I ran a car tire on my Vulcan 2000 and had no problems.

This guy is anti, but it's still a cool video.

 

Yeah, I saw the video on Youtube. I personally am not surprised that the Darkside doesn't work that well for him, The guy is running a much smaller bike than we are. I also think that the tire he was running was too big for his bike. He had a heck of a time getting it on and that was after he tie wrapped it. Then it took 80 PSI to get it to seat after he did a great job cleaning up the rim.

 

Some bikes have more lean angle than others. Comparing a tires used on a GoldWing or Electraglide to a off road or sport bike will yield different results.

 

What I found interesting was his research on the tire bead....that kills it for me.

 

On a HD Street 750 I am running a Smart Car tire. Granted it is for a Sidecar rig . I did take the sidecar off and run the bike with the car tire for a while. I was surprised at how well it did. I run the same car tire on the sidecar.
155/60 R15. I also run a Car tire on the rear of my RGU rig that works very well. Bead is not an issue on either one of them.

 

I know some will tell you that you can not put a 15 inch car tire on a 15 inch motorcycle wheel. There may be cases where that is true . But this is the 155/60R15 and it works fine.

 

and the CTs that were on Harleys from day one till the mid 50s?
As for the bead difference, yeah, it's different but why does it work?
Still waiting for that first report of a failure. Been waiting since 1978 when I first started using em on my bike.

 

Oh no, the dark side! Won't work, can't do that, you will die a flaming death. Car tire on a motorcycle? Yes it works, and there are plenty on bikes out there running them. They handle as well as a MC tire. Big bikes like Valkyrie's, VTX etc have no issues. You just have to pick the right tire and know what type, size and profile works. If you don't or haven't ever tried it fine.

 

I am not going to argue that car tires are better on a two wheeled bike than a good motorcycle tire . I can only relate my experience. Running two sidecar rigs with out car tires I would go broke buying tires, When I went with a car tire on the HD 750 with a sidecar I was told it could not be done due to the 15 inch wheel. That was soon proven wrong. At the time I mount the tire the sidecar was off . Working on it. I decided to take it for a ride with the car tire and no sidecar on it. With motorcycle tire every time I got on the bike hard from a roll or stop rather than the front end coming up the back tire would spin. With a car tire it did not spin. The bike handled fine, of course I did not enter it in a road race course. I really wanted to know it it would hold a bead. I had a spare wheel so I mounted a used car tire on it and hug it on the wall. To this day it still is holding a bead. After putting the sidecar frame back on the bike I beat the heck out of . Flying the car , hard cornering it it was going to fail it would have, it did not. few videos of it. Latter changing the sidecar on that one to a car tire took some work ,changing axle cutting down a stock Street wheel But it work well. The sidecar now runs the same Car tire the bike does. And it works far better than I expected. So well we converted a friends to the same setup.
On the RGU a much heavier and larger rig. Going to the Car tire on the bike was the best thing I could have done. The sidecar already ran a 13 inch car tire that worked well. I know many that go to a car tire in the new frame HD use a different size but I went with 195/60R16.
The reasons were simple heights is the same as the stock tire. It gave a little more clearance (about 1/2inch) than the 205/55R16 that others seem to use. I took this rig on the dragon last May. Pushed it hard loaded and with someone in the sidecar. Far more stress than you will ever put on a two wheeled bike. never an issue with the bead holding.
On the RGU rig I have replaced the rear sprocket and belt a lot earlier than I would have on two wheels. The cause was not likely the car tire but winter riding it spent a lot of time in salt and winter road condition.

 

It was mentioned in the video. The pneumatic properties keep the tire on the rim. It was also mentioned that the Tire and Rim association (TRA) came up with a standard that each of the problem forces be counteracted by two opposing forces for redundancy. The car tire on a motorcycle rim doesn't have that redundancy in the bead. The problem occures when the tire loses air.
It's all about choices. Just like the ability to ride without a helmet in many states.