Newbie experience of first time replaced rear tyre

[darren_uk]

I'm writing this hoping that it might help someone else.




I've had my Yamaha FZR600 2003 model for 4 months and it needed a new rear tyre.




I've had one of these fitted as I'm a commuter:
http://www.ityre.com/en/tyres/catalog/avon/model/21381/
Avon AV56 Storm AT 2 Ultra [/color]160/60ZR17 - pumped to 40psi[/font]



I'd heard about new tyres being very slippery and so I was naturally worried.   I work with a colleague whose only motorcycle accident was when he'd just put a new rear tyre on and he lost it on the first corner.  I heard from the place that fitted my tyre that they see so many people losing it as they leave their place.




So I was worried, especially given I'm still a newbie to bikes:  despite having a licence for 2 years I was a Sunday only cruiser (ex Midnight Star owner) and it's only been these last 4 months that I've needed to commute.  I've done 2500 miles these last 4 months.






I left the tyre fitter today and went for a ride.




And nothing happened.   I've just done 30 miles and absolutely nothing.   I ought to mention that I am a bit of a granddad when I drive so perhaps that had something to do with it:   I only open it up on straights; but come back down again to take corners probably with less than a 10 degree lean angle - or at least that's how it feels.




25 miles into the ride I stopped and looked at the state of my rear tyre.   It looks like I'm just riding on half of the tread - so I'm not leaning over very much.  the outer two quarters look untouched.






So there you have it:  if my newbie, worrying experience is helpful:   it seems that you don't need to ride as if you're on an ice-rink - just ride conservative as I do anyway.




Hope this helps.

[His Dudeness]

yeah just take it handy for the first 20ish miles especially if its wet and gradually increase your lean angle until the shiney new surface is scrubbed away.

[darrsi]

The worst scenario is a new tyre and rain after a dry spell.
Common sense is the main thing, take things very easy, you'll eventually feel when the tyre is good to chuck about!

[hadyoursister]

Same situation here, first new tyres a month ago and I was very nervous about throwing it around bends but didn't take long to get the tyre worn and now it's like riding on rails

[blue_faz600]

I have heard all these stories about slippery tires when new, and I think it's a bit of scare mongering joking!
Common sense is the key here! If you lean it all the way over and try to full throttle with a new set of tyres you will lose the rear, similar with the front but main due to too much speed into corner with biggish lean! On a 600 with modern rubber on a dry day mild temperature, 20-30 miles and I have full confidence in the amount of grip available!

Numerous techniques help scrub in tyres, which I do religiously each new set!

1) accelerate and brake in a straight line gradually increasing harshness of throttle opening and pressure on front brake lever until your pretty much full throttle acceleration in first for a couple of seconds, then almost emergency stopping with the brakes! This does 2 things, generates heat in both tyres and scrubs the centre line of the tyres! Once you have confidence in how much grip is available whilst doing this, then move on to stage 2.

2) now tyres are warm, find a nice road with moderate flowing speed. Tip into first corner with very little amount of lean, and make sure your throttle is open and balanced to ensure good weight distribution and then accelerate out of the corner. Increase the angle of lean equally on both sides and gradually increase the harshness of your throttle openings as well! In about 20-30mins of riding this way, your tyres will be "scrubbed in" and ready for normal duties!

Now, I have never had an issue using these methods, but I am always cautious of new rubber until I know how much grip I have! Just remember to ride within your limits and use common sense you you will be fine!   

I won't accept any liability should you crash whilst using the techniques described above, I am mearly sharing how I scrub my tyres in!

Good luck and ride safe always!

[darrsi]

It's just as common to slide at low speeds whilst cornering with shiny new tyres as there is not as much down force!

[blue_faz600]

That's why I build speed and lean gradually and only progress further with said speed and lean once I am certain I know how much grip I have available at the previous speed and lean angles

Plus once you've scrubbed in a few set of tyres you get to know when the releasing agent (or whatever that glossy sheen on a brand spanking new tyre is) has been scrubbed off, then it's only a matter of heat in the rubber to provide the grip! 

