Going to the Darkside

[mrflamewerks]

I'm have decided to go the the Darkside with my '99 Standard, and have pretty much settled on the Goodyear Assurance Triple Tread 205/60R16, H rated tire. Can those of you who are using this tire offer me any suggestions?

[mrflamewerks]

Found a shop on the west side of Puget Sound who will "mount any tire you want" on a Valk wheel (useful info for anyone else on the Kitsap Peninsula). It's MaxRPM in Bremerton. I'll be Darksiding mine by the end of next week.

[Sludge]

Welcome to the club.  Here have a cookie 

[mrflamewerks]

Thanx for the cookie. Now I get to remove the rear wheel off a machine for which I have no manuals.  I hope they're similar to early 'Wings.

[Valker]

Download the manual from Dag's website. Just do a search on this board for "online manual"

[MrBones]

I'm not sure what the big attarction with the car tire is. I get over 20,000 on my E3s. And some of you don't get that much on your car tires, and have to "get used to the handling of the tire" does not comput My tires work just fine. Evan Valker says he has two rear tires. One for the open road (the ct) and one for the twisties. for one are not blessed with two rear tires nor can I change them at will, as I be 75. I wiil stay with and be happy with my MC tires.

[mrflamewerks]

Download the manual from Dag's website. Just do a search on this board for "online manual"

Thanx Valker

[mrflamewerks]

I'm not sure what the big attarction with the car tire is. I get over 20,000 on my E3s. And some of you don't get that much on your car tires, and have to "get used to the handling of the tire" does not comput My tires work just fine. Evan Valker says he has two rear tires. One for the open road (the ct) and one for the twisties. for one are not blessed with two rear tires nor can I change them at will, as I be 75. I wiil stay with and be happy with my MC tires.

The attraction, for me is simple; traction.

I have not been able to find a MC tire on the market that offers the stopping power of a car tire. I commute year around in Seattle. Summertime isn't too bad because it's dry for about three months. Unfortunately, about this time of year, we start to get these spritzy, light rains; the kind of rain that loosens up all the accumulated slippery stuff on the road that makes stopping quickly hazardous. Rain like we had yesterday. Yesterday, which at one point, I nearly got nailed at an intersection, because I couldn't stop in a reasonable distance because both my tires kept locking and putting the bike into a skid. I don't believe I would have had anywhere near the trouble if I had already gone to the Darkside. Having spent many many hours studying the good and bad aspects of this modification, I have come to the conclusion that, for my style of riding, the positive aspects make it worth doing. I'm fortunate in one respect that we own two Valks. One will remain stock, or the control, if you will; while the other becomes the test subject. I'll let you know how the experiment works out.

The one thing I know about this mod? If you don't want to run a Darkside tire, don't. If you think you do, study the c**p out of it so you know what you're getting into. Don't do it because you think it looks cool or Mr. Jones next door did it.

[jj_WA]

Found a shop on the west side of Puget Sound who will "mount any tire you want" on a Valk wheel (useful info for anyone else on the Kitsap Peninsula). It's MaxRPM in Bremerton. I'll be Darksiding mine by the end of next week.

Tiny's in Parkland, WA (next to Tacoma) said he'd mount a car tire.  Still, I went to South Bound Honda in Tacoma for my Avon Cobras -- love 'em so far!

--jj_WA--

[mrflamewerks]

Mounted up a Goodyear Assurance Triple Tread 205/60R16 today and took it for a ride.



Everything went pretty much as has been describe on this forum.

I started out on the ride with the tire at 35 psi. First thing I did was rock the bike side to side at about 25 mph. She definitely wants to stand back up. I then did little swerves at about the same speed. As advertised, you have to hold even the slightest turn or the bike stands up and goes straight. I then drove it about a mile and decided to drop the tire pressure to 30 psi. Drove a couple of more miles and dropped it to 28 psi. Two more miles and I dropped it to 26 psi.  Each time I'd go through the same tests; rocking, swerves, hard acceleration and stops.  I then rode some moderate twisties at fairly low speeds. There is no question you have to manage the bike in the turns. As others have noted before me, as soon as you stop working a corner the bike wants to stand up. Takes some getting used to.

Three items of interest.

As others have said, tire pressure definitely effects the feel of the bike. Lower seems better. I'll be experimenting with this more.

One of the very first things I noticed was the bike feeling like it's "pulling" to the right on a crowned road. This didn't really surprise me, as the "flat" part of the tread would tend to want to lay evenly with the slope in the road and tire want to run "downhill" as a consequence. A minor distraction thus far.

