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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| Bones if you are running a trailer hitch go with a 185/55/16 as it will give you about an extra 1/8- 1/4" clearance on each side but otherwise the 195 is the tire of choice due to availability. The 185 can be purchased at your local Honda auto dealer as the stock tire on the FIT. Only 2 brands, Bridgestone or Dunlop in 185. I'd recommend the Dunlop due to tread pattern.
In 195 any Bridgestone dealer can hook you up with a Potenza. The 195 will work with a hitch but it will rub on some compressions. |
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Visionary
Posts: 1290
Ruskin, Fl | Anybody have photos of a car tire mounted on the bike? |
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| cw1115, I have some but I'll need to do some resizing before I can put them in my album. I can tell you from the side they don't look different from the bike tire and it is really only from the rear you'll see a difference. |
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New user
Posts: 4
| i mounted a 185/55/16 yesterday on my 08 vision.very easy to reinstall by myself.took it for a quick ride and could hardly know the difference.alot more rubber on the ground.it hooked up great taking off. |
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| I'm the one who brought up the issue of hydroplaning with a darkside tire. I can see some misunderstood the message. A car tire due to the flat surface that is in steady contact wih he road surface make the car tire more inclined to hydroplane than a bike tire. It is a simple matter of physics, flater wider contact means more riding on top of the rain on the road surface. MC tires for all purposes do not hydroplane due to the smallish contact patch. HOWEVER one must weigh the hydroplaning against contact surface, the results can be similar.
My point wasn't to prevent or suggest folks NOT run a darkside tire, but rather to be "aware" of the potential hazard associated with running DS in rain. There is a weath of information on this topic online if you care to research it yourself.
As to running a DS tire? Personal preference is really what it boils down to. For 99.9% of ridng a DS will work just fine, but if you feel even remotely uncomfortable with a DS, even if it just mental, stick with a bike tire. |
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Tourer
Posts: 412
Fargo, ND | Here is a photo of mine... 
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Visionary
Posts: 3773
Pittsburgh, PA | Teach - 2010-05-21 8:59 PM
I'm the one who brought up the issue of hydroplaning with a darkside tire. I can see some misunderstood the message. A car tire due to the flat surface that is in steady contact wih he road surface make the car tire more inclined to hydroplane than a bike tire. It is a simple matter of physics, flater wider contact means more riding on top of the rain on the road surface. MC tires for all purposes do not hydroplane due to the smallish contact patch. HOWEVER one must weigh the hydroplaning against contact surface, the results can be similar.
My point wasn't to prevent or suggest folks NOT run a darkside tire, but rather to be "aware" of the potential hazard associated with running DS in rain. There is a weath of information on this topic online if you care to research it yourself.
As to running a DS tire? Personal preference is really what it boils down to. For 99.9% of ridng a DS will work just fine, but if you feel even remotely uncomfortable with a DS, even if it just mental, stick with a bike tire.
when i went to the DarkSide on my kawasaki i was running a 225 CT. but i went with a good year assurance triple tread, it is a "RAIN" tire. you should have seen my contact patch! its the same tire a Caddy cts uses.. it was Wide!!!! and it handled amazingly in the rain.. friends said when i rode it the rain i shot a rooster tail like they never seen from a bike before.. I rode in 179 miles of the heaviest rain i ever rode in my life.. i did no less than 65-70 mph the entire time.. it never felt less than stable.. but like i said i was using a tire made for rain.. =) |
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| Ark, first let me say I am not disputing the use of DS tires, had one on mine and it will be going back on at some point this summer. However with that said I don't care what type of tire designation it has, a car tire will hydroplane FAR more than a bike tire on the same bike. I think I understand where the confusion comes in? Some folks believe that hydroplaning means the tire is sliding around. Breaking this down into the most scientific of terms that assertion would be correct but not for the purposes of this discussion. What we are talking about is the tire contact surface riding on top of a layer of water as it attempts to squeeze the water out from under itself. Because a car tire has greater surface area in contact with the road and because the bike weight is far less than the car tire was designed to support it rides on top. In your post you commented on observation about roost being thrown off the tire. This is the tire tread design attempting to displace the water from the flat contact surfaces. The fact it is being tossed up by the tire in the form of roost provides the evidence that the tire is riding on the water. If the tread was doing its intended pupose the water would be squished out of the tread not carried by it. Purely a weight to contact area issue.
