Motorcycle Tire Question

When looking for tires for a motorcycle, one sees a tire advertised as
a "rear" tire and another as a "front" tire. If the advertised "rear"
tire is the exact same size as what a person needs for their "front"
tire, what's the big deal and why do they even advertise them as such
instead of just going by the size, like they do on cars?

Is there something specific about motorcycle tires that I'm missing
here?

Bill

 

Yes.

Motorcycle tyres come in 3 fitments - front, rear & universal.

With front & rear tyres the treat pattern tends to be very different as
the bulk of the forces will be applied in different directions - the
rear tyre will need most grip when accelerating hard & the front when
breaking hard. Most bike tyres have an arrow indicating direction of
rotation on the sidewall

As an example, a couple of blokes I know who race classic Laverdas use
modern Avon front tyres as rears, fitted in the reverse direction,
because no-one makes race tyres in a skinny enough rear fitting.

Universal tyres only tend to come in fitments suitable for small, low
power, commuter type bikes. Last time I bought a universal it wanted
fitting in different directions depending on whether it was going on a
front or rear wheel.

 

Thanks, Bob. The reason I asked was that if you have an odd sized
front tire the only one you may be able to find in that size is one
classified as a "rear" tire. Does it make any more or less difference
between the two if the tires are strictly on-road, off-road or dual
sport? And finally, if that were the case, then you could use them
interchangeably if you changed the direction?

Bill 

 

I've no idea - my only experience is with road tyres &, so far, I've
always been able to find appropriate size tyres without too much
difficulty. A bit more choice in what tyres would have been nice here &
there but that goes with the territory of old but not that old sports
bikes - the choice of skinny but sticky tyres is somewhat restricted.

Again, no idea. But personally I wouldn't, purely & simply because I
ride on road & both the police & insurance people tend to take a dim
view of things like this.

Thinking about it, I'd contact a tyre manufacturer (importer,
distributor, whatever) and ask - I've found both Continental & Avon to
be very helpful with regard to odd queries about fitments

 

A genius at Michelin tires came up with a set of formulae for tire
cross sections, which takes coning angles, rake and trail and
wheelbase into account when new tires are designed *as a set*.

The front tire will have a "pointier" cross section, and the rear tire
will be less pointy.

The front tire will have a far lighter-constructed case because it
only supports half the weight that the rear tire has to carry, and it
will have only 3 to 5 millimeters of tread depth.

The front tire will have more channels to disperse rainwater.

The rear tire will have less profile and it will be constructed
heavier. It will have 7 to 9 mm of tread depth and fewer water
channels.

If you install a rear tire on the front of your motorcycle, you will
probably wind up with a machine that requires noticeably more force to
steer.

 

Good advice, that.
Need to be careful about reversing the rotation of a tire as it might
adversely affect grip/handling in the rain........as in greatly reduced
traction.

 

Where the ****** do you get this shit from?

Do you really think all bikes have a 33-66% front/rear weight
distribution?

A bike with that sort of weight distribution has got a serious, serious
chassis problem.

Aprilia RSVR and other sports bikes - 50/50 weight distribution. Yamaha
TMax 500 scooter, consider tail-heavy because it's 47/53.

And you think your errors are "trivial"? Holy crap.

 

Kiss my ass so you can tell your friends you're trying out a new shade
of brown lipstick.

 

Nope, not funny, just the standard Krusty response to someone pointing
out he's posting utter nonsense....

 

The 50/50 weight balance is a necessary compromise. In the Northern

Would a flux valve and a pair of gyros help counter this phenomena?

 

Heh. The trouble is that Krusty would believe this stuff and quote it as
gospel ever after.

 

Stifle it, ya mincing stick dancer.

 

And the hankies, please don't forget the hankles. I've spent a lot of
time on The Valentine, and it's my favourite hanky dance.

 

Actually you can counter this phenomena very easily. In the Northern
Hemisphere you just insure that when you need to turn in a Southern
direction that your going from West to East, so that when you turn
South you turn in a clockwise direction. The reason this works is
because your clockwise turning counters the normal Coriolis force
of the Earth's rotation which in the Northern Hemisphere would drive
you counter-clockwise.

This is why parking garages in the Northern Hemisphere are all constructed
so that the ramps in the garage are on a right-hand thread. In this way, as
you drive up the ramp, your turning counter-clockwise, and the extra boost
from the Coriolis force helps you to counteract the slowing effects of
gravity.
Then, when you drive down the ramp, your turning clockwise, which pits
the dragging effects of the Coriolis force against the pulling force of
gravity.

You see, the first few parking structures ever built in the Northern
Hemisphere
had left-hand threaded ramps, and they had problems with cars because the
drag of gravity coupled with fighting against the normal Coriolis force made
it
almost impossible to get to the top of the garage. Worse, when cars went
down the ramps, the 2 forces added together and quite frequently would
overwhelm the vehicle brakes causing the cars to go so fast they would
fly right off the ramp and out of the structure. People living near these
parking
garages would buy extra-strong umbrellas to use during quitting time around
5:00pm to protect themselves from the "rain 'o cars" as they used to call
it.

Ted

 

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/98/StompMorrisdance.jpg

 

Thanks, Bob. The reason I asked was that if you have an odd sized
front tire the only one you may be able to find in that size is one
classified as a "rear" tire. Does it make any more or less difference
between the two if the tires are strictly on-road, off-road or dual
sport? And finally, if that were the case, then you could use them
interchangeably if you changed the direction?

Bill

Is this a trick question? If it is you have come to the right newsgroup
because they never read questions in the first place -- they read the topic,
then spew everything they think they know about it. If not, you can find any
size tire if you keep looking online or in some catalog.

 

No, Lefty, no tricks. I just keep hoping that someday, on some
newsgroup, several things might actually happen to folks posting a
question they need answered.

1--Someone will actually read the question and if they know the answer
to the specific question, they will post it; if they don't know the
answer to the specific question, they will remain totally silent
instead of rambling on about their own personal adventures/experiences
which have noting at all to do with the original post.

2--When responding further on down the thread, the responder will
actually read and comprehend what was previously posted to get a grip
on what has already been said and buried.

3--That the one, sometimes two, know-it-all PITAs that every group
seems to have will suffer a debilitating disease that will keep them
away from a computer keyboard indefinitely.

I also believe in Santa Claus. LOLOLOL

Bill

(Speaking of that, did you hear the one about the dyslexic devil
worshipper?)

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He sold his soul to Santa.

 

Well, I've been trying to help people on this NG for the last eight
years, and The Hanky Prancer who calls himself "TOG" has been turning
every thread into an endless debate for that period of time.

 

By telling them to avoid Mexicans?

And 'trying' is the operative word: you seem to know about carbs, but
sod all about anything else.

 

Masterdebating with "The Older Gentleman" involves a lot of time and
hassle for no tangible benefit except him: He wanks off as he
fantasizes about stick mincing and hanky prancing as he types
scurrilous crap.