Darksiders On Triumph Thunderbird

S

Southerngent

New Member
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Yesterday, 22:40
Joined
Feb 27, 2024
Messages
6
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2
Age
74
Location
Marion, Ar.
First Name
Kim
My Ride
2014 Thunderbird commander
Riding Since
1976
Was just wondering how many Thunderbird owners have installed a Darkside tire to your bird. I know quite a few Rocket owners have but haven't heard much on the Tbird. If you have gone Darkside, which tire size and manufacture have you chosen.
 
Southerngent said:
Was just wondering how many Thunderbird owners have installed a Darkside tire to your bird. I know quite a few Rocket owners have but haven't heard much on the Tbird. If you have gone Darkside, which tire size and manufacture have you chosen.
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Never heard of Darkside.
 
It's when one installs a car tire(of correct rolling diameter, and width, of course), to their bike on the rear. This is usually done on big powerful cruisers as they tend to wear their expensive big tires fast, and usually mostly in the middle.
 
Bad idea.
 
I was a darksider for about 12 years on my Rocket III. I lived in Kansas at the time and it was about 50 miles to any corner or curve in the road so the high dollar Metz's wore out in the center and the chicken strips were about 4 inches either side. I have a T-Bird now and just took delivery of a new Metz ME888 for the rear (front is out for delivery today). I would not even consider going darkside with my 'Bird. The handling is slow enough already, making it worse won't help anything. If Southerngent lives in Arkansas (a State God made for motorcycles) He'd be foolish to ruin the handling of his T-Bird to gain a few extra miles of wear.

My Rocket got about 25K on a soft rear car tire (Bridgestone Potenza Grid 225/50/R16) but that also caused me to go thru 4 front tires in that time due to the added steering required for maintianing a straight line against road camber. There are a lot of trade-offs you have to be willing to live with when switching to the dark side, and unless you have a valid reason for doing it (like living in Kansas) my suggestion is DON'T.
 
Car tires are no safe for motorcycles
 
Sounds like not worth it. There’s enough to worry about. Adding requirements to steering is not something I would do.
 
Southerngent said:
Was just wondering how many Thunderbird owners have installed a Darkside tire to your bird. I know quite a few Rocket owners have but haven't heard much on the Tbird. If you have gone Darkside, which tire size and manufacture have you chosen.
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I was going to give it a look at when tyre is due but mine needs a bit more thinking as lt model with spoked wheels . i find the avon tyre on back a bit jumpy on line markings .
 
lt or not lt said:
I was going to give it a look at when tyre is due but mine needs a bit more thinking as lt model with spoked wheels . i find the avon tyre on back a bit jumpy on line markings .
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That means a tube and it won't change the tire's performance. All tubeless tires will take a tube, that's not the problem, the problem is what the square friction patch does to the bike's handling. With a car tire you have to force the bike to turn because it will want to go straight. Once into a corner it's about the same amount of effort to hold the line or change it as a bike tire. If you want to try a different compound tire you should but be warned that if you go dark side the handling will be significantly different than what you are accustomed to.
 
atomsplitter said:
That means a tube and it won't change the tire's performance. All tubeless tires will take a tube, that's not the problem, the problem is what the square friction patch does to the bike's handling. With a car tire you have to force the bike to turn because it will want to go straight. Once into a corner it's about the same amount of effort to hold the line or change it as a bike tire. If you want to try a different compound tire you should but be warned that if you go dark side the handling will be significantly different than what you are accustomed to.
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in my younger days i had car tyres on rear of my chops but they were 650 bsa or 750 triumph so did not put a lot of power into the back wheel compared to modern bikes but had no problems going around the bends with my mates on their standard bikes. A lot of modern tyres have a good tread paten on the curve of the tyre and some with heavy duty sidewalls which should give grip in the bends so i would not hesitate to try a car tyre ,also if it was not for it being a pain to swop wheel on thunderbird i would have a go at converting wheel to tubeless
 
No way would I ride a motorcycle with a car tire mounted.
 
Vector said:
No way would I ride a motorcycle with a car tire mounted.
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Just doesn’t seem like the thing to do. The profile of a car tire is significantly different than a motorcycle which can turn with a tighter lean. You rarely see a car cornering on two wheels.
 
Interesting video. Yeah, not for me. LoL. I’m not keen on the negatives.
 
A car tire is safe, if you never lean.
 
Vector said:
A car tire is safe, if you never lean.
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Especially with my more limited skills. As the video pointed out these have been done for a long time. Still everyone gets to make their own risk assessment. I can see the attraction in cost and longevity, but from the video I get the idea even experienced riders need to work more to keep the bike going we’re it needs to. The drag racing comment goes with your comment. They really just go in a straight line. So perhaps the application they are suited for. High speed and straight lines.
 
sikatri said:
Interesting video. Yeah, not for me. LoL. I’m not keen on the negatives.
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Which is why I said if you live in Kansas where corners and slight turns are miles apart, it's an OK tire. Kept me happy for over a decade, but when I moved to North Texas where it's more stop than go and corners are abundant, frequent, and really tight I went back to a motorcycle tire. If someone wants the trade offs, it will work fine, but don't expect it to corner like-a-before. With the slow steering of the T-Bird with bike tires it's already at a disadvantage, making it worse isn't (for me) the answer. I just mounted a Metz ME888 Ultra 200/50R17 on the rear so we'll see how that feels. Later this week the front gets swapped out.
 
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