It was the rain that turned them to the darkside.
Perhaps the most controversial of topics in the motorcycling community recently is the trend among some touring-cycle owners to put car tires on their bikes instead of motorcycle tires. They call themselves "Darksiders" and hoo-boy, are people ever heated up about it.
Now, I'm not a member of the motorcycling community for several reasons, all of them relating to the emotional attachment I have for my internal organs. Oh spleen, you just keep spleening away there, you little cutie.
Not to say that riding a motorcycle is crazy — just that maybe it's not for unco-ordinated hamfists such as myself. Anyway, I don't have a direct position on whether or not these Darksiders are a) the worst people on the planet or b) perfectly within their rights to experiment. I don't know enough about riding to have any input on the matter, but I will say that the community is sharply divided, and many parties are very angry about the whole thing.
But never mind that: what I'd like to talk about is the why of it. Why would you even bother putting a car tire on a motorcycle, or if you do, why would that be a problem? Aren't all tires basically the same?
As it turns out, they're really not. In a straight line at least, proponents of Darksiding claim that a car tire is significantly better at handling wet weather, and that they last quite a bit longer too. It makes sense, if you think about it: a motorcycle tire is narrower, and designed with the dynamics of leaning a bike over. A car tire is simply intended to remain ideally perpendicular to the road, taking on puddles and so forth head-on.
Moreover, the number of touring motorcycles on the road is much smaller than the number of regular passenger cars. Thus, while the rubber composition of both sets of tires benefits from the same research and development, tire companies tend to pour much more effort and money into their volumeselling car tires.
So, while we let the bikers sort out their internal beef, let's take a little look at the automotive tire world. This stuff might not be as appealing as horsepower or fuel economy, but it is literally where the rubber meets the road, and can directly affect how your car actually performs.
The original equipment manufacturer (OEM) tire
When you buy a brand new car, it comes with brand new tires. Great! Nothing to do but drive it around until they wear out and then replace 'em with whatever the dealership says.
Well, no actually. While some performance cars come with the best rubber for the job, and suspensions tuned for that specific grip, many ordinary passenger cars come with whatever groupbuy the manufacturer could get a deal on. With such huge amounts of production to be considered, saving a few bucks per vehicle on tires is a common practice, and you don't always get the best.
There's also another annoying thing about new cars: a tendency towards ever-expanding rim sizes. You're going to want to note what's the smallestavailable rim that'll fit and clear the brakes when it comes time to mount winter tires.
The winter tire
Note that we're not calling this the snow tire. Snow tires are actually different from winter tires — if you were to take a look at the inside of a rally support trailer, you'd see tires for ice or for snow, and they'd look very different.
In the passenger car world, you can actually pick out a tire based on what sort of winter you're going to have. Here, where we live in a rainforest, it's a good idea to peg the scale for wet-weather traction and slushy snow. If you live in the Interior, you're going to want a little better cold and dry grip, and back east, on-ice traction starts getting more important.
Whatever the case, you should be running winter tires through November to March or so, simply because of their improved grip when the temperatures drop. The limit is not zero either: when the thermometer starts getting below 7 C, your regular all-season tires start hardening up, and performing worse.
The low rolling-resistance tire
You can actually get ultra-low rolling-resistance tires now, and it's only a matter of time before someone comes out with a Super Ultra Mega-Low rolling-resistance tire. Oh wait, we already have that: it's called the hockey puck.
The idea behind these is not actually all that different from the darksider guys: for the specific application of maximizing fuel economy, a low rolling-resistance tire gives up absolute lateral grip (by being harder) for less resistance at moving forward.
Just think about a Hot Wheels. If they didn't have those rock-hard plastic wheels, they wouldn't zip as quickly. Take the orange plastic tracks away and they don't corner very well though. So, fine for a Prius, not so much for your trackday special.
The run-flat
This is a pretty genius idea that's a bit more mixed-bag in application. Why not have a tire that never goes flat? That depends — do you own a spine? Or a wallet? Are you fond of not having both pounded into sawdust?
Run-flats work fairly simply — they have an extra-strong sidewall that resists compression even when there's no air in it. This allows you to drive at a reduced speed if the air goes out, straight to the tire store where they fix or replace it. There's theoretically not even a need for a spare.
However, there are a few drawbacks. Because the sidewall doesn't flex as much, the ride can be intolerable. Run-flats also cost more than ordinary tires, so replacing them can be costly — and driving on them for even short distances can often wreck them.
Give me a real spare tire any day.
Tire-pressure monitoring
Want to save fuel? A simple digital tire-pressure gauge from Canadian tire is one of the easiest ways to do it. As your fuel station no longer checks your tire pressures, it's up to you to make sure they're in line with what's on your door jamb. And by the way, you should be measuring the pressures when totally cold, at least once a month.
Tires can lose a pound or two of pressure every month, even if they don't have a slow leak, so keeping them topped up prevents them from becoming fuelrobbing balloons. Many higher-end manufacturers now include on-board systems that'll instantly give you a digital readout on what the tires are up to. It's best to double-check every so often.
Tire choice
Lastly, make sure you're choosing the right class of tire for your machine: lighttruck tires for your truck, off-road tires for your Jeep, stuff like that.
Oh, and whatever you do, don't put motorcycle tires on your car. Even I know that's not a good idea.
Brendan McAleer is a freelance writer and automotive enthusiast. If you have a suggestion for a column, please contact him at [email protected]. Follow Brendan on Twitter: @brendan_mcaleer.
