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Old 20-10-2019, 05:20 PM   #1
utopia
No turn left unstoned
 
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Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: leicester
Bike: M750
Posts: 4,545
Wheel balancing.

I've just fitted a new pilot road 4 on the rear wheel of my 750.
Tyre fitting is a careful diy job these days, since I fitted Dymag carbon wheels .. I'm not letting anyone else anywhere near them, which is fine cos most fitters feel the same.
In fact its a relatively easy process using the cable tie method and I usually don't need tyre levers at all.

Now to the nitty gritty on this occasion .. balancing.
In the past I have marked the heavy spot on the bare wheel and I try to match this with the light spot on the tyre, to minimise any added lead balance weight.
But it appears that Michelin don't mark the light/heavy spot their tyres these days, so it can get tricky to minimise the weights required.

On my first attempt this time, the balance was way out, needing over 60g to correct things.
I wasn't happy with that so I popped the tyre off the beads and rotated it 90 deg before refitting and trying again.
Tbh, I wasn't too hopeful that things would be much different but much to my surprise I found that I now only needed 5g to achieve near perfect balance.

There's a lesson to be learned there, but I'm not sure whether its that my technique and/or equipment is unreliable or that new tyres can be way out of balance from the factory.
Make of it what you will, but I thought it makes for an interesting "heads-up" in any case.
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