Hi Guy's. Went looking to see what tyre fitter's in my area fit road bike tyres , not many so i found out. Yes , we do have two bike shop's here , but after dealing with both of them not long after i moved here , i stay way clear of both of them. Found one shop here that will fit them , BUT when i mentioned about they need balancing also , the reply i was given surprised me. The fitter commented how long he has fitted bike tyres and never once balanced them , i quickly told him he wont be doing my wheel's then. In over forty year's of riding bikes / getting numerous new tyres fitted to motocross / trial bike / trail bikes / road bikes , no one has ever just fitted the new tyre's without balancing them. I suppose the bike shop's owner's new me very well and knew that my bikes where well looked after. I'm aware bike tyre technology has advanced big time these days , one brand states that there is no need to balance there tyres as long as there dot on the tyre is aligned with the valve. But for me , iv'e had the opposite problem especially in the past. Had a set of wheels rebuilt with new spokes / quality rim's fitted and new Mezteler tyres to be fitted. I had no issues with the back wheel being balanced , it was a easy job , but the front was a bloody nightmare. Thankfully i knew the manager really well and he just left me alone to get it balanced properly via the electronic balancer. In the end i had to keep sliding the tyre around on the rim to get it balanced the best i could without using to many spoke weight's , thankfully being a squirrel i had lot's of O.E different spoke weight's to use if needed. In the end , i nearly got it balanced so well that only a few small weight's where needed. In the end it show's you no matter how good the tyre company makes there tyres , it depends on the wheel that the tyre is being fitted too !. I'm far from being a expert on anything considering the wealth of knowledge we have here , but not balancing a bike tyre !. Out of couriousty i went snooping on the web , one Bike forum mentioned the hassle he had fitting new Michelin Pilot's to a modern bike without fitting heap's of weight's. Just show's you , that balancing is needed. Well , that's my 2 cent's worth. Anyone had any issues with a tyre fitter stating that they don't need to be balanced.
My 2 cents... I've fitted hundreds of sets of tyres during my apprenticeship, and will do thousands more in the years to come. In my previous job we were lucky enough to have an electronic dynamic/static balance machine, which made the job easy. The hardest part was single sided swingarm wheels and getting the right spacers etc to fit the machine. The gold standard is a dynamic balance. Most packs of wheel weights only go down to 5 grams, so if you end up needing 2.5 grams a side you can forget it. Doing at home, or like I do at my current shop, a static balance is pretty easy to good/close enough. Downside - It's not a dynamic balance, tyres' heavy/light spots are not always uniform and centred in the tyre carcass. Sometimes you find a unicorn wheel/tyre combo that needs no balancing at all, either static or dynamic. Seen it several dozen times. Quite often I also find that some wheels/tyres need a lot of balancing. BMW specified that anything over 60 grams total requires removal and rotation of the tyre. I can count on 1 hand the number of times I've had to remove a tyre and spin it 180 degrees to get it to balance, but it does happen. There's also a few ways of thinking about balancing with the rear sprocket assembly or not, for rear wheels. Personally, I never really do it in practice, theoritically you are balancing the whole rotating assembly on the rear so it should be better, right? I don't know the answer. Bottom line... if I were running my own workshop, I would invest in a dynamic balance machine, and if paying for tyres at a big shop / dealer etc I would expect a dynamic balance as part of the job.
Hi Linkin Thank's for your input it's much appreciated and especially the info i wasn't aware of. It's been a very long time since i've had new bike tyres fitted , well you have to ride the bike to wear the tyres out. Funny how you mention BMW wheel's , the wheel's i mentioned regarding the balancing issue was off my old 1976 R90. Glad you touched on balancing the back wheel on a chain driven bike. I thought it would have been good practice to balance the compete back wheel with the rear sprocket carrier intact. I suppose it would depend on how well the rear sprocket carrier / cush drive pad's fitted into the wheel hub , as in a loose fit or a firm fit , mine is a pretty firm fit. I was going to use some electrical tape to hold the rear carrier nice and firmly onto the hub so it get's balanced as one unit. I'll have to ask the shop involved regarding this. What i was told that they only static balance wheel's , but at'least it's better than other shops here not balancing wheel's at all. They purchase the tyre fitting gear but not balancing gear , welcome to living in a country town !. I've started to look on the web for some wheel balancing gear as i could do that myself then in the future.
