Tire balancer

[RecKLeSS 600]

Looking for anyone with experience on tire balancers?? What do you recommend? I'm sick of giving my money to someone for a job I can do especially when I change so many tires a year.

Thanks for the recommendations

[frekeyguy]

waste of time to do the rear, the front can be done on the bike.....

[caboose483]

I don't balance rears.

You can get a static balancer kit from any bike shop. It's in the Motovan catalog and works with the BVP rearstand (that's on the same page in the catalog). I've been using it to check fronts and it works pretty well. I think it was $40ish for the balancer kit and $50ish for the stand. For the fronts if it requires less than 3/4oz to balance I don't bother putting on any weights.

[RonnieRev]

Dyna Beads, cheap and easy.

[skip]

Static balancer is cheap and easy to use.

[RockerGuy]

Just roll yo tire on a freely suspended pipe

[kneedragger88]

static balance fronts only

[kellen]

Dyna Beads, cheap and easy.

eeeeek

[toastman]

I prefer to balance front and rear.
Two wrongs don't make a right (unbalanced tire and unbalanced sprocket) and I want to do things as well as I can.
I've fixed rear end vibrations on bikes by re-balancing a rear tire.

Because the tire is larger diameter than a sprocket it has more centrifical force than than a sprocket.
I also would like to think that a sprocket is more likely to be in balance than a tire.

When Michelin came out with the light tire technology they claimed that you would need a rim 8lbs lighter or a rotor 2 lbs lighter in order to acheive the same results in force reduction. That tells me that it's more important to balance the large diameter rotating mass than the small diameter rotating mass.

Dynabeads are junk and invalidate your tire warranty, and the dynabeads guy said not to use them on "racing" bikes

Donald

[frekeyguy]

I prefer to balance front and rear.
Two wrongs don't make a right (unbalanced tire and unbalanced sprocket) and I want to do things as well as I can.
I've fixed rear end vibrations on bikes by re-balancing a rear tire.

Because the tire is larger diameter than a sprocket it has more centrifical force than than a sprocket.
I also would like to think that a sprocket is more likely to be in balance than a tire.

When Michelin came out with the light tire technology they claimed that you would need a rim 8lbs lighter or a rotor 2 lbs lighter in order to acheive the same results in force reduction. That tells me that it's more important to balance the large diameter rotating mass than the small diameter rotating mass.

Dynabeads are junk and invalidate your tire warranty, and the dynabeads guy said not to use them on "racing" bikes

Donald

so your saying if I pull your rear wheel weights off........and go for a ride you would notice it?

[kneedragger88]

I completely disagree. Who is to say the 1/4 oz of weight your putting on the rear wheel isnt in the exact "wrong" place for the unbalanced carrier. Eg carrier is 1/2 oz out at point A now you dutifully balance your wheel and tire. Now you mate them up to install and unknown to you you slap the carrier and sprocket on exactly aligning the 1/4 oz wheel weights in the 1/2 oz heavy spot. You just made the "whole" package worse by 1/4 oz. Dont even get me started on a swinging chain that hits the wheel at a different spot every revolution.
I have had this same argument with almost every trackside tire vendor I know and NOT ONE has been able to dispute my argument. In my shop and 30 years of mounting tires I never balance rear wheels and never had an issue yet.
95%+ of a rear end vibration is chain, bearings, brakes in that order.

[RonnieRev]

eeeeek

I have no problems with the beads in my tires, smooth running and no abnormal tire wear.
And I can mount and balance my own tires.

[RecKLeSS 600]

Thanks for all the good info everyone... Keep it coming.

[turbodish]

I have no problems with the beads in my tires, smooth running and no abnormal tire wear.
And I can mount and balance my own tires.

I use plastic AirSoft beads bought at Canadian Tire. They work the same as Dynabeads but are a bit too large to install through he valve stem. You just have to dump them between wheel rim and tire bead before seating the tire bead. I've had no tire balance issues at all with them through out the full lives of two sets of tires so far (now on third set), and have observed no evidence of internal abrasion or bead clumping on my old tires when I pulled them at the end of their tread lives.

[Ritchard]

I've had great success with Dynabeads, except for the pain in the neck of filling them through the valve stem. It takes forever.

However, apparently they are junk and void my warranty.

[Franko!]

This is what I do for my street and track bike. The shaft is from an old dot matrix printer that held the print head, (Commadore 1526) and $2 bearings from Princess auto. I balance front and rear.

[tyrn]

I completely disagree. Who is to say the 1/4 oz of weight your putting on the rear wheel isnt in the exact "wrong" place for the unbalanced carrier. Eg carrier is 1/2 oz out at point A now you dutifully balance your wheel and tire. Now you mate them up to install and unknown to you you slap the carrier and sprocket on exactly aligning the 1/4 oz wheel weights in the 1/2 oz heavy spot. You just made the "whole" package worse by 1/4 oz. Dont even get me started on a swinging chain that hits the wheel at a different spot every revolution.
I have had this same argument with almost every trackside tire vendor I know and NOT ONE has been able to dispute my argument. In my shop and 30 years of mounting tires I never balance rear wheels and never had an issue yet.
95%+ of a rear end vibration is chain, bearings, brakes in that order.

What, you're supposed to remove the wheel carrier and sprocket to change your tire?? I just took the axle out and changed the tire on the whole assembly, and got it balanced with all the hardware on the wheel.

[frekeyguy]

This is what I do for my street and track bike. The shaft is from an old dot matrix printer that held the print head, (Commadore 1526) and $2 bearings from Princess auto. I balance front and rear.

you should be balancing with the rotors on the rim.....

[Franko!]

I don't take off my rotors to balance my tires... This pic was taken when I was fitting the YZF front end to my VFR.

[Red Zeder]

Does that shaft , ..from a dot matrix printer, fit the bearing of the wheel?
What bearings in this picture are doing the work??
is it the wheel bearings or the bearings at the end of the printer shaft ( on the "v blocks" )