Anyone have any experience riding your bike with a car tire on the rear? I currently have a car tire on the rear of my rig and was thinking about riding 2 wheels once and a while. Just wondered if anyone has tried it.
A car tire has a flat profile. On two wheels you need a rounded profile tire .A flat profile tire will try to keep yuo in a straight line & be hard to maintaine balance @ low speed, similar to tight steering head bearings.
Some people do it successfully. It's probably no worse than some of the choppers I've seen with 300 mm rear tires. They don't turn well at all.
The main thing is to find a tire that will fit your rim or a rim to fit the car tire.
Check this link.
http://lifeisaroad.com/stories/2004/10/27/theDarkSide.html
Auto tires, being designed to work when vertical to the road surface do not have the rounded profile of motorcycle tires or the side tread traction patterns and won't go smoothly from a vertical plane to a pronounced lean angle while offering optimum traction.
Many use them on large cruisers but not too aggressively in the turns.
Like the huge 300 and 300+ series rear tires used on custom "choppers" they take some getting used to in the turns.
"If you go, take it slow!"
Lonnie
Originally written by j_vger on 2/24/2009 5:04 AM
Anyone have any experience riding your bike with a car tire on the rear? I currently have a car tire on the rear of my rig and was thinking about riding 2 wheels once and a while. Just wondered if anyone has tried it.
Yep, my motorcycle has a car tire on the rear, and I don't even have a sidecar (it's supposed to be delivered any day now). I've been riding that way for quite sometime and would never go back to a normal motorcycle tire.
People who run with car tires on the rear are called "darksiders." I ride with no problems whatsoever. Check out the link above, its a great reference.
It's upto you whether you want to do this, obviously, but its good to know that its not all that unusual. Basically, you have to give the bike a little more steering input to turn, and have a slightly firmer grasp at slow speeds (parking lot speed) to counteract the tire's tendancy to track the road contour.
You'll get the hang of this after a couple of miles, just like getting on a different motorcycle, and then you'll completly forget about it within a 100 miles or so.
I'll tell you that in my personal experience, cornering is improved, braking is improved, wet/dry traction are improved, looks are improved, and wear is improved. I can easily scrape the pegs on my bike in a slow or fast turn.
Good luck, and as they say, welcome to the darkside 🙂
Per geek_law:
"People who run with car tires on the rear are called "darksiders." I ride with no problems whatsoever. Check out the link above, its a great reference."
It's been my understanding that "darksiders" were those who opted to use auto tires on 15" motorcycle wheels which have a considerably different radius at the bead seat and have been known to fail even under over inflation required trying to get the bead to seat. Taking a chance, as it were, hence the title "Darksiders".
16" motorcycle and auto rims are close enough to the same diameter that there is no safety problem associated with using auto tires on bikes (or vice versa). In the '50's we hotrodders often used the 500x16" motorcycle tires mounted on Ford or Kelsey Hayes rims on the front of our roadsters for that mean raked look.
Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
Perhaps the meaning of the term has changed over time. Or, perhaps I am using it incorrectly 🙂
I have heard about the issue with 15" rims, but it was from this forum. Regardless, where you already have a cartire on the rear of your bike, and you want to run with two wheels once in a while, just give it a try. The bike isn't going to burst into flames or anything crazy like that. It will just handle slightly different than the same bike with a motorcycle tire.
It will also handle differnetly than when the side car is mounted, and different than other makes/models of motorcycles. Different handling is not bad, but rather, its just different.
I say give it a try. Who knows, maybe you'll swear off motorcycle tires forever!
I had a Boss Hoss and it had a car tire and was no big deal.
It can be done, is being done and all of that. It cannot be recomended officially for obvious reasons. If you do it take it easy and get to know the limitations.
Definitions for 'Darksiders':
1) Those who run car tires on solo bikes
2) Those who run 15" car tires on motorcycle rims
3) BMW Airhead riders who have switched to K Bikes.
4) Vintage Triumph riders after the sun goes down. (Applies to other vintage Brit bike riders also)
I have her behind my back a photo of the Harley from "Tuzo Portuguez" the Costa Rican Boxer from the late 40-50tees. (Now 78-79 and still training several times a week") He ran VW Beetle nylon radial tires on his bike because to that time there were no big bike tires affordable in CR (photo is from 1988)
When I asked him about the driving he answered: "Its OK for a coffee racer as I use it and long straight edges like in Guanacaste, but forget it in the mountain serpentines or speeding."