Newbies will learn this and probably will adapt their own comfortable way of making sure this process is completed to give confidence which only knowing how much grip you have available at any given time can give

[JZS 600]

There's an excellent article by Bridgestone somewhere in the forum about scrubbing in new tyres.
 
Now where is it,,,,,,,,, must have a look

[JZS 600]

I've recently been contacted by a couple of visitors to the Fazer Owners
Club site. They had been reading the threads concerning tyres and had become
confused about which Bridgestone tyres were best for whatever purpose, and
also what the difference is between the BT-020U and the BT-020NT for the
FZS1000. So I thought I'd send you the full details on Bridgestone UK's
tyres for Fazers, along with a couple of other bits of information your
visitors may find useful.

As you probably know, there is more rubbish talked about tyres than anyother motorcycle product - I've lost count of the amount of riders I've spoken to who know more about what makes a bike handle than our development riders, some of whom are former GP riders! Some of the threads that I've
read on various sites over the years have left me amazed - some of the claims that owners have made for Brand-X tyres in comparison to Brand-Y tyres go completely against all in-house and independent testing that I have the results of. So I thought I'd try and clear a way through the clutter and
give you the definitive, official Bridgestone UK line on our motorcycle rubber for Fazers. If you abide by this information you will have no handling problems, if you listen to the bloke down the pub who thinks he knows better, you will have problems. Trust me when I say that if the information the bloke down the pub gives you differs from this information,
he does not understand tyres and how they work.

Choose the correct tyre:

I'll start with the one thing that many riders overlook - just because a tyre is available in the sizes to fit your bike it doesn't necessarily mean that it will suit your bike...not all tyres are suitable for all bikes. For details on this see my comment below about the BT-010 and the FZS1000. The
BT010 is the UK's, if not the world's, most popular sports tyre, and if we don't approve it's fitment on the FZS1000 there must be a good reason. The same goes for other tyres in our range - the BT-012SS fast road/track day tyre is too "full-on" for the FSZ1000, the new BT-012 gives more than enough
grip for this bike, even for track day use. None of the major tyre manufacturers approve the fitting of their entire range of tyres for every bike, and this stands to reason - why should we expect an extreme-performance tyre to offer its best when fitted to a bike that was developed for general all-round riding? It's more important to choose the tyre that best suits your needs and the bike's purpose. E.g. If you're going
on a European jaunt the BT-020 sports touring tyre would be a better choice than the BT-010 or BT-012 sports tyres. If you use your bike for transport as well as fun the BT-020 would again be the best choice. But if all you use your bike for is fun and the occasional track day you should probably choose the BT-010 or BT-012.

Grip:

Don't worry about the grip available from your tyres. This may not be something you're used to hearing, but grip isn't omething you should beworrying about - let us do that for you. The grip level available from the latest sports touring tyres, such as our BT-020, is comparable with full-on
sports tyres of just five years ago. So don't worry about grip, we've already got that sorted, concentrate more on what type of tyre suits your purposes, and for that information see above. And don't focus too much on the compound - there's a lot more to how a tyre grips the road than just the compound.

If your tyre slips, don't automatically blame the tyre. Think about where it happened - was the road surface contaminated, was it on a greasy roundabout,was the road surface worn out? If the road surface is not contaminated
modern tyres give plenty of warning before they slide and if you've ignored those warning signs you can't really blame the tyres.

Running tyres in:

Running tyres in takes approximately 100 miles and involves more than simply scrubbing-in the tread surface of the tyre. When tyres come out of the mould they have a smooth surface and to obtain optimum grip levels this smooth
surface needs to have it's entire surface scrubbed-in and the best way to achieve this is not to rub the surface with emery paper, but to go for a ride. The first few miles should be spent riding upright so that you have a broad band in the centre that has been scrubbed-in. You can then start
increasing your angle of lean while always keeping a portion of the scrubbed-in area in contact with road. Scrubbing-in can be achieved by an experienced rider in as few as 10 miles, but this does not mean that your tyres will be fully run-in. Running tyres in also involves seating the tyre on the wheel, and this is not achieved simply by fitting the tyre to the
wheel. Running-in also allows all of the components of the tyre to seat in against one another - by overheating a new tyre you can cause lasting damage that means the tyre may not achieve its optimum mileage. While running-in new tyres you should not subject them to hard acceleration or braking
forces.