Now this does NOT mean the tire was sliding out, it simply means it was riding on water and not the road surface, aka hydroplaning. AGAIN this is simple physics, NOT an argument against using a DS tire. It is simply something everyone should be aware of if they decide to run the DS tire. Everything we do with our bikes is a trade off, from tire choice to oil choice and back. We simply need to be aware of the facts so as to make wise choices while riding. What do I mean by that? Well say a rider has a tendancy to slow 5 mph from normal riding speed when riding in rain. They might be fooled into thinking that with a DS tire they no longer need to because of the larger contact patch, when if they knew about the increase risk of hydroplaning to contact patch increase they may decide the 5 mph decrease is still a good practice.
As I am fond of saying "knowledge is power." The more we know the safer we can keep ourselves when out riding. This is not intended to be a diss on anyone or to suggest not running a DS tire. Long before companies were making bike specific tires DS tires were the tires on every bike, front and rear. All I'm suggesting is that we know how our tires work whether it be a MC tire or DS. We can then make some predictions and adjustments as need be while on the road riding on them.
As always ride safe and regardless of tire choice, keep the rubber side down......... T |
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Visionary
Posts: 3773
Pittsburgh, PA | Oh i never thought you were dissing anyone. I like the way to put everything. Even my motorcycle tire throws a rooster tail but it's not as big because like you said you have a contact patch that's wider. The things i remember most of the dark side was the very first day i went to the darkside i hit my brakes and almost went over the handlebars... that rear tires contact patch was so much wider and gripped better. At least it did for me running a 225mm rear tire. I remember I had to watch how I used my rear brake.. plus on a silly fun note. I remember the car screeching sound that came from braking too hard. I'm going to try and find photos of that old bike with the CT on it. =) |
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Cruiser
Posts: 266
Stockton, Ca. | Reading this post there is a lot of talk about the hydroplane issue. Can someone explain the benefits of going DS? It seems that handling in the corners would not be good with such a flat surface tire. I suppose for just highway riding it might be ok. Don't know because I never tried it. |
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Visionary
Posts: 3773
Pittsburgh, PA | okthenbye - 2010-05-22 3:24 PM
Reading this post there is a lot of talk about the hydroplane issue. Can someone explain the benefits of going DS? It seems that handling in the corners would not be good with such a flat surface tire. I suppose for just highway riding it might be ok. Don't know because I never tried it.
one of the biggest benefits is tire Life... when i road another brand bike there was getting already putting 45000 miles on a single car tire.. one guy claimed to have 60000 miles on his car tire.. he changed it out at that point because he just somethign something new again.. lol. i got a nail in my car tire and i plugged it and rode it for almost another 2 years! your not doing that with a bike tire.. I rode US129 the dragon with my car tire. i kept up with everyone just fine.. for ME it was about tire life.. my vulcan 2000 had a rear tire life of 4000-5000 miles max. 5000 was pushing it! and the tire was a 200 rear, so it wasnt cheap.. thats how it all started for me.. if you had a 1000-2000 mile trip to take on your bike, and you already had 2500 miles on your tire people would change it just because they couldnt trust it to last... with the Darkside that issue was gone.. btw i just posted two little pix of my CT.. |
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Iron Butt
Posts: 935
Rockford, IL | Teach- Please don't take this as "calling you out"......but I was wondering if you happened to have any links to back up your statements about hydroplaning. The reason I'm asking is because I think there are tons of other factors other than width. I'm reading that you feel that a narrower tire sheds water better than a wide tire? But knowing me......I'm probably reading your posts incorrectly. Am I? While I somewhat agree that a narrow tire may hydroplane less, I will agree to this assuming all other things equal, such as inflation, vehicle wieght and tread design. Meaning that a narrower motorcycle tire may hydroplane less than a wider motorcycle tire. I personally think the tread design of a car tire outweighs any possible drawback of difference in width. I think that tread design is the major factor on if a tire will hydroplane. I think its a bigger factor than width or inflation or any other differences. I think that a car tire that is designed to shed water will hydroplane much much less than a motorcycle tire that is not designed to shed water. I mean if you think about it there are very few (if any) motorcycle tires that are truly designed to shed water. Am I thinking wrong here? I really don't think I am.....but would like to be corrected if I am.
Edited by Lotzafun 2010-05-22 6:40 PM
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Visionary
Posts: 3773
Pittsburgh, PA | i believe the tread design HAS too make a difference as well?!? |
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| Lotzafun, a simple search of "do motorcycle tires hydroplane" will yield you all kinds of links on info regarding this topic. And no I am not offended at all that you would ask. I could post some but I'd prefer folks search this on their own to avoid site bias.