The latest volume - 3 - of Bradley's excellent "The Racing motorcycle" covers the subject better than anything I've seen before. Including dots from the different manufacturers. Dynamic vs static balancing etc. Basically, the later the cast wheel and quality tyre combo, the less balance adjustment it's likely to need. They have got better. Personally, the first time I struck wheels not needing any adjustment was in the mid 80's. Marvics and Michelin slicks. Found it hard to believe too after years of patiently balancing wheels. If I ever struck a tyre fitting shop who wouldn't balance wheels, I'd never go back there. Very poor business.
Well bit of an update. Look's like the wheel's will be sent to the next town to get the tyres fitted and balanced. The shop mentioned that they only have a few of the crimp style of weight's in stock as they mainly use stick on weight's these day's. I do prefer the crimp on style as in the past i've had stick on weight's fall off. The rim's on the bike have a course finish so un-sure if the stick on weight's will stay in place. So i've been snooping on the web to see if i can purchase a variety of weight's just in case , but so far i can mainly find car weight's / bike spoke weight's. Where are these style of weight's sold ? (picture as below ). Or if any one has a good variety of 2nd weight's , i'd be interested. After all these year's of owning bikes , i've never had any issues getting tyres fitted and balanced , welcome to my town !. Totally agree with you , i thought it was funny that the fitter balances car tyres but not bike tyres .
Repco sell them, they' just standard car wheel weight's http://www.techtyreproducts.com.au/brochures/wheel-weights/index.html
Thank's for the info , much appreciated. When i was looking at the car style of weight's i thought the crimp section would bite into the metal on the rim as the weight's fitted to the bike at the moment has a rolled up section at the end. So i was un-sure , so thought i should ask. I've been youse to having spoked wheel's for over twenty year's , so this is all new to me again.
If the stick on weights staying put is an issue, you could replace the double sided adhesive they use with this stuff - it's what is on gopro adhesive mounts and I get gopros and other action cams to stay put on 500km/hr drag cars and everything else with this stuff https://www.bunnings.com.au/scotch-7-6-x-2-5cm-extreme-double-sided-mounting-strips-8-pack_p3950483 https://www.bunnings.com.au/scotch-2-5cm-x-1-5m-extreme-double-sided-mounting-tape_p3961938 If the weights are too wide for that thin, flat inner surface of the rim, cut them in half and stick the two halves both sides of centre
Hi ruckusman. Thank's for info and the link. I haven't used the stick on weight's with this bike as yet , the rim finish is pretty rough so thought id see if any forum member's had some bike crimp wheel weight's sitting in there shed. I do like the idea of the weight's being in the centre of the rim if all possible. There are some interesting reading on the web over wheel balancing .You'd think we'd be well schooled balancing wheel's by now after all this time , but some stories i've found and the weird issues some people have.
Thats because there are some weird people out there mate hehehhee I read an article the other day that said wheel balancing is mostly a lot of crap, this guy did some tests and reasoned that unless it was way way out, it made stuff all difference. Well, personal experience tells me it is a bit important as I have ridden with an unbalanced front wheel back from Harvey Bay to the Hunter Valley, and on the express way at a 100kph, it was a BIG pain in the but(well fingers and feet anyway) and the first thing I did was re balance it. Mind you it was fine on the outset of the trip, but during the 4000 odd klms it lost the plot my 2 cents worth, take it or leave it
I suppose i'm one of the weird guy's actually talking about balancing wheel's as we've been doing it long enough to get it right. It's funny the different stories i've read over getting new tyres fitted and after getting them balanced at a shop problem's occur with the bike's handling / shimmy etc. I suppose it depend's on the guy doing the job and if he gives a stuff or not on getting it correct. I suppose when you have so much tyre shredding HP and speed on tap , you know , what we have with our SRX's , that balancing is needed !. I've also had one issue with my front tyre while heading on a day ride from Port Macquarie to Bateman's bay. I couldn't see anything wrong with the tyre/pressure , but owning the bike for many year's it just didn't feel right. Made a call and arranged for a new tyre to be fitted , problem gone. I just didn't want any issues that far away from home. As mentioned above in my first post , i've had hand's on experience seeing how far a wheel can be out of balance. You cant tell me that wouldn't effect the handling and smoothness of the bike at speed. Back in the day's some bike owner's never youse to get there back wheel's balanced , but i've alway's have done !. As mentioned in one of my post's when i first signed up with this brilliant forum , i have a original 1984 /85 Yamaha SRX 250 pre -release brochure and the 35mm picture shows weight's fitted to both wheel's from the factory. So Mr Yamaha think's balancing is needed. Well , my 2 cent's have run out.
