Gone to the “Darkside”
There have been several changes to the VTX in the last couple of months. Tour pak, fairing (review coming soon) and even more in the last few days. Several months back I tracked down a reasonably priced shaft final drive off of a VTX 1300. The 1300 final is geared higher which means no more shifting from 1st to 2nd in the middle of a intersection and better fuel economy on the super slab due to lower rpms at interstate speeds.
I believe this unit came from a trike conversion and as they weren’t as gentle as they could have been and left a few scrapes. Now I’m not complaining about that, its why I got a killer deal on the drive unit and I found a way to spruce it up until next winter’s projects when I may pull it off and repaint the entire unit.
The change in gearing was really fairly subtle and very much a positive change. But the down side is hard acceleration isn’t as good. I am not an aggressive rider so in a week I won’t even notice. The other thing I’ve noticed is there is this sort of “no mans land” between 60 and 65 mph. At 60 mph in 4th gear the revs seem too busy. But shifting to 5th gear and if feels like its lugging. Forget going below 55 in 5th gear…
Typical country 2 lane highways in my area are posted 55 which means the bulk of travel time is at 60mph. So slowing to 55 or speed up to 65 aren’t usually good options so cruising at 60 seem to be constantly shifting back and forth – 5th on flat and level when the lugging is minimal but down shifting on anything more than a gradual incline. For these past 2 years one of the things I’ve loved about my VTX was that I could do anything 40 and up without shifting a lot. But then I shifted half way through ever left turn intersection so I have to determine if its a good trade off.
Likely I’ll get used to it. And as with any change like this I won’t finalize my conclusions until I’ve ridden it for 2-3 thousand miles ( which is like 3 weeks for me).
The other and more dramatic change was what is called in the motorcycle world going “darkside”. That is replacing your rear motorcycle tire with a performance all weather radial car tire. The reasons for doing this and the legions of riders doing it aren’t the purpose here and besides Daniel Myers has it pretty well covered.
I have been reading with interest as Gold Wing, Valkyrie, VTX and others experiment with car tires. And few came back to motorcycle tires which gets a guy to thinking. My disappointment with my last Avon Cobra rear tire spurred me to look into it further and this past Friday I made the switch.
The tire I chose is the V rated General Tire Altimax HP “grand touring” all season tire. Choosing the tire was actually the hardest part. There are so many great performance car tires for not a lot of money and even if you lurk on the Darkside boards they’re running a wide range of tires on a much wider range of cruisers and tour bikes that I’d believed. After much research I came MY top 4 list: General Altimax HP, Bridgestone Potenze A019, Michelin Hydro Edge and Goodyear Triple Tread. Honorable mention would have to be the Dunlop Sport run flats which seem popular with the Wing riders.
I really hated that the Goodyear was even in the list. I refuse to buy Goodyear tires as they’ve been the only tire brand in the last 20 years that have consistently given me problems. But it was consistently one of the most praised tires among riders. Michelins were otherwise top because I have never been disappointed with a Michelin tire and have burned up plenty on sedans. I’ve always liked Bridgestone tires even back when I was riding a CB400T and I ran them on my Siverado 4×4 for years with zero complaints.
But what caught my attention about the General Altimax was the praise of Valkyrie riders. While a lot of the VTX guys go with the Goodyear Triple Tread the Valk riders are preferring the Altimax. Though I must say that “preferring” a tire in this subject means 5 riders out of 100 with 70 one-off choices…. or so it seems… and is exactly why it took me 3 weeks of on and off research to settle on a tire.
Anyway, as you can see from the image below going from the VTX OE 180/70R16 (Right- Avon Cobra w/ 12k) to a 205/60R16 (Left- new Altimax) really only makes it an inch wider. And while the shoulder radius is certainly more pronounced on the motorcycle tire the difference isn’t radical.
The way the cupping and scalloping formed with the tread pattern on the Cobra was a large part of why I’m trying the car tire – but I’ll save the meat of that for another time.
Surprisingly I found a local tire shop who said they’d mount it without hesitation, even put in my 3 ounces of Dynabeads balancing beads. (Though it might have had something to do with my occasionally including the word “sidecar” in the conversation but I’m not going to ask for confirmation on that… ) I had planned on taking the whole mess to a local custom cycle shop where the owner begrudgingly agreed to do the mounting as long as I understood it wasn’t his fault if I killed myself.
The tire and mounting came in at a whopping $112 and I have a conservative mileage expectation of 15-20k Conversely another Avon Cobra tire would have been $245 and good for 10-12k. (If Avon had not discontinued the Venom R in the VTX size I’d have gotten 19k like I did my previous tire – and for roughly $50 less)
It also helps that the Altimax looks great on there and is a heck of a conversation starter…
Handling was what concerned me the most about this switch. While some will argue to their deaths that this isn’t safe for internal design reasons its handling due to the profile differences where the real potential for danger lurks here. I’ve seen cross sections of modern car and bike tires and I’ve no problem what so ever with the wear and tear aspect. But cornering…
Most commentary said simply that riding with a car tire rear is different, not better – not worse – just different. Now 200 miles into my darkside adventure I have to say that is an apt description and I’m already well adjusted to the changes in handling everywhere but one place. Unfortunately that’s my driveway which has always been an adventure anyway. Getting a handle on getting in and out of my place has rocketed to concern number one when I had imagined it would be aggressive cornering and parking lot maneuvers, neither of which has turned out to be problematic.
Basically, the flatter profile of the tire wants to turn the bike away from any obstacles the tire encounter. My driveway is 2 packed gravel strips with grass in the middle and it hasn’t had more than a couple of ton of stone added in 3-4 years. That means its got rather large sinks or pot holes which when the tire hits them the bike wants to go shooting off into the woods instead of continuing in a straight line.
I have discovered that increasing speed increases stability which is great on my gravel roads. But I’m a ways from being ready to jet down the driveway. As a matter of fact its just bad enough I made the Missus walk from the road to the house coming back in this evening.
That’s the bad – the good is its SMOOTH… we’d not gone 10 feet on our gravel turn around and the Missus commented on it Add to that this tire is very quiet with the solid center drive band and at speeds above a crawl the steering more or less neutral. Wide sweepers require a bit more active counter steer – the pushback is constant which I don’t find to be a bad thing necessarily. Tighter corners are still a bit interesting as I can feel the thrust angle change just a bit as the tire tips up onto the shoulder more. It certainly makes you aware but its not too unsettling and I noticed this evening I’m not noticing it like I was – the tire is likely breaking in, too. So other than the driveway I feel I’m already acclimating rather well and I actually find I actually like the more surefooted feel of it. Next I’ll see how it goes on the super slab…
Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny.
-Yoda (a long time ago)
Well, I don’t know about that. Like the final drive change I’ll have to give it 2-3 thousand miles before deciding if I will remain forever more on the darkside.