right back up and went straight as an arrow. With a mt I have no doubt I would have went down. I'll take a car tire any time.

Jerry

wavrunner78 wrote:New to the darkside, Hello everyone. here is my question. I have heard that when riding on wet surfaces curves can be a problem with the CT. is this true. anyone with info please.

Thanks WAV

Just the opposite my friend. The car tire has softer rubber and deeper and better rain grooves so traction is at a premium when the roads are wet! That's where the car tire really shines and shows you want it will do! As a matter of fact I can almost stop in the rain as good as some guys can stop in the dry!

Secondly, you will not have any more of the when is the tire going to slip when it's wet. It will track curves better than ANY motorcycle tire!

Jedison is correct if you do lock the rear car tire in the rain, it will always recover and not want to go around on you like a motorcycle tire.


.............................bobby

Last year one of the Triumph Rocket 3 riders "Stripes" blew his CT on the way to Maggy Valley. He said it was scary as hell! Some guys from the local Harley dealership pick him and his bike up and put on another CT and he road on to the meet. He runs a 245/50-16 if I remember correctly.

Lester wrote:Last year one of the Triumph Rocket 3 riders "Stripes" blew his CT on the way to Maggy Valley. He said it was scary as hell! Some guys from the local Harley dealership pick him and his bike up and put on another CT and he road on to the meet. He runs a 245/50-16 if I remember correctly.

Ok....since we are telling bad tire stories. My friend here locally bought his HD and with 2 weeks rode in on a road trip to MS and it blew the front motorcycle tire blew out and was lucky to even get it stopped. ALL tire failures on a motorcycle are scary! JMO



............................bobby

My son-in-law rides a Valusa and his rear Motorcycle tire blew wile he was on the way to work last week, loud bang, but he kept it under control to a stop.
The fact is , no matter cat tire or motorcycle tire, with an inner-tube you might have a bang when it blows,,, tubeless more times then not the tire just goes flat.
good luck , ride safe.
Horse

I have a new wing 2009 with 5800 miles now. The front and rear started to cup at 5000 with 40 lbs in each. I am no rocket scientist(actually I am) but what is safe with vibrating MTs after 5K. CT can't be worse- more traction, wider profile, run flats available, look cool facture. When my tires are toast I am going to make my selection and put a proper wider, thicker, run flat tire on it. If it happens to be called a car tire so be it.The Goldwing weighs 900lbs pounds not 400. The MTs available are NOT doing their job. I just want the best for my bike , I have heard of none, zero accidents caused by car tires on a bike. There are plenty from MTs-think about that. I have I go with safety first

GL1800Rider wrote:I have a new wing 2009 with 5800 miles now. The front and rear started to cup at 5000 with 40 lbs in each. I am no rocket scientist(actually I am) but what is safe with vibrating MTs after 5K. CT can't be worse- more traction, wider profile, run flats available, look cool facture. When my tires are toast I am going to make my selection and put a proper wider, thicker, run flat tire on it. If it happens to be called a car tire so be it.The Goldwing weighs 900lbs pounds not 400. The MTs available are NOT doing their job. I just want the best for my bike , I have heard of none, zero accidents caused by car tires on a bike. There are plenty from MTs-think about that. I have I go with safety first

Solid logic.

Not trying to be a know it all, but you might want to reconsider the run flat tire on your wing. A while back there was a post about a bike that went down due to a rear tire blowout. If I remember correctly it looked to be a run flat. The problem I see with a run flat tire is that you can't really tell when they're flat when they are on a car let alone when they are on a motorcycle. I would have my reservations on running a run flat.

If you use run-flat tires you really need to have a pressure monitoring system to know when the tire loses air. I know some, if not all newer Goldwings have this.

The problem with run-flats is that you can't tell when they lose air buy any way other than having a gauge on them. Once they lose pressure the sidewalls start to heat-up and come apart until failure.
Worst case scenario, say you got gas and were riding interstate all the way to your next fill-up. At the gas station you check your tire pressure and it is fine. As you pull out of th gas station your run-flat gets a nail in it.
Run-flats are only designed to go about 50 miles at less than 50mph. In this situation a rider without a pressure monitoring system is about to ride 150+ miles on a flat tire at 70+mph. And because it is a run flat, you may never know there is no air in your tire until it is too late.

So run-flats are not for me. I have a mushroom patch kit, a slime compressor and and AMA membership. I would much rather know when it is losing air and pull over to patch it or call for a tow.

TPMS for sure if you are running a run flat. I heard of one darksider on a wing in Arkansas that was running a run flat. Ran it till it disintegrated the tire and tore up some of that pretty GW bodywork. The TPMS woulda saved him some heartache. No runflats for me. I would rather just a normal flat than all that explosive hang on and pray while filling your shorts stuff.

See you out there
Smokey

I have to agree with Smokey on this one too.

Jerry

+1 to all that is said. NO RUN FLATS for all the reasons mentioned above! Thanks guys!




...........................bobby

I never really thought about all that. I would have to agree after digesting all this. I believe it would be better without the Run flat. I have ridden on my after running over a board with a nail in it and my tire went down. I was able to ride it home. was only a mile or so and just took it easy but did not do any damage to the tire or the bike for that matter. That made the second patch that was put in the tire. Tire was only two months old when the first patch was put inside. Still goin and goin and goin.

Peace
Moon