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Tyre Adhesion
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It all started about 6 weeks ago when the roads had a definitly greasy
feel to them, backed up by The Hobbit. However, a few days rain sorted
that out, but they still felt greasy. Hmmm...check tyre pressure, a few
PSI under corrected to book value. No change. A few PSI more and no
affect. Now, I'd say it was me, but The Hobbit reports doing exactly
the same think to his Kwak 750 with similar lack of result.
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Are you actually slipping and sliding, or just feeling that it might be
slipping and sliding if you went any quicker?
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Well, its a bit tricky to tell to be honest. It's sort of like that
feeling when your tyre pressure is a bit down, but it *feels* like the
bike is 'oozing' out of the bend. It's a very odd sensation, and truth
be known, if it wasn't what someone else was experiencing as well, I'd
put it down to gipperness.
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I always seem to suffer from the latter in wet or winter conditions, but
this is apparently because I ride like a girl, not a limitation of the
bike or the tyres.
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I'm up for a bit of argy bargy, but not your knee down stuff, although
pegs grind often enough to keep me awake.
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The ambient is around 8C, both bikes ('Bird and kwak), feel the same but
didn't until recently. Roads clean and dry.
What could be causing this?
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You've lost your mojo.
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I did consider it, but the Dwarf has lost his as well if thats the case.
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Runs in the family then. I'd be careful if I were you.
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Hmmm...
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Where is this Nirvana with good road surfacing? Not London that's for
sure.
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About 30 miles south of Frankfurt, but anywhere outside of Belgium will
be alright.
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Poor road surface.
Pollution.
Tyres not properly warm.
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This is what I thought. But how long would you think to warm them up?
10 minutes? 20 minutes?
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Depends on the tyre, doesn't it?
Those with a construction aimed at road use take longer to heat (and cool)
than race tyres. The trade off is that they last longer. I've no idea what
tyres you use, but I'd expect this to be a factor.
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I would have thought the above to be untrue...
Surely a track biased tyre would take longer to warm up than a road use
biased tyre due to the level of abuse a track tyre is designed to take
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A track tyre that takes a long time to warm up wouldn't be much use.
Track tyres are designed to heat up quicker, and run at a higher
temperature. This higher temp is what contributes to their higher
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I didn't say a long time, I said longer then a road biased tyre...
I wonder what the difference would be between something like a BT014 and
something purely for the track subjected to the same abuse, I was under the
impression that a track tyre would take longer to get up to the same temp
because the trade off would be that it had to withstand so much more.
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wear.
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Another factor is that soft compound tyres designed for fast/track can
sometimes fail to get up to temperature at all on cold damp winter
roads, and so never stick properly.
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Cue the tyre warmers, but in really cold conditions would the tyres
actually cool off again?
BTW - NHCA AGM yesterday. Momentous decision- slicks to be allowed in
speed hill climbs. We can now use whatever tyre we like (except in road
legal championship which must run 'E' or 'DOT' marked tyres). No point
though because tyre warmers are still banned. The reason for the
decision is that some of the very latest super sport road tyres didn't
comply with the tread pattern rule designed to prevent the use of slicks
(hand cut slicks were legal BTW). Plus no allowance will be made at all
for extra time to change wheels before a run. Not at the line in
numerical order when required to start = no run.
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What tyres are you using, out of interest?
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Ok, I'll pop out for a blast in the week and get them properly warm and
see if it makes any difference.
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Be more difficult with the colder weather coming...
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Worn tyres.
List goes on...
IME the roads round here have been fine.
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That's what's worrying me. The tarmac seems fine.
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