That would confirm what happened to me in Death Valley where the heat ate up my brand new tires and at 125kmh 78mph started to slinger for several km until I had to hop off, before it would have killed me in deed.
At this I have to admit that I had a big smack inside the gear box too which for sure was the primary reason for the Norton to start to slinger.
In any case I would look for a tire with some rounding and not too wide... and take a lot of care specially in sandy bends....!!!
(my fathers monkey was dangerous with its balloon type tyres on sand...)
Just 2 cent from the middle of nowhere.
Sven
Fellows, keep in mind:
"The best tone is still the Nortone!"
PS: Claude:
to point 3) They must be dark, not for nothing they ride a tipped over bread toaster!
to point 4) Could apply to Austin Mini(Lukas electric the evil knight of darkness), MZ and Jawa too.(They didn't open the fence yet!)
4) Vintage Triumph riders after the sun goes down. (Applies to other vintage Brit bike riders also)
Norton included. Good old Lucas electrics (and Amal self disassembling carbs).
Lonnie
I owned three Matchless/AJS 500cc singles that were stripped for enduro use (no lights). They had only the Lucas Magneto and, other than having a tendency to wet out when in rain or underwater (Ha) they were very good.
I also had an Ariel Mark I Red Hunter 500 cc and a BSA 500 cc Gold Star Catalina Scrambler that had the Lucas Racing Magnetos. I never had any trouble with either of them in dozens of Enduros and Hare and Hounds. I finished the 500 mile two-day Greenhorn Enduro on the Ariel and the Jack Pine Enduro when it was a two-day 500 mile run on both of them.
The Lucas lighting Mag-Dyno systems were marginal as to the generators, primarily due to the low amperage put out by the 6 volt generator and the crude two-coil electro-mechanical voltage regulators. Those were the systems that got Lucas their bad name. The six-volt electricals on the early Harley-Davidson were a little bit better, especially the ones with three brushes and a simple relay.
If you were handy with generators and kept after the Lucas systems, you could actually have lights some of the time.
We used to say that Lucas lights were as bright as the sun and, when the engine drops to an idle, the sun sets. LOL
Originally written by j_vger on 2/24/2009 6:04 AM
Anyone have any experience riding your bike with a car tire on the rear? I currently have a car tire on the rear of my rig and was thinking about riding 2 wheels once and a while. Just wondered if anyone has tried it.
I'm sure it will depend on your bike and riding style. I rode a Honda Valkyrie nearly 6000 miles on a car tire before I mounted the sidecar. The first thing I noticed was that it actually cornered better than with the Dunlop it originally had. The only time I noticed any problem was on early morning frost on the road. There, the motorcycle tire seemed to grip better. In gravel, loose sand, rain grooves, wet roads, and bridges I much prefer the car tire.
Look at the track of a modern car tire. They no longer have sharp square edges like they did in the 60's. Neither do they have the hard thick sidewalls that do not flex. Today's car tires work just fine. If I could find one narrow enough for my Guzzi I'd have one now.
Originally written by Hack'n on 2/24/2009 6:20 PM
Per geek_law:
"People who run with car tires on the rear are called "darksiders." I ride with no problems whatsoever. Check out the link above, its a great reference."It's been my understanding that "darksiders" were those who opted to use auto tires on 15" motorcycle wheels which have a considerably different radius at the bead seat and have been known to fail even under over inflation required trying to get the bead to seat. Taking a chance, as it were, hence the title "Darksiders".
16" motorcycle and auto rims are close enough to the same diameter that there is no safety problem associated with using auto tires on bikes (or vice versa). In the '50's we hotrodders often used the 500x16" motorcycle tires mounted on Ford or Kelsey Hayes rims on the front of our roadsters for that mean raked look.Lonnie
Northwest Sidecars
Actually, I think the term Darksider was coined by Daniel Meyer from the link above, in one of his books. I was introduced to the term by the Valkyrie Road Riders Club long before I owned one. All Valkyries have 16 inch tires.
Unrelated, but here's my favorite Daniel Meyer Story;
http://lifeisaroad.com/stories/2004/10/29/neighborhoodHazardorWhyTheCopsWontPatrolBriceStreet.html
Unrelated, but here's my favorite Daniel Meyer Story;
http://lifeisaroad.com/stories/2004/10/29/neighborhoodHazardorWhyTheCopsWontPatrolBriceStreet.html
Hadn't read that one. What a great story!
