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I was wondering about switching back and forth between knobbies and scorpions (or some more streetable 80/20). I really like the scorpions for high speed stuff. No issues at all. I like street tires that have no funny stuff for those 500 mile days totally on road with my biking buddies who really don't like gravel and ride fast. Rain is fine on those and cranked over no issues.

Can you just chalk mark the Pirelli Scorpions and re-install them without balancing?

Do you have to balance knobbies (TKC 80 or Scouts or some 60/40,50/50,40/60 on/off road tire) for 55mph? (ie get there & back. I guess yes unless under 40? 30?)

How well does the harbor freight balancer work? Anyone know? For $100 to install