Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Tire Selection

Tire’s is an important part on a bike. You have to check track conditions to know what tire to have. If it is wet or rainy you want to have a mud tire to get better traction. If it is dry you want to have soft or intermediate tire.

For most pro racer they have a new tire on front and back for every race. I don’t know if a new tire would help out every race unless it is muddy. The pro riders have sponsors from tire companies, so they can get a new tire for every race and practicing.

Tire sponsors for bikes in GNCC:
•KTM- Michelin
•Yamaha-Dunlop
•Kawasaki-Michelin
•Honda-Bridgestone
•Suzuki-Dunlop

Most stock bikes that come from factory come with either Bridgestone tire or Dunlop.
I try to have a new tire for every race, but it gets too expensive. For a front tire on average it cost 60 dollars and for the back it’s an average of 70-80 dollars. For me I ride KTM and I am staying with Michelin, but with no sponsor so it is hard to buy a new tire every week.

When it comes to tire pressure everyone has their own way. I usually leave around 10 pounds of air in my tire to get good traction.

I can remember one race how it rained for two or three days and I had put a new front and back Michelin tires on and it help out so much. I would come to a hill and everyone would be stuck on it and I would go right up it because I had so much traction. With new tires and the tire pressure so low I had tons of traction and could anywhere.

All riders have their own tire selection and tire pressure, but it is how you ride and how it feels to you.

I have raced in the sand before and they do make sand tires for dirt bikes. They look like paddles and work really good and they get awesome traction.

They make all sorts of tires that you can choose from and it depends on the track and weather. It also depends on the rider and what tire he thinks will help him out.

1 comment:

Cap'n Fatback said...

Tucker--

An informative post.

Remember to vary these posts a little--write up a story or a reaction to current motorcycle news in upcoming blogs.