I always balance both wheels as I have had a bad vibrations years ago traced to a rear wheel out of balance, of course the speed you are doing has a lot to do with it, in my case, up to 100 was perfect, vibrated like buggery to about 120, then smooth as silk, funny stuff vibrations eh? I remember the old honda twins pre balance shaft days, could be smooth as silk in one rev band, send your hands and feet to sleep in no time in another ahhhhh, those were the days..............while we are talking about vibrations(well I am ) I had a XS650 years ago and I read a road test in Two Wheels I think it was, where the guy jokingly said that if you revved the bike to 3k while on its centre stand, it would do about 5kph sideways on the concrete :O well I tried it, and you know, he was bloody close to it hehehehehe
Hi to all Well a bit of a update. Had the new tyres finally fitted and of course both wheel's balanced. It was interesting that the front wheel only needed a small weight and was easily balanced , but the back wheel took a bit more time to get right and a lot more weight was needed. The wheel's where static balanced , as this is what the fitter uses for himself on his bikes. It's been a very long time since i've had road bike tyres fitted and the last time i balanced a wheel was on a electronic balancer as previously mentioned , again a very long time ago. But i've had no hand's on experience at all using a static balancer only what i've seen on the web. Since the back wheel wasn't playing nice , weight wise , and if i owned all of the fitting gear it would have been interesting removing the new tyre and static balanced the bare wheel to see if the wheel itself had a heavy spot. Both tyres had the red dot aligned on the valves so i assume that the rear rim has a heavy spot. Took a few quick pictures , and the new tyres look huge especially the rear , look's like i've gone nut's and fitted a big bad ar-e H.P sapping rear tyre , but i haven't. The original factory sizes are N.L.A ( Front 90/90-16 Rear 100/90-18 ) , so the best sizes can be purchased is , Front 100/90-16 Rear 110/90-18. Please note to the dirty wheel club , this is how your rim's should look like . Would like to show the tyre fitter that commented that you don't need to balance motor bike wheel's and show him what was needed to get the wheel's balanced , but i simply don't think he get's it . Will avoid this business regarding getting car tyres fitted.
Single-step balancing may give you random oddball situation with lots of weight needed. That's because you cannot and should not trust colored dots on new tyres. They are after all, applied manually by humans. I prefer 2-step balancing process where I balance wheel with brake-rotor first. 1. find heavy spot of bare wheel, it's not always at valve-stem 2. balance bare wheel. This removes wheel-balance from equation. Mark heavy spot of wheel. 3. install tyre any which way, spin it and find heavy spot, mark it. How close is it to opposite of yellow dot? 4. remove tyre, remove wheel-balancing weight. 5. Install tyre with its heavy-spot you measured 180-degrees from wheel's actual heavy spot you measured. 6. balance final combo. I've found this procedure requires least amount of weights. Always lower than simply lining up yellow or red dots with valve-stem. Because yellow dots aren't always at lightest spot of tyre and valve-stem is not always heaviest spot on rim. By testing rim and tyre separately, I can usually juggle it so no weight or very minimal amount is needed. I came up with this procedure because Michelin tyres don't have dots. I didn't believe claim that their quality is so good, they won't need balancing. So I mounted tyre on perfectly balanced rim to see how far off Michelin tyres were. They's actually darn good! Most only need 0.25-0.50oz to balance. Sometimes, the wheel is more out-of-balance than the Michelin tyre! Here's why you should balance wheel beforehand and find actual heavy spot.
Yeah, I've found any balancing is better than none. Static is fine on bikes, but takes more time compared to the dynamic machines. I just go do something else after I spin wheel and come back to it later. I haven't noticed any difference between static and dynamic balancing, probably because bike wheels tend to be narrower than cars. Lateral wobbles fixed by dynamic balancing doesn't affect bikes as badly.
