What is a good air pressue for average sidecar tire? I've heard hard and soft.
I usually go for about 28 PSI and I've had all kinds of hacks mounted on all kinds of bikes.
Lonnie
As Lonnie says 28psi is a good starting point.
But there are tires and there are tires plus light rigs and heavy monsters. The best way for me is, take a small compressor with you to a big parking lot. Try yourself and let somebody else ride 8s with different loads. You see when a tire is well presurized or too low or too high.
When the tire is a car or square profile then the profile should stay flat on the ground, no bulk up, nor crumble in. With a solo motorcycle tire there should be no mushy compresion visible, but still a decent oval contact area between tire and road surface. A single contact spot will not permit any break action, but will skid like a pencil eraser. And as usual the load will cause big diferences, so what I do is always to make a foot step test, because here where I live, the manometers at the gas stations never are accurate.
Plus I toutch the tire after a ride looking for its temperature, if its too elevated (over45°C / 115°F on a normal day with 22°C / 72°F) then there is missing air definitely.
By the way: a motocross tire on the street needs to be filled up to maximum permissible pressure, if not the thread will wear uneven. In these types of open tires (like my Pirelli MT21) the profile blocks do the compression work when you are on the street. For off road you go down again with pressure in bad mud even down to 0,5bar = 7 PSI.
Good luck Sven 🙂
I run 28psi on my Harley hack.
