- 5,014
- Panama City, FL
Whereas: 99.99999995% of my riding is straight up-and-down, a result of my place of residence being the flat, unfeatured topography of coastal Florida.
Whereas: 99.999999995% of my "recreational" riding is actually just getting to where I want to do recreational riding.
Whereas: Motorsickle tires is EXPENSIVE!!!!
Whereas: Motorsickle tires is SHORT-LIVED!!!!!!
Whereas: The Yamaha FJR1300 is a very powerful, but relatively heavy bike, offering very good performance and very good (for its size) maneuverability.
and Whereas: I don't want to destroy the enjoyment of the bike by going bankrupt and having to sell it, or parking it because I can't put rubber on it.
Be it resolved: I have installatificated* a car tire on the rear wheel of my FJR!!!
Yes, the bike feels different. It does work, though, and it's not dangerous, nor have any sexually-oriented attachments fallen off my body.
Handling-wise, it's "magnetically attracted" to straight ahead, takes a bit of a harder push to tip in, and once leaned the bike still steers wider than your muscle memory wants it to go. Just push a little harder on the inside bar. After 6 or 8 bends it feels normal!
I don't ride with peg-scraping aggressiveness. As a matter of fact, the only times I have scraped pegs were in low-side get-offs and the bike was sliding down the road! One in gravel, and one in an emergency stop with this much >>||<< too much front brake. Anyway, the bike does lean and turn just fine, and the tire keeps at least half its tread width on the pavement in all but the most severe lean angles. It does not climb onto the sidewall!
It wants to track with roughness in the pavement, but it's not going to suddenly shoot out from under you. It rides a little smoother, too; tar strips, reflector dots, etc. don't jar the bike as hard.
I haven't had it out in the rain, yet, because oddly enough it seems to have stopped raining once I bought the tire. I expect very good wet-weather performance with that gatorback-style tread pattern, though.
I went for a little 200-mile loop a couple of weekends ago, and this is what the rear tire looked like when I got home:
As you can see, pretty grungy in the center, not even to the wear bar (but close!) less than halfway to the edge. And this is a hard-center dual compound tire!
So I had about 10K miles on this one, got just over 11K on the previous identical tire, and they're up about $155 on the web, plus shipping, and plus mounting when they get here.
The car tire was 97 bucks, 16 bucks to ship, and I paid a guy 20 bucks to mount it. (Didn't want to try to hand-mount a car tire in the yard with C-clamps and three spoons!) On my Probe GT I would get between 20 and 25 thousand miles on a tire like this (treadwear rating 300,) and that was with an occasional autocross thrown in. At the back of the bike it's carrying about half the load it would carry at a corner of the car, so I expect to easily get 30,000 miles, looking for over 40!
So: 3 or 4 (maybe more!) times the life, at about two-thirds the unit price. I just cut my tire bill by at least a factor of 4, maybe 6!
The tire size is 205/50-17, the SMALLEST 17-inch tire made, I think. The wheel is 5.5 inches, and tires any narrower aren't available in 17 inches. Any wider and it wouldn't clear the bike's hardware. As it is I had to move one piece outward to clear the sidewall: the torque arm on the brake caliper just barely clears the tire in its stock location, but by such a small amount you need a feeler gauge to check it. That arm is responsible for keeping the brake caliper from going around the axle when you apply rear brake. I'm sure the hydraulic hose won't stretch but so many times around . . . .
I just remounted it outboard of its stock location, but had to grind it a tiny bit to clear the swingarm shape. Otherwise the tire fits perfectly. It's just enough larger diameter than the stock 180/55-17 bike tire to actually correct the speedometer! It's dead-on with my GPS now.
I didn't do any of the math to find the tire size, nor was this a possibly expensive experiment in fitment. I am #18 on the Darkside list on my FJR forum, oddly enough located at fjrforum.com, so the fitment and clearance issues were well-documented beforehand.