One final point: Contrary to popular opinion BRIDGESTONE DOES NOT USE RELEASING AGENT ON ITS MOTORCYCLE TYRES. New tyres feel slippery because they are very smooth when they come out of the mould - see above. Riders who
crash on new tyres often try to blame releasing agent for the accident, but if we don't use releasing agent how can this be? Actually, very few people crash on new tyres, most riders are conscientious when running-in their new tyres, but the vast majority of those who do crash on new tyres usually
admit to leaning their bike over at low speeds - junctions and slow roundabouts are the most popular places. Think about it: when travelling at low speed and leaning over there is very little force acting upon a tyre to help it grip the road. Add in a brand new, smooth tread surface and you have a recipe for a sudden slide.

Mixing tyres:

There is absolutely no point in mixing tyres on the same bike. e.g. BT-010 front with BT-020 rear.

In the case of FZS600 owners, many did it because the 110/70ZR17 BT-020 was not available until early 2003 and if they wanted to use a BT-020 sports touring tyre on the rear they had no other choice. The problem with fitting this mixed pair on this particular bike is that stability is not as good as
with a matched pair of BT-010s or BT-020s. And this just highlights the possible pitfalls when fitting mixed tyres on any bike - if one type of tyre is designed as a smooth handling, totally neutral sports touring tyre and the other is designed as a rapid steering, ultra responsive tyre, why should we expect them to work together? If a bike doesn't handle when fitting mixed tyres it's not going to be the tyre's fault.

But the main reason why riders fit mixed tyres is to supposedly benefit from having a grippier tyre on the front while getting sensible mileage from the rear tyre. Well...we kinda know this. We are, after all, the biggest tyre manufacturer in the world and we really do know what we're doing. We know that the demands placed on a front tyre are different to the requirements of the rear tyre, and that is why the compound of our front tyres is different to the compounds of our rear tyres. So the front BT-020 compound is different to the rear BT-020 compound and the front BT-010 compound is different to the rear BT-010 compound, etc., etc., all the way through our various ranges of tyres. Now that you have this information you can see that it's pointless mixing tyres, Bridgestone is already giving you what you want when you fit a matched pair of our tyres

[noggythenog]

Loving the latest post by jzs,answers allot of questions,makes perfect sense that you always keep a bit of the scrubbed tyre in contact at all times,in my head i had somehow imagined that you would be rolling over a fresh bit of tyre each time without a scrubbed bit being in contact.


I do wonder how easy it is in practice to actually know that you have a scrubbed bit in contact until its too late,i suppose it isnt really,just one of those things that if you think about it too much you end up riding all wrong.


My brother in law was such a wuss over this that he asked someone else to scrub the tyres in for him,what a gimp!


Something thats still puzzling me a tad is that based on the thinking of if you overcook it in a corner you should just lean in further and further and that for most people the tyre limit wont be found, if this happens and you are basically taking the tyre further than you have ever before then surely you are going directly on to a piece of un scrubbed tyre and liable to slide off?, again people dont seem to have too many problems, just theoretical stuff to worry about whilst not actually riding and drinking too much coffee!, coffee coffee gimme more coffee!

[darrsi]

The unwritten rule is that if you overcook a bend you keep your eyes on where you need to go, and for some weird reason you will actually end up there unscathed, with a bit of luck thrown in.
Whereas if you look where you don't want to go, there's a good chance you'll end up there instead, on your arse! 
Leaning in further actually involves turning the handlebars in the wrong direction, away from where you want to go. Easiest way to comprehend this is by the way a speedway rider corners bends.
 

[Buzz]

A bit cheesy but filled with loads of info...helped me a lot in any case.

Twist of the Wrist II

[noggythenog]

Cheers darsi,im gonna remember that one, ive been using that technique for general cornering but in a time of crisis its certainly allot simpler than turning/leaning/countersteering etc, just look and go and paint your pants brown while your at it.