I will not claim to much about a motorcycle but there a couple of things in this
explanation that don't make sense.. The analogy while interesting has nothing to
do with a tire.. Every time you let air out of a tire the rolling resistance
goes up and the lower you go the worse it gets.. A taller tire will always give
a larger contact patch if the width is held constant. You have to look at it
from a side view not vertical. Just measure the contact patch length wise while
sitting on the bike. You may need some help here as it is hard to sit on the
bike and measure the tire ..LOL.. Letting air out changes the wheel rate of the
suspension and increases drag. If you have no springs or shocks then the tire is
the suspension.
Dave Dahlgren
todd wrote:
>
> IMO Tom, there's a happy medium... it's kind of like the weight of a vehicle
> (a baseball will always go further then a duckpin ball or whiffleball with
> the force of an average human arm applied), it should continually change as
> force applied increases or decreases. A happy medium on tire width will get X
> amount of traction without creating to much drag on topend. Contact patch for
> a specific manufacturer goes up very minimal with width of tires on
> motorcycles due to their design(being round)... what might be more beneficial
> is to look at the actual design of different tires in relation to their
> contact patch under different tire pressures run. A good way to do this is to
> ride it CALMLY(or at least consistently the same) thru baby powder on a
> concrete floor for a rough basis on the actual contact patch(I would bet
> dropping 5lbs of air pressure will give you a larger contact then going to a
> 10mm larger tire of the same manufacturer with the same pressure). I also
> think it's all in playing with shift points and knowing what rpm/torque/speed
> range you're current tire is slipping to find out where to make the
> appropriatte change(s). I plan on someday using my helmet cam to check tire
> growth and patch size with different pressures during runs.
> Todd Dross
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