* in - stuh - LATE - if - i - kate - ed v. to have participated in the installatificationalization of an item, i.e. to have connected, or placed in position, for service or use.
Whereas: 99.999999995% of my "recreational" riding is actually just getting to where I want to do recreational riding.
Whereas: Motorsickle tires is EXPENSIVE!!!!
Whereas: Motorsickle tires is SHORT-LIVED!!!!!!
Whereas: The Yamaha FJR1300 is a very powerful, but relatively heavy bike, offering very good performance and very good (for its size) maneuverability.
and Whereas: I don't want to destroy the enjoyment of the bike by going bankrupt and having to sell it, or parking it because I can't put rubber on it.
Be it resolved: I have installatificated* a car tire on the rear wheel of my FJR!!!
Yes, the bike feels different. It does work, though, and it's not dangerous, nor have any sexually-oriented attachments fallen off my body.
Handling-wise, it's "magnetically attracted" to straight ahead, takes a bit of a harder push to tip in, and once leaned the bike still steers wider than your muscle memory wants it to go. Just push a little harder on the inside bar. After 6 or 8 bends it feels normal!
I don't ride with peg-scraping aggressiveness. As a matter of fact, the only times I have scraped pegs were in low-side get-offs and the bike was sliding down the road! One in gravel, and one in an emergency stop with this much >>||<< too much front brake. Anyway, the bike does lean and turn just fine, and the tire keeps at least half its tread width on the pavement in all but the most severe lean angles. It does not climb onto the sidewall!
It wants to track with roughness in the pavement, but it's not going to suddenly shoot out from under you. It rides a little smoother, too; tar strips, reflector dots, etc. don't jar the bike as hard.
I haven't had it out in the rain, yet, because oddly enough it seems to have stopped raining once I bought the tire. I expect very good wet-weather performance with that gatorback-style tread pattern, though.
I went for a little 200-mile loop a couple of weekends ago, and this is what the rear tire looked like when I got home:
As you can see, pretty grungy in the center, not even to the wear bar (but close!) less than halfway to the edge. And this is a hard-center dual compound tire!
So I had about 10K miles on this one, got just over 11K on the previous identical tire, and they're up about $155 on the web, plus shipping, and plus mounting when they get here.
The car tire was 97 bucks, 16 bucks to ship, and I paid a guy 20 bucks to mount it. (Didn't want to try to hand-mount a car tire in the yard with C-clamps and three spoons!) On my Probe GT I would get between 20 and 25 thousand miles on a tire like this (treadwear rating 300,) and that was with an occasional autocross thrown in. At the back of the bike it's carrying about half the load it would carry at a corner of the car, so I expect to easily get 30,000 miles, looking for over 40!
So: 3 or 4 (maybe more!) times the life, at about two-thirds the unit price. I just cut my tire bill by at least a factor of 4, maybe 6!
The tire size is 205/50-17, the SMALLEST 17-inch tire made, I think. The wheel is 5.5 inches, and tires any narrower aren't available in 17 inches. Any wider and it wouldn't clear the bike's hardware. As it is I had to move one piece outward to clear the sidewall: the torque arm on the brake caliper just barely clears the tire in its stock location, but by such a small amount you need a feeler gauge to check it. That arm is responsible for keeping the brake caliper from going around the axle when you apply rear brake. I'm sure the hydraulic hose won't stretch but so many times around . . . .
I just remounted it outboard of its stock location, but had to grind it a tiny bit to clear the swingarm shape. Otherwise the tire fits perfectly. It's just enough larger diameter than the stock 180/55-17 bike tire to actually correct the speedometer! It's dead-on with my GPS now.
I didn't do any of the math to find the tire size, nor was this a possibly expensive experiment in fitment. I am #18 on the Darkside list on my FJR forum, oddly enough located at fjrforum.com, so the fitment and clearance issues were well-documented beforehand.
* in - stuh - LATE - if - i - kate - ed v. to have participated in the installatificationalization of an item, i.e. to have connected, or placed in position, for service or use.
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