General Biking Discussion Approved.

Typical show off , it does more harm than good, mileage power and sprocket life goes for a toss, its like you paying money to downgrade your performance and mileage.

am totally agreed to you brother .....and even spoils bikes looks too some time ..

+1 to your opinion guys...
me also a week ago tried putting dunlop monster 130-90
as the rear tyre for my girl cbz classic. but just in two days
i feel like that my bike was even not touching the top-end.
usually it goes till 115km but was not even touching 100km
so next day itself i replaced that monster with IRC 110-90..
moreover fitment of fat tyre needs many other adjustments
like rear shockers needs to be adjusted.
swing arm needs to be adjusted.
ride quality was almost f**ked up bacause of adjustments....!!!
and now i am pretty satisfied with the stock.
so me to i will never go for any fat tyres.

Jatin_cbz

A bike is best, with its stock tyre setup, any alternation is waste of money and may harm engine, handling and geometry of the bike. Having said that, it depends purely on usage and power of bikes. A 220, in my opinion is the most stable at high speeds. At the same time R15 tyres provide unparalleled grip on track.
Thus a fat tyre if provided by manufacturer is bound have it's positive points, but modifying is purely show off. A 150CC will be ruined, the most common bike genre people prefer to mod!

fat tyres are important.. what is lacked physically is made up by visual appeal... ive had people claiming their bike does 130 + ( cbz) after fitting a fatter tyre. I laugh and tell em maybe they have a faulty meter, it should be more like 65!!!

Total waste of time and energy and not to mention screwing up your bike. One upsize is understood, that you can sacrifice moderately for better grip. But going the full monty with "choda tyre" is unbelievable.

IMHO, most of the bikes available are in the country are commuter oriented and some are even 'Power commuters'. But fact of the matter is that the companies are trying to achieve the best between performance and mileage and thus the choice towards skinnier tyres. And even the compounds are optimised for longer life than performance.
@ Topic starter: Hope it answers your question

As a tip, while upsizing, keep in mind the aspect ratio of the tyre. For eg, if the CBZ, which has a standard 100/90 tyre, (means tyre width is 100mm and wall width is 90mm) is fitted with a 130/90 tyre, the tyre is gonna be huge and totally ruin the looks as well as the handling and the mileage. Best is to upsize by one size and go for a lower aspect ratio. Eg, the FZ16 tyre is 140/60, thus making it look good and perform well.

In the case of the CBZ your calculation is correct, because the tyre width is 100mm, and the side wall is 90.

- But the side wall height is represented as a percentage of the width, not in mm.

so 90% of 100mm will be 90 mm, but for a 110mm, you would need a 110/80 to get a 88mm sidewall height ( keeping the overall Diameter of the tyre constant).

I agree.
But I would like to add that ''A bike is best with its stock tyre size setup''

One can go for a soft compound tyre if he's not satisfied with the hard compound or vice-versa.
Depend's on how and where the person is using his bike.

For instance, In My Openion RTR's company fitted tyre really suxx. These tyres cannot support the full potential of the bike, so upgradation is must.

On the other hand look of R15 tyres is favourite subject of its critics. But it does its job exceptionally well and provides superb grip.

So again I would repeat that stock tyre size is best suited for bike, compound choice differs from person to person.

And if one is really unhappy with his tyre size then upgrading to only one size bigger is preffered. Anything more will ruin the performance.

Shanz

They give a particular tyre size keeping in mind various factors. Usage factors and also bike's other components/factors like power, torque, sprockets, chain, etc. All these components interact to provide a single experience. A small change in any of these and a chain reaction is triggered of.

Anybody with systems perspective/testing experience will be able to relate to what I said hopefully.

One size upgradation or buying a soft compound is understandable. But plonking those huge tyres on our puny 'performance' bikes

That kid who burns the existing tyre to get a new tyre has a lot to learn in life. First among them is to respect his parents hard earned money

Right NitinGirish.

@ Shanz

Can you please put on more light about making choice between hard & soft compound?

Soft compound provides better grip but wears out faster than hard compound tyres.

Do we need fatter tyres?
No. Read below.

Are fatter tyres better?
Depends...
A 150cc race bikes have much much fatter tyres than a 150cc commuter bikes. Now those race bikes will not be using fat tyres if the are not better. However it should be noted that race bikes are also much more powerful and the entire bike is designed for performance.
150cc commuters are designed for ...eerr commuting, they are meant to be economical and affordable at all levels. Price, FE etc. A fat tyre will only serve to kill the purpose it is designed for. However, IF a commuter bike is well designed to use fatter tyres, it WILL perform better in term of safety and handling. e.g. FZ16. Now try putting a skinny tyres in FZ16 and see how it performs. Safety & handling may go down while FE may increase.

Hence, I would not give an absolute NO to fatter tyres even for commuters. One step up (e.g. 100 to 110) can infact be more benificial in term of safety given the same type of compound. Yes, you will have to sacrifice a little bit of mileage for safety. Depends on which you think is more important.

Often, the problem is overdoing them. A 140 - 160 section on a bike designed to run on 100. These people has to do modification to fit in these tyres without proper knowledge on the entire setup. Of course you will get one screwed up bike.

^^that's where problem arises my friend ... the people who are seeing\suffering srs side effects of such mods are just modifed without any knowledge of mechanics of bike and end up using a not only fatter but bigger tyre as well ... so all the internal components of engine as well as sprockets those specified to run at particular spec of tyre [read tyre diameter] end up wearing much faster whereas if u spend some time to ur bike and observe the construction of bike u might be able enjoy aesthetic part of story as well with minimalistic side effect [non smtime]...

so with my experience of such mod i probably would like to have fatter tyre on my bike bcoz it not only gives confidence on indian road [not just cornering confidence on plain nice tarmac ] .. but adds to safety and control as well . i can recall many incidents where a fatter tyre help me to regain control of bike .. for eg. if u drive into send-heap on road some how front tyre which is thinner, looses much of its control whereas a fatter rear tyre just glides over it and u came out nice and balanced thus saving a potential fall on road.

it provide much better balace when u skid with sudden braking [read fishtailing]

with proper sprocketing u might have better topend then a previous setup... lol i m doing 125 kmph with a 17" now whareas i was not going above 120 with 3-18.