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I just swapped to the E3 in the rear after almost 4000 miles on the stocker. There was still a little left, but I'm riding to Sturgis in just over a week. Don't want to chance a worn out tire, especially 2 up.
I hear of a lot of people running different tire pressures than 36/42 as recommended. Riding 2 up at least half the time, and with an E3 out back, what pressures?? Most people that talk about running less pressure don't mention 2 up or single.
This is what I base my cold pressure on,, "more or less". You might need different cold pressures depending on whether you plan to ride solo or 2 up,,, or not,,. It would depend upon what final pressures you're getting.
I'd start at 38 cold, which should be safe and adjust from there.
From Larry Kelly on the Ducati.net List Determining Best Tire Pressures
You'll get a lot of opinions on what tire pressure to run, but the correct tire pressure for you is not a matter of polling other rider's opinion. Here are the basics you'll need to decide for yourself.
Start with the bike manufacturer's recommendation in the owners manual or under-seat sticker. This is the number they consider to be the best balance between handling, grip and tire wear. Further, if you're running alloy wheels on poor pavement, consider adding 2 psi to the recommended tire pressure just to reduce the likelihood of pothole damage. Just as you would for a car, increase the pressure 2 psi or so for sustained high speed operation (or 2-up riding) to reduce rolling friction and casing flexing. Check your tire pressure regularly as they say.
In order to get optimum handling a tire has to get to its optimum temperature which is different for each brand of tire. Most of us don't have the equipment needed to measure tire temperature directly so we measure it indirectly by checking tire pressure since tire pressure increases with tire temperature. Tire temperature is important to know because too much flexing of the casing of an under-inflated tire for a given riding style and road will result in overheating resulting in less than optimum grip. Over-pressurizing a tire will reduce casing flexing and prevent the tire from getting up to the optimum operating temperature and performance again suffers. Sliding and spinning the tires also increase tire temperatures from friction heating.
A technique for those wanting to get the most out of their tires on the street is to use the 10/20% rule.
First check the tire pressure when the tire is cold. Then take a ride on your favorite twisty piece of road. Then, measure the tire pressure immediately after stopping. If the pressure has risen less than 10% on the
front or 20% on the rear, the rider should remove air from the tire. So for example, starting at a front tire pressure of 32.5 psi should bring you up to 36 psi hot. Once you obtain this pressure increase for a given rider, bike, tire, road and road temperature combination, check the tire pressure again while cold and record it for future reference.
Each manufacturer is different. Each tire model is different. A tire design that runs cooler needs to run a lower pressure (2-3 psi front) to get up to optimum temperature. The rear tire runs hotter than the front tire, road and track. So the rear tire cold-to-hot increase is greater. Dropping air pressure has the additional side effect of scrubbing more rubber area.
When I used the tire pressures recommended by Ducati (32.5F/36R) for my 916 on my favorite road, I got exactly 10/20% on a set of Bridgestone BT-012SS. So I guess I'm an average rider and the BT-012SS runs at an average operating temperature compared to other brands.
For the track you'll have to drop the cold tire pressures an additional 10/20%. Track operation will get tires hotter (increasing the cold-to-hot pressure range) so starting at say 32/30 psi now should bring you up to the
same temperature (and pressure) that 35/39 psi gave you for the street.
Don't even think about running these low track cold pressures on the street.
Finally, dropping tire pressures on street tires for track use has its limitations, so street compound tires on the track often get too hot and go beyond sticky to greasy. That's why you have race tires. Race tire compounds are designed for severe operation at these higher temperatures for a limited
number of thermal cycles. On the other hand, race tire on the street usually won't get up to the appropriate temperature for good performance. At street speeds, the race compound often won't perform as well as a street tire.
Larry Kelly
'95 916
There may be other methods for deriving starting pressures. This happens to be the one I follow.
Does this apply to nitrogen filled tires, since nitrogen is an inert gas?
One of the major benefits of nitrogen filled tires is exactly that it maintains its set pressure despite of generated heat caused by friction or ambient temps. Or loads.
Same if ambient temps frop down to sub freezing.
Edit; okay, went and reD up up nigrogen fills Nd it seems as though nigrocilled tire will reauire adjustment to compensate for changes in ambient temps. But will maintain consistent pressure when in service despite driving condition albeit loaded or extreem friction
Last edited by splattttttt; Jul 30, 2016 at 10:02 PM.
ChromeSpark, if you use the Larry Kelly method for determining cold tire pressures for your bike, extraneous matters like the minuscule difference N2 could possibly make will be automatically accounted for. Only high/low "temperatures" for whatever gas mix is in the tire are considered and you adjust initial pressures based on that.
I plan on going within the next few years on my Breakout. I'll definitely have a crap ton of pics!
I took mine to the 2014 Sturgis rally. The rally sucks, imo, after a brief walk around pick a road to the coast and ride it all the way to San Francisco. Time well spent!
I took mine to the 2014 Sturgis rally. The rally sucks, imo, after a brief walk around pick a road to the coast and ride it all the way to San Francisco. Time well spent!
Damn, I've never been to Sturgis and that doesn't sound very promising.
A buddy and I are riding up to tail of the dragon first week of October if any other breakout riders wanna meet up for part of it. 2000 mile trip for me, starting in south Louisiana up to Deal's Gap, over to Nashville to catch the Natchez Trace all the way back south and home. (Hence, the bullet fairing pics earlier in the thread). Got a cheap tour-pak for that ride.. pics will come soon enough of the blasphemy I will create! I expect plenty of flaming for it.
I'm running the Avon Cobra 250. I've had the Metz 240, 260 and the Dunlop Elite lll 240, 250 and the Avon 240, 250 on a couple of previous bikes.
The Avon is every bit as good as the others in warm to hot weather. I got caught in a huge rain storm Friday while on my way home from work and the Avons didn't slip or slide at all. I obviously didn't push it hard but I didn't drive at a crawl either. I was able to keep up with traffic on the Interstate.
Wear wise my experience is that the Avon's mileage is a little bit better than the Dunlop and quite a bit better than the Metz.
It's grip and handling is excellent!
Where the Metz falls behind is when the temperatures start falling. It's grip decreases compared to the other two.
Obviously that won't be a factor to those of you have minimal climate changes.
Hope this info helps.
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Feb 13, 2015, 01:41 PM
