tire pressure?

All stock wr250r. I run like 8-9psi on heavy tubes in my offroad bikes. I got this one home and pumped 20 into the front and 18 in the rear for now. Just wondering what you guys are running. I did run both up to 50 to make sure the tires are seated good, looks like they are.

18 front, 22 rear. Works great both on and offroad so far on the 606's.

For offroad, I think I'd let out some air. If your gonna pinch flat something its likely going to be the front. If you can handle 18 in the front, try 16 in the rear. You want that rear to squish down flat under juice and blow the loose stuff off with wheel spin.

If you get some decent tubes, 12/12ish i think is standard MX pressure. Offroad, I've run as low as 5 in the back, but, thats with tubes heavier than the tire.

I've got the heavy duty Kenda tubes in mine. Haven't run the rubber that low; wonder of the things will spin on the rims. Don't really want to have to put on those dratted rim locks.

Oh yeah, I hate em, but you got to love it.

Ok i was wondering....
What is the best psi for the front and back tire for strictly on road only? Cause for the next week or two i am only going to be useing my WR on the road so i was wanting to try out a few psi combos to see witch once feel best.

On the road I mainly run front/rear of around 20 and 24, with slight adjustments for amount of extra gear (aka weight) that's with me. Those pressures seem to work pretty good. A little squirrelly on the trails at that pressure, but manageable if you are riding a lot of road with trails intermixed. I usually never air them down for the trails (which is about 40% of my riding). Yes, there is a huge improvement when airing down on the trails, but if you are going to run 75mph for 20 or 30 miles afterwards and don't bring the means to air back up to road pressures, I don't air down. I don't want to overheat the tires/tubes. That's probably erring on the side of caution. I'm not sure how low you could run on the street for long, somewhat high speed rides with no worries of undo wear and tear. Anyone?

So is it better to have the psi up the mid 20 if you are only going to be riding it on the road? Are you going to get better gas milage?
And also i know that the weight has to do with the psi to. So like i am 145 so wonder what would be best for me???

Your going to have to figure out tire pressure for yourself. Its not an exact science. I'm pretty happy going 20/18 so far. I sat on the bike and let the pressure out until the tires had a little flex to them, holding the front brake and rocking back and forth. Seems to handle pretty good. I've been hesitant to "ride it like I stole it" until I get past break-in, but I haven't noticed any tire slippage. I will install rimlocks which I would recommend.

I might try 25/25 or higher for a long highway cruise loaded and 15/15 on wet pavement or offroad for max grip. I don't care about tire life or the last MPG I can squeak out of it.

I wouldn't think with 25 horse heat would be much of an issue, but I dunno. I *think* we used run 15-20 in a xl500, but hell, that was more years ago than I want to admit. That was the last dual sport bike I had with any street mileage. We ran mostly trials tires on it, I think.

Mugster wrote:

I wouldn't think with 25 horse heat would be much of an issue, but I dunno.

HP isn't the issue in most cases. High speed for extended periods is the issue. The more a tire flexes (read: lower tire pressure), the more that friction heats the tire carcass. Remember the Bridgstone tire/Explorer issues? It was the low recommended tire pressure, from Ford, that exacerbated the issue. The low pressure caused the tires to overheat which helped lead to carcass failure. With the R², I'm not sure how low one can air the tires for fast and long rides without running into issues.

Higher pressure will give less rolling resistance, so theoretically, better gas mileage, but I doubt it is as dramatic as in an auto. Airing up too much, on motorcycle tires in general, can also cause the center tread to wear out faster since a smaller contact patch is being asked to accelerate, brake, and carry the load. The smaller contact patch of an over-inflated tire can also adversely impact traction.

All that to say, keep it within recommended spec and play with it. As mentioned, I tend to keep mine near the upper end of the recommendation because I do a mix of fairly high speed tarmac commuting as well at offroading. My personal preference has been to sacrifice a bit of offroad traction for the peace of mind when hauling down the asphalt. Bring a little air pump with you, and you can have the best of both worlds (or, air down for the trails and then just take it easy on the way home or to the gas station to air back up).