I also noticed something unexpected when I was doing hard rear brake only stops. Unlike a bike equipped with a standard motorcycle tire, which wants to go sideways and out from under you with hard braking, the Darksided bike wants to stand up and go straight. Since one of my primary reasons for going to the Darksided was improved braking, this added benefit was a pleasant surprise. My only concern is this tendency may, under the right circumstances, result in a high side.

This is definitely going to be an interesting experiment, I'm looking forward to it.

[mrflamewerks]

Sunday I went for a ride to Port Townsend (about 150 miles round trip) with the new tire. My wife followed on her Valk and watched how the tire behaved. We started with the CT at 26 psi cold. After driving about 20 miles at highway speed, the warmed up tire pressure was 29 psi. No other changes were made to the bike.

My observations;

The handling characteristics are no more difficult to get accustom to than switching from one model of motorcycle to another. In fact, I find it more difficult to switch back and forth from my son's S1 Buell to my Valk and back than the change from an MC tire to a CT.

On Interstate type highways, there is very little difference in the handling, other than the CT is a lot quieter than the Avon Venom I had on the rear previously. Crowned roads do present a characteristic that I don't care for, and that is the sensation that the bike had a slight pull to the right. It isn't real noticeable, but if I let go of the handle bars, the bike will drift to the shoulder. Banked corners are actually easier to handle, with almost no input from the rider. Twisties do require a little bit more authority than they did with the MC tire, but it becomes an automatic response after a while. Just like any other bike once you're used to the way it handles.

Braking is really supurb on dry pavement. No wet pavement as yet. We had a bright and sunny weekend, so wet roads were pretty scarce.   

My wife made one observation worth noting. With the exception of slow tight turns, the tire’s tread stayed flat on the pavement and the sidewalls flexed accordingly when cornering at posted speeds.

This morning I rode the especially familiar route to work. It has quite a varied combination of roads and pavement conditions.

The first thing I encounter every day is a pavement seam that transitions from cement to asphalt. The cement side is elevated above the contact as much as a half of an inch. This is noticeable with an MC tire. With the CT, it is more pronounced. Speed was about 30-35mph. What follows is patchy uneven asphalt, which at the same speed, tended to rock the bike slightly. The pavement then smoothes out and the road makes three good turns that I took at 45, which is normally working these corners pretty hard and my usual pace. The bike felt very secure in the corners, more so than what I am used to. The turns are followed by a long straight away capped with a slight downhill hard right turn, again taken at my normal pace and feeling very secure with tire bite. The next straight bit of road transitions into a long downhill sweeper onto and across the West Seattle Bridge, nothing special there. That turns into the elevated portion of Spokane Street, which is pretty heavily grooved cement. The CT did tend to track in the grooves more than the MC tire. Exiting onto I-5 at about 35 in third, I popped through the gears and settled at 90, then slowly backing down to 55, exiting a couple of miles later. No noticeable difference in handling or performance. The rest of the ride is on surface streets and nothing special of note.

All in all it was a very informative ride. One general observation in all this is the CT provides for a smoother ride over the MC tire.

[Sludge]

I'm not sure what the big attarction with the car tire is. I get over 20,000 on my E3s.

If you like the bike tires thats fine Bones.  I have a bike tire on the Wing and a CT on the Valk.  I put on the CT simply for more contact patch for the supercharged bike.  As it turns out I liked it just fine.  I dont have any plans for putting one on the Wing, but im not opposed to the thought either.  Truth is that here in the NC mountains, I can only get about 6k out of a bike tire.  Im glad you get 20k out of one, but I cant see how.  I guess im just too rough on my tires or something.  At any rate, the CT that I chose (Yokohama ADVAN A048) doesnt get any more mileage than my bike tires, but its a sticky CT.

[MrBones]

Sludge;

I'm not sure how I got the milage either. Best I ever got in over 60 years riding. Might have something to do with I ride single saddle and only weigh 150 pounds. But it tickles me. Just to set things straight I have absolutly nothing aganst using a CT. I was just wondering the why of it. With your charged bikeI would want the most rubber on the ground that I could get also.

[timk519]

I had E3's on my bike, and they were pushing 20K miles when I replaced the front.

The rear was replaced earlier because I ran into a nail, and the dealer I stopped at wouldn't patch it.

Part of my reason for liking my change to a car tire is the improved traction, the safer stopping, and the CT at 28 lbs rides softer compared to the E3 at 42 lbs. After picking up two nails in as many years, I'm also hoping that a CT'll be a bit more immune to those pesky critters.

[MP]

My Michelin CT now has around 2500 miles on it.  Had a slow leak.  Thought it was a valve stem needing replacing.  Pulled a roofing nail out of it last night, and plugged it!  So, CT's are not immune to nails.
MP