How much weight is too much?

[Gyrogearloose]

Took delivery of new tires; mounted both rear and front. The rear seemed to balance out OK with about 22g, however the front went berserk with weights totaling almost 100! I used the two weights labeled 30 from the previous balance job, and added at least another 30!! What gives? I lined up the colored dot with the valve stem, and the line on the tire near the rim edge seems equidistant. Is this tire out of reason? Thanks y'all on a rainy day in the PNW.

[CatatonicBug]

Isn't that dot supposed to go opposite the valve stem?

[bikerphil]

The dot is supposed to be the light spot in the tire when checked at the factory. I've balanced a few that have taken that much weight and they worked fine, YMMV. You could try breaking the bead loose and rotating the tire on the rim some and try balancing again, helps sometimes. Try putting the dot where you have the weights now.

[Tdog]

dots

Hi Gyro,
The odd time you can do everything right and still balance high...with or without dots. So... as it is a new tire, just break the bead down, give it a 180 spin on the rim and see if that helps but dont forget to remove all the old balance weight before checking the balance again.
Regards,
T
Thanks Bikerphil I type slow...

[Gyrogearloose]

Thanks guys. Good advice: gotta' break the bead and try a new "sweet spot".
Hope this turns out positive (I'm running out of weights). LOL.

[crazy steve]

The dot is supposed to be the light spot in the tire when checked at the factory...

...Which is why it's supposed to line up with the stem; they assume that will be the heavy spot on the rim.

But it ain't always so... I checked mine before mounting the tires, and the 'heavy spot' on the rear was about 4" from the valve. The front was even worse; it was off by over 12".

But Phil's right; with proper balance it shouldn't make any difference.

[79XS11F]

I really don't know how much difference it makes but I have been told that when your adding the weights apply them somewhat evenly on both sides of the rim.
Rob

[crazy steve]

Before the advent of electronic spin balancers, when bubble balancers were still the common method of balancing car tires, the recommendation was rather than use one weight, use four (two inside, two outside) and spread them on either side of the 'light spot'. The theory was this distributed the weight more 'evenly' around the wheel and made placement less critical. This did work; trying to use a single weight (unless the tire was very minimally out of balance) could be hit-or-miss, usually miss.

How important is this on a bike tire? Probably less, as the total weight is much lower. I would say though, that if you're using a fairly large single weight (over 3 oz) I would probably use two smaller ones (that add up to slightly more than the single) and 'spread' them along the circumference as above.