On my 1100 mile road trip last weekend, I initially ran the standard 18/22? on the first leg out of about 500 miles and started to square off the rear tire. I bumped up to the higher recommended pressures (22/28?) and it rode a lot better and and it looked like it wore less. I don't have the pressures memorized since they're printed on the swingarm lol. I don't expect the rear tire to last too much longer (3800ish miles on it), hopefully the D606 I replace it with will work better.

Chadx wrote:

Mugster wrote:

I wouldn't think with 25 horse heat would be much of an issue, but I dunno.

HP isn't the issue in most cases. High speed for extended periods is the issue. The more a tire flexes (read: lower tire pressure), the more that friction heats the tire carcass. Remember the Bridgstone tire/Explorer issues? It was the low recommended tire pressure, from Ford, that exacerbated the issue. The low pressure caused the tires to overheat which helped lead to carcass failure. With the R², I'm not sure how low one can air the tires for fast and long rides without running into issues.

Higher pressure will give less rolling resistance, so theoretically, better gas mileage, but I doubt it is as dramatic as in an auto. Airing up too much, on motorcycle tires in general, can also cause the center tread to wear out faster since a smaller contact patch is being asked to accelerate, brake, and carry the load. The smaller contact patch of an over-inflated tire can also adversely impact traction.

All that to say, keep it within recommended spec and play with it. As mentioned, I tend to keep mine near the upper end of the recommendation because I do a mix of fairly high speed tarmac commuting as well at offroading. My personal preference has been to sacrifice a bit of offroad traction for the peace of mind when hauling down the asphalt. Bring a little air pump with you, and you can have the best of both worlds (or, air down for the trails and then just take it easy on the way home or to the gas station to air back up).

I guess tire balls or bibs are out huh? A radial that supports 1000 pounds+ vs a dirtbike tire that supports maybe 200 pounds are not comparable. A knobby doesn't even have the bulk of its surface area in contact with the road. You could run down the road pinned in 6th with zero pressure, and as long as you had rimlocks holding on the tire, you should be ok in terms of heat besides the obvious handling problems. You can supplement that by using bailing wire to help hold it on the rim.

All motorcycle street tires will wear in the middle almost regardless of pressure if you ride down the road in a straight line, fyi. They have a different profile than car tires. Only the middle is in contact with the road.

With no rimlocks yet, I'm up to 21 front, down to 17 rear for road riding. It's way too bouncy for much offroad use. Gravel roads and easy trail are ok.

How on earth do you guys run such low pressures? I only take it down to 15 or so at both ends... for off road. I'm over 30 for on road. No ill effects. I just mounted my first 606 today and will check it out this weekend to test...

I've been running 18 on the front and 22 on the back both on/offroad with no troubles. In the sloppy gooey stuff that 606 still grips like a mofo and then some.

I generally set my tire pressure based upon a 10% pressure change between cold and hot readings. On the WRX I've been finding that a lower pressure is giving me a better feel. On the stock tires which were pretty much done when I got the bike I ran quite low (can't remember what) because I didn't care about the tire's life. On my new Continental SM tires I'm finding the same thing. In order for them to feel 'right' I need to air down more than I would think. The last while, both track and street, I've been running about 18psi front and 22 rear. I think it's something to do with the bike. It's not super light, but it likes lower pressures.

I'm going to keep playing with lower pressures on the street and track and forget about the tire wear. In the overall scheme of things, the cost of the slightly shorter tire life is negligible.

I use 18 and 25 based on the sticker on the bike but I ran 18 for both for awhile. It seemed to handle better off road at the lower pressure of 18 instead of 25. The tires are Bridgestone TW-302 rear and TW-301 front.

My WRR onroad I use 22 and 29 stock tire pressure, offroad I use between 6 and 12 pounds pressure. I use a pirelli MT43 trials tire in the rear and a bridgestone ED11 front. I have bridgestone 4mm ultra heavy duty tubes, 2 rimlocks in the rear, 1 rimlock in the front. I have a 12v slime airpump and a fuse pigtail off the battery so I can adjust tire pressure in the woods. See the picture.

Picture link:
https://2img.net/r/ihimizer/i/bikepics014.jpg/

A fun thing to do is slab for about an hour then hit the trails straight away. :)