Tire pressure

[Montreux_Blue]

[mstic2000]

40psi in front and rear. It don't work for everyone but it works for me. And with SWMBO's diagnosis of my advanced case of CRS, it is an easy number to remember.

[Bigfoot]

Was just wondering where you got the fancy smilie?

[Russ79]

TIRE THREADS ARE MY FAVORITE!!!! Now that I am done reading this I will go and change the air in mine. That way my evening won't be a total waste!

Russ79

[Bigfoot]

Just rotate it between the two, no need to waste good air.

[DGXSER]

So is now the time to rehash if winter air is different than summer air and the need to change out the air with the season changes??

[Bigfoot]

Of course it is different. Winter air is colder.

[Montreux_Blue]

TIRE THREADS ARE MY FAVORITE!!!! Now that I am done reading this I will go and change the air in mine. That way my evening won't be a total waste!

Russ79

[fredintoon]

- - - Besides, the tire gives you the max pressure on the side of it....... if you read it....... instead of a 30+ year old manual basing pressures off of 30+ year old tires.......... we are in 2009 now.

Hi 'Blue,
as the book pressures are for the tires of 30+ years ago and more than likely modern tires
will have different pressure requirements, you are half right.
The number you read is actually two numbers, it will say max pressure xxpsi at yyylbs max load.
Presuming that the tire manufacturer knows his own numbers best,
you will need to sit on the bike and weigh each wheel's portion of the bike's loaded weight.
Now you compare the actual weight to the tire's maximum weight.
Then you make a wild-assed guess as to how much less the pressure aught to be to carry the lesser weight.
Then you see how it handles, just like someone posted a while back.

[Crazcnuk]

Remind me to never ride behind any of you over inflaters.

40PSI on the front? Are you nuts? Be like riding on ice. Not to mention rattle your teeth out.

Tire mfgs recommend raising your tire pressure 2psi over recommended pressure for SUSTAINED high speed driving.

Too hard seriously reduces your contact patch, and thus your traction, not to mention reducing the ability of the tire to conform optimally to the road surface also reducing traction. Also causes your tires to wear out right down the center.

I used to run my tires and suspension far too hard too. After all more is better right? Until I learned how tires, suspension, etc, really work. Now I run recommended tire pressures, +2psi, and suspension as soft as possible w/o bottoming out.

By running your forks too hard, you are simply reducing the amount of suspension travel you have. You are SUPPOSED to have all the travel they designed. You only add pressure if you tend to bottom out the forks too often.

Hard forks do speed up front braking response by a few milliseconds...

[Bigfoot]

Never had any problem with the tires sticking to the road. As far as handling, once I added a little extra pressure to the front forks the bike handled like a dream. The different was like like night and day. Used to have to sort of force it around the corner, now it just wants to turn. I have seen some on here that claim these bikes don't handle very well. I think they have just not found that "sweet spot" yet.

[trbig]

Remind me to never ride behind any of you over inflaters.

We get in some twisties... you won't have a choice.


As I stated before.. your setup may work for you, but if there were a perfect setup, then every professional rider/driver would be able to use the same setup.. correct? Your idea of ideal leaves my bike spongy feeling and acts like there's a hinge in the middle of it when cornering hard. Anything less in the front shocks and I will bottom out too often. I'll show you a ruined front fender from an aftermarket oil cooler as proof. BUT.. maybe you don't ride like me and the group I ride with.

When I can corner hard enough to get my pegs folded up and scraping screws on the heat shield on the exhaust, then get hard into the brakes enough that the back tire comes off the ground a bit with the gears chattering as it skips along... I'd say there's still plenty of contact patch meeting the ground. Does that sound like someone riding on ice to you?


Tod

[oseaghdha]

Proper pressure for a tire on a vehicle is NOT based on the max pressure for the tire, but rather on the proper pressure for the load. Yes, a tire with a higher max pressure may want a bit higher pressure, but it has be be calculated based on the max load @ max pressure and then you figure out your load and lower the pressure by the same percentage of max pressure vs max load. The idea is to maintain proper profile of the tire when under load, and that is seldom achieved at max pressure (if you need max pressure for the tire to handle your load you need a tire with a higher load rating).

This is one of the most common misconceptions about tires, to think that you should run max pressure in them, this just is not and never has been true. Having actually had a NEW car or two, the recommended pressure is never the max pressure for the tire.

Seems to me I remember some minor incident involving Ford and Bridgestone. Apparently, Ford was recommending too low a pressure in the tire, because of ride quality.

OEM specs are arrived at for reasons other than performance.

[Bigfoot]

We get in some twisties... you won't have a choice.


As I stated before.. your setup may work for you, but if there were a perfect setup, then every professional rider/driver would be able to use the same setup.. correct? Your idea of ideal leaves my bike spongy feeling and acts like there's a hinge in the middle of it when cornering hard. Anything less in the front shocks and I will bottom out too often. I'll show you a ruined front fender from an aftermarket oil cooler as proof. BUT.. maybe you don't ride like me and the group I ride with.

When I can corner hard enough to get my pegs folded up and scraping screws on the heat shield on the exhaust, then get hard into the brakes enough that the back tire comes off the ground a bit with the gears chattering as it skips along... I'd say there's still plenty of contact patch meeting the ground. Does that sound like someone riding on ice to you?


Tod

Tod, Watching the puffs of smoke coming off of your rear tire when we really get going is sorta cool too.

I can't ride as hard as Tod, don't know anyone who really can, but I was scraping pegs and the mounts for my highway pegs. The tires stuck to the road like glue. Never once did they slide or drift, so I think the contact patch was just fine. One setup will definitely not work for everyone. If the bike doesn't seem great in the twisties, try making some minor changes. Different tire pressures, fork pressures. Just a lb or two at a time. Once you hit that sweet spot, you will be impressed. I know I was, it made a huge difference.

[cywelchjr]

So is now the time to rehash if winter air is different than summer air and the need to change out the air with the season changes??

I change out my air with each climate change. I want to make sure I have matching air both inside and outside the tire.