Change Bais-Ply tires to Radial-Ply tires

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Re: Change Bais-Ply tires to Radial-Ply tires

By: Anonymous: Roger () Wednesday, 28 January 2015 @ 02:30 PM ICT (Read 682 times)

I have a pretty old motorcycle and need to replace the tires. Will I have any problems if I replace the old bias-ply tires with tubeless radials?

Anonymous

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Re: Re: Change Bais-Ply tires to Radial-Ply tires

By: ThaiDesign (offline) Wednesday, 28 January 2015 @ 02:39 PM ICT

We are unable to provide a definitive answer. Among tire manufacturers, the consensus is that you should not put radial tires on any motorcycle that originally was fitted with bias-ply tires. Their testing has shown that in some cases, such a switch did not result in any negative handling traits, but in far more instances, it did.

Every different model of motorcycle has its own unique handling characteristics, and so does every model of tire. Some motorcycles are very indifferent to tire changes while others are quite fussy, just as some tires work on a wide range of motorcycles and others are better suited to a few specific models. Often, even when installing a different bias ply tire the handling characteristics are noticeably affected, sometimes for the better sometimes for the worse. So, it stands to reason that switching to an entirely different type of tire would have an even more dramatic outcome.

The bottom line here is that no one really knows how any given motorcycle will react to a change from any given bias ply tire to any given radial tire until they actually make the switch and ride the motorcycle.