79 special rear tire

[crazy steve]

Hi Steve,
quote from a 1920's Sears Catalog "If our tires don't last for 8,000 miles we will give you the money back."
These days we expect car tires to last 50,000 miles or more or we sue the mfrs.
But darn me if bike tires still only last 8,000 miles on the back and 24,000 miles on the front.
Is it that bike tires have to be soft and quick-wearing in order to grip the road as well as they do?
Or is your rip-off theory more likely?

That IS the question....

All I know is car tires have improved tremendously since about the 70s; in those days, a 40K car tire was rare and generally much-balleyhooed by the maker. These days, that's almost a 'base' tire, with the better ones having mileage guarantees of up to 100K. Has M/C tire mileage improved that much? Or for that matter, at all? For me personally, I haven't seen any improvement in M/C tire life; they still only go about 7-10K, irregardless of how much I spend on a tire.

The interesting thing is the guys fitting car tires to the rear of their big cruisers (with the bike tire makers loudly proclaiming what a 'bad idea' it is). I've seen several web postings of owners putting $50 car tires on the rear of Valkyries and getting 30K or better in tire life. Some have reported 'different but equal' handling, some claim they can't tell any difference, but all have seemed to be pleased with the swap. I'll note that the 'Boss Hoss' (that V-8 powered monster) comes standard with a rear car tire. Now granted, none of these bikes are what you would call 'handling' bikes, but still...

I looked into fitting a car tire to one of my bikes, but even the smallest of them are too large for most bikes.

So you tell me; could bike tires be better than they are?

'78E original owner

[XS1100 Newbie]

I have a buddy in our riding group here who put a car tire on his Valkari. It really looks weird following him. It appears that the tire stays flat on the corners, with only a little bit of the side wall folding. The sidewall folding is what would concern me. How long before the side breaks down. He swears it handles fine. He is a 40 year veteran of motorcycling, and i believe he knows a little about this. He did say that this was a test, so he is not convinced yet.

[fredintoon]

Conspiracy theory

That would be my theory Fred. I certainly am not a tire guru by any means. But I know on my Cutlass that is set up for street/strip, I use softer compound tires to keep the rubber planted on the pavement for street use. If I get 40k out of those it is an absolute miracle, partly because it is hard not to shred them with the torque the car makes.

Same thing for our bikes, we apply ground shredding torque through that tire. Some of us (in text anyway) love to go out and consistantly try to peel the back tire off the wheel on our way up to 100 and some mph. Or love to take curves at speeds well above posted and feel the rubber screaming at us trying to hang on. Well, try that in your car and see how long those 40k tires last, or the car if they let go because the compound is so hard. They just do not give you the option for that hard fo a compound in MC tires IMO.

Hi Don,
if tire mfrs made bike tires that were hard as iron so they'd be long lasting as well as grippies that wore away like chewing gum many would opt for long tire life over good grip.
With the U.S. mindset of "sue anything that moves" those who bought hard tires and then crashed because those tires didn't grip would be dragging the mfr and the tire installer into court to sue them for the tire purchaser's own foolishness.
What I see is a conspiracy between tire mfrs and insurance companies to stop this happening.

[cywelchjr]

I have a buddy in our riding group here who put a car tire on his Valkari. It really looks weird following him. It appears that the tire stays flat on the corners, with only a little bit of the side wall folding. The sidewall folding is what would concern me. How long before the side breaks down. He swears it handles fine. He is a 40 year veteran of motorcycling, and i believe he knows a little about this. He did say that this was a test, so he is not convinced yet.

Those are actually not that uncommon on the Valkarie's and GoldWings, it's called "going to the dark side". It's also sometimes seen on other big cruisers, mainly models that don't usually lean too far into turns (or at least riders). They apparently wear much much longer than MC tires and for most of those who use them still provide enough traction, and apparently a LOT more rear stopping power in straight line stopping.

[psycoreefer]

I'll counter all the negative posts, I'm on my 2nd D404 rear, and still using up the front. I occasionally scrape in the turns and haven't had one "slip" yet. However they don't last all that long, I got them because they were all I could afford at the time, and then the 2nd cause I wanted to keep them matching until the front wore out. I'm sure there are much better tires out there, but I'm also sure there are worse, if money is tight then they will get you through.