All bike tires are designed to throw water, they didn't use to be but that changed some 25 years ago. The designs and tire construction improve yearly. Take for example the E3 or Avon Cobra for the Vision. Tread pattern is both angled and tapered to the outside with a cross over on the center to disperse water. Same exact tread design on any all season or rain rated car tire. Actually very similar to the tread design on the Potenza most visions are running. This design is also responsible for reducing a tires tracking tendancy on metal grated bridges and/or road checkering. However tread design alone does not add up to the sole factor in hydroplaning, contact surface and weight enter in also. For every flat section of tire in contact with the road service the greater the hydroplaning effect. Basically the tires flat contact surface (be it bike tire or DS) is riding on water. The tread attempts to remove much of the water that would increase hydroplaning. Consider loss of traction if say you were running a flat surfaced tire without any tread. Tread only removes water from under the area's with tread cutouts. So take the average DS tire width if running the 195, approx, 3"-4" of rear tire contact patch at speed (DS tires stand up and round at speed). Now compare the same with a bike tire, in our case the contact patch at speed is no more than 1"-3" (normally towards the lesser but increases with tire wear). Less rubber on the water, less hydroplaning.
Complicating the issue of using a DS tire is that it was not design to perform with so little weight applying downward force, so it is not working at optimum for its design.
Now if folks do not believe that this assertion is accurate (and that would be reasonable), I would challenge any two vision owners near each other(one with DS and another with motorcycle rear tire) to do a rear tire skid test on wet pavement from 30 mph. Pick the rainy day and place of your liking. Applying just rear brake at 30 mph the bike tire will stop the bike in a shorter distance than the DS every time. It will only be a couple feet at 30 mph but the bike tire will stop you shorter.(yes I do know the Vision will link the front brake)
Again I am NOT opposed to the DS tire, and I have used them on my Vision and other bikes. This is purely something riders should factor into their ride habits. In other words don't get deceived because the DS may feel more planted. A DS tire WILL work just fine on a bike, but as with all tires you need to consider both the tires strengths and weakness. As stated earlier (by myself) a DS will work just as well as a MC tire in 99.9% of riding situation, heck it will outperform the MC tire in some performance aspects. Just don't get caught out by lack of tire performance knowledge.
Hope this addresses your questions..... |
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Cruiser
Posts: 247
| Teach-Thanks for all the good info. I seem to get to ride a lot in the rain. I tell my riding buddy/best friend that he is a rain magnet. I was considering DS but I am particularly uncomfortable in the rain due to some incidents in my formative riding years. Your point that tire rain technology for motorcycles has improved over the past 25 years gave me comfort. the hydroplaning issue gives me cause to pause. I think the Vision is the best performing bke in the rain I have ridden. 60+ in yesterday's storm no problem. It is heads and shoulders over the ultraclassic which i wouldn't rideover 50 in the rain even with "rain" tires. bottom line is i will probably stay with the current tire when i need to change. thank you. |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | Hi-jack - The Vision seems to do 20mph+ better over the other bike I use to ride also. Twisties, rain, heavy interstate, all of them...
Edited by varyder 2010-05-23 7:41 AM
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| exharley, well keep bouncing the DS around some more. As I said it does for all SCIENTIFIC purposes hydroplane more but due to the wider contact patch will feel more stable. Just ride at a safe speed for conditions (all based on the individual). As stated earlier, the hydroplaning in itself isn't necessarily a matter of concern, all tires will hydroplane, but knowing your tires characteristics will help to keep you safer. I'll go out on a limb here and say I felt and would feel (if I was running one currently) just as safe riding on a DS tire as I would on a MC tire in the rain.
varyder, lol... The Vision does most certainly perform well in all weather conditions. I'd say you could hop on just about any of the new Full Dressers and find similar handling characteristics. Some of that is tire tech improvements, some suspension and frame. Regardless bikes sure have come a long way in 40+ years. |
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Visionary
Posts: 1484
LaPorte,Tx. | Anyone out there with the car tire on a Vision and how does it handle between 100 and 120 mph. Anyone been at 100 on a long sweeper and if so, how did the Vision handle it? |
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Tourer
Posts: 388
Salisbury, NC | Reading this post there is a lot of talk about the hydroplane issue. Can someone explain the benefits of going DS? It seems that handling in the corners would not be good with such a flat surface tire. I suppose for just highway riding it might be ok. Don't know because I never tried it.
