front tire pattern kt-966

[tim dermody]

Took the first few rides on a new 5.10x17 KT966 (Kings Tire) yesterday. Not bad on dry roads but it will rain eventually and I'll get to test that too. I can hear the tire on the road if I listen for it but it's hard to hear above the wind so all in all, not an offensive road whine at all. It's a big sucker too. I've got less than 1/8 inch clearance between the tire and bike in the front left side...but it fits. Later, Derm __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! Mail Address AutoComplete - You start. We finish. http://promotions.yahoo.com/new_mail

[Eric L. Green]

I noticed that my front wheel had a bit of a hitch to her, so I took the wheel off the bike, took off the tire, and trued her. What a PITA (especially with 23,000 miles worth of corrosion, it took 30 minutes just to carefully oil and work oil into each spoke end). But nice careful work got her under .020 all around both radially and axially (the Kawasaki spec is .080, in case you're wondering), even if it did take hours rather than minutes (sigh). Anyhow, I'm about to put the tire back on and re-balance everything (using pennies and duct tape until I can get some real wheel weights, sigh!), and I remembered the discussion about tire direction, and the notion that on the front tire, you want the "v" pointing forward rather than backward (i.e., upside down) to make it brake better. A quick look at the tire dissuaded me from that notion. The KT-966 isn't really a "v". It's more of an "L". And if you put it backwards, the "L" isn't positioned to control side-to-side movement, so while you might brake faster, the front end would slide out from under you the first time you tried turning. So I'd suggest you mount the KT-966 the way it was designed. I guess tomorrow I get to run down to Road Rider and get some real tire weights so I don't have to worry about duct tape coming off at speed... so down I go to the garage again to finish putting my bike together. -E