MOTORCYCLE RUNS & TOURS

Bear in mind, that this is an "informal study" and the facts within, though compelling and accurate for the most part, are not exacting. By "not exacting", we mean that none of the photos were squared up except by eyeballing, none of the actual angles were measured and there was no allowance given for the artifacts produced by backgrounds, lighting angles and camera lenses. In short, this is not a very "scientific" essay thus you will find missing the usual (and usually suspect) plethora of confusing statistics & numbers that often appear in articles of this type. There's not much math here for one very simple reason -- there is no need for it. As we assembled the photographic evidence to support these theories regarding motorcycle tire wear patterns, the evidence so obviously supported the theories and so strongly disproved other theories we felt no need to provide minutia. True, that lack here may leave some unsatisfied. So be it. We invite those obsessed with such detail to supply same and we will be happy to add those facts to these since we have no doubt that the conclusions drawn by them will be the same as those drawn here by us.

The first question to be addressed is "What is tire wear?" Tire wear is the actual removal of rubber from your tire. Scuffing is what wears out your tires. Just like when you were a kid and skidded your rear bicycle tire to make marks on the driveway, the abrasion of scuffing is the only contributor to tire wear. If you never scrubbed anything off your tires, they would never wear out. It takes some pretty good stiff forces to come into play for pavement to scuff stuff off of your tires. This scrubbing of material off your tires becomes evident in what is called cupping, flat band upright tire wear which presents itself most evident on the rear tire and side flat band tire wear which presents itself most evident on the front tire. All of these wear patterns will be discussed and all are present to some degree on both the front and rear tire. But in the following discussion, it is important to remember that it takes a goodly amount of force where your tire meets the road to grind material off of your tires to produce tire wear. Too, we assume that you will run with properly inflated tires. Improperly inflated tires will cause all of these wear patterns to be greatly exaggerated and will cause you to lose many many serviceable miles. Check pressure often. Empirical evidence for Valkyrie and VTX tires shows that running 38/40, 40/40 or 40/42 (or slightly above/below) will greatly extend tire life. The Honda spec of 33psi for these bikes is way too low and is designed for maximum comfort and grip but minimum tire life. Increasing the pressures to some combination of the above will provide increased longevity and improved handling for these tires.

So, with that in mind, let us begin with probably the biggest bugaboo tire wear pattern in the motorcycle arena. Continued!