Question: Tire balancing in the middle of nowhere
 

Hello,

I wanted to ask, if you´re stucke in far away from any civilistation how do you guys balance a changed tire? As far as i understand it a not balanced tire will ripp your bike apart and only a tool shop can balance a tire or are those only myths?

I´m only an interessted beginner, who worries a lot

It won't rip your bike apart, it will just be uncomfortable and vibrate a bit. You can get it balanced at a tire shop when you find one.

It's also possible to balance a motorcycle tire in a basic garage (if you have weights) - see here: https://youtu.be/dAKIuSjPXxA?t=464 But of course a computerized balancing stand is better.

Just do something like the bloke in the video does. It doesn't have to be that close. I do mine whenever wheels are out by using the wheel spindle on two axle stands but you could use a couple of chairs. I've even used my panniers in the past.

For 'in the field' balancing get the spindle more or less horizontal and spin the wheel gently. Watch when it slows down and stops. If it just slowly comes to a stop, do nothing, that's close enough. If it oscillates back and forth before settling attach some kind of weight (temporarily with tape) directly opposite and repeat until the wheel stops more or less at random. I've used loads of stuff as weights over the years - nuts and bolts, old wheel weights from tyre depots etc. You'll need to fix whatever weight you end up with in place afterwards and how to do that safely may be something you'll have to think about. Proper wheel weights are best as you don't want them flying off at speed but they may not be easy to get.

As a rule of thumb with travel bikes (lowish speeds and spoked wheels) you won't notice anything under about 20gms at any speed. Over 50gms and increasingly over 60mph you will start to feel it - especially if you have different sized wheels with both of them over 50gms out as the vibration goes in and out of phase. I once had an unbalanced rim lock (over 100gms) on one wheel on a trip of a few hundred miles. It gave me double vision over about 60mph and the vibration eventually broke a silencer mounts. 100gms is a huge amount though, far more than you'd get from a tyre change.

If you're riding a sports bike don't mess around with diy. Get it done properly.

Solder wrapped tight around one or more spokes works well for permanent wheel weights. Also, it's reusable. Used it in the 1970's, and even now solder is currently on my spoke wheeled moto.

The above mentioned balancing methods work good enough. I don't rebalance the wheel after repairing a flat on the road. I mark the tire at the air valve before breaking the bead. When remounting it, using my mark, I mount the tire where it originally was on the rim before inflating it.

The vast majority of people wouldn't feel or realise their wheels are out of balance. I've fitted hundreds of tyres using levers and tyre machines on every kind of bike you can imagine. And used all kinds of fancy balancing machines.

Here are some facts:

You only really feel an out of balanced tyre at high speed on highways.

You really only feel it on your front wheel.

If you have knobblies, you really won't even notice.

If you have a shaft or single siding swing-arm, you really won't need the rear doing.

A tyre is AT MOST 50 grams out of balance. (Usually its about 10-20 grams). If a tyre is more than 80 grams out of balance, it's classed as a manufacturing fault by most manufacturers.

So pretty much a blob of crap stuck to your tyre throws the balance off more than a lack of balance weight.

In a nutshell, if you're riding a dual sport bike with long suspension and knobbly tyres with some luggage on it, don't even think about it and carry on riding.

If you're riding a Ducati at 90mph down a motorway then you 'Might' feel an out of balance tyre if you have very firm suspension.

If you have tyre pressure sensors which weight 50 grams alone, then you should probably balance the wheel.

It would be wrong of me to say you shouldn't balance your wheels.

But you really don't need to worry about it either.


A tyre usually has a colour paint mark on the tyre which shows where you should line it up with the valve.

This is OPPOSITE the heaviest part of the tyre. So you're already balancing it out against the valve.

I never knew that. Is it true of motorbike tyres as well?

:eek: Absolutely, on all tires, various colours - if there is no dot, the tire is "balanced" from the factory to within a small tolerance. Dot to the valve.

See my Achievable Dream Tire Changing DVD or downloadable Video!

Yup..

I'm not 100% sure if no paint mark is a sign of a tyre that doesn't need balancing though.

It maybe true but I wouldn't trust it. Because the paint marks are very easily removed or worn off.

I’m comfortable that it’s true for NEW tires, past that all bets are off. Of course don’t forget that means the TIRE is balanced but your WHEEL and DISK and valve stem are NOT. Therefore you do still have to balance the ASSEMBLY. Some people like to pre-balance the bare wheel then adjust as needed if needed for the tire.

Nothing to worry about unless you are riding at high speeds (over 60 MPH / 100 km/h).

I've changed tires on my Honda ST 1100 - a heavy, high-speed touring bike - at sites in Africa where there were no facilities to balance the tire. On one occasion only, I noticed that I had an out-of-balance problem (vibration) at speeds above 80 MPH (130 km/h), so, I just stayed below that speed until I could remove the wheel and balance it.

All the other times, I didn't notice a problem at all - I just left the existing weights in place when I installed the new tire on the wheel.

Grant makes a good point - balancing the entire wheel assembly (the metal rim and tire together) is what matters. After having bought well over 40 tires for my motorcycle during the past 20 years, I've noticed that when a shop does balance the wheel when a new tire is installed, the balance weights are almost always in a very similar position to where they were for the previous tire. This suggests to me that the metal rim is more likely to be the out of balance problem than the rubber tire.

As for "where the dot" goes on tires that are marked with a balance dot, it is my understanding that you line the dot up with the valve stem. This is also the advice given by Yokohama and Dunlop, two major manufacturers of motorcycle tires. I suspect that all tire manufacturers follow the same protocol.

Michael

i usually don't even bother as my all bikes have knobies although my ktm 500 exc-f needs balancing just because they put rim lock next to the valve so anything above 60km/h is not comfortable.

See the attached pic. Both tires have the yellow dot.