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Ca. VISN NV
I think your question here is how the tire corners, with a radial tire the sidewall does a lot of the work. The contact patch stays on the ground because the sidewall swells on one side when you go into a turn. Hope this helps with your thinking that the tire stands on its edge when going through a curve when in reality the contact patch stays flat on the ground. ET |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | Teach - 2010-05-23 9:06 AM
exharley, well keep bouncing the DS around some more. As I said it does for all SCIENTIFIC purposes hydroplane more but due to the wider contact patch will feel more stable. Just ride at a safe speed for conditions (all based on the individual). As stated earlier, the hydroplaning in itself isn't necessarily a matter of concern, all tires will hydroplane, but knowing your tires characteristics will help to keep you safer. I'll go out on a limb here and say I felt and would feel (if I was running one currently) just as safe riding on a DS tire as I would on a MC tire in the rain.
varyder, lol... The Vision does most certainly perform well in all weather conditions. I'd say you could hop on just about any of the new Full Dressers and find similar handling characteristics. Some of that is tire tech improvements, some suspension and frame. Regardless bikes sure have come a long way in 40+ years.
what was I thinking? I should have bought a Harley. I've been duped by my own butt.
Edited by varyder 2010-05-23 10:43 AM
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| varyder, did you really want to go down the cynical path? Thought your last response was in regards to tire, suspension and handling performance and not your butt. Yep I just reread your post again and your BUTT wasn't mentioned anywhere, BUT it is showing now. I'm beginning to think some harley dude must have picked on you real bad when you were younger, since the best to my recollection you've never owned one for which you can speak from experience. Careful dude you are beginning to sound just like those guys you detest.
So here is a suggestion: If you cannot have a civil conversation, move along to another post.
ets, the advantage to the DS tire really lies in it's longevity. Instead of 10k miles on a MC tire you could run a DS around 30k. There are other benefits depending upon your riding habits. For example tire load isn't a factor with the DS. Because the contact patch is a little wider straight line riding requires less input. Basically it is NOT a great deal different than the MC tire you are running in other respects.
The first guys to really run DS tires in any quantity were the Valk riders. Since they would only get 4-5k per rear tire, riding became very expensive for tire changes. A few guys reasoned that car tires had been used on bikes in previous decades so they would probably still work. Of course they do so word got passed around and tada other makes and models followed suite. 10 years ago you'd have seen DS tires on Valks and Goldwings almost to exclusivity, now you see them on just about any bike with a rear wheel wide enough to accomodate the tire width. Heck I've seen them on Suzuki intruders. What I have NOT heard is anyone getting hurt running them.
Finally my apologies to the folks reading this post for the reply to varyder. Sorry but I won't be pushed around by anyone, not on a website or in person. I always strive to remain civil, unfortunately that can lead folks to believe they can walk on others. Again my apology. |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | I certainly won't deny bikes have come along way and I've not owned many bikes. The vision is a totally different design of the tubed framed out there, and by that fact says it will handle different. Having sat on many bikes though I've not had the inkling of riding away on one though I've rode a harley or two. In every regard the Vision to me, and me alone has it proven itself. That is something you cannot speak for me on. Sorry if you think I'm getting cynical but it seems to me you try to say what folks are to feel or think, and though most will stay quiet about it, people have to see for themselves which is the way I have learned most of my life. Listening to someone else tell me how I ought to feel or be has never sat well with me ever. I've spoken my perspective on most issues but have come to the conclusion that some would debate that. I do not believe there is a single other bike out there that I could have done the things that I've done on the Vision and not have to wipe myself when doing it. That doesn't prove anything, just I've learned where my limits are.
Edited by varyder 2010-05-23 12:52 PM
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Visionary
Posts: 1436
| Nope varyder you ain't turning this around to be about me. We have been having a very civil conversation about tire choices and NOWHERE in here have I told ANYONE what they should or should not feel/think, NOR have I chosen to speak for anyone but myself. I'll also point out I stated you could hop on just about any full dresser today and find SIMILAR handling characteristics BASED on improvements in technologies...... You my Victory cheerleader friend decided to go all cynical and talking about your butt and buying a HD.
So either you have a PROBLEM where you've just attempted to beat someone down on the board again (you'll find I cannot be), OR you can't read, YOU choose. However I will not allow you to turn this into a post about ME trying to tell anyone about how they should feel/think.
I will however congratulate you for dragging another worthy post into the toilet.
Again I apologize to the other members, who through no fault of their own have been subjected to this back and forth. It was not my intent to get into a pissing contest while responding to the topic. |
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Visionary
Posts: 8144
New Bohemia, VA | oh Songfan, do you need a pic of me in my cheerleading outfit? |
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Tourer
Posts: 388
Salisbury, NC | <p>varyder, could you please leave the cheerleading outfit in the closet. After seeing you in person, that thought about the outfit would be distasteful. I'm just saying.... ET</p><p>PS: My CT has 16000 on it and still looks new.</p>
Edited by etspastimes 2010-05-23 4:14 PM
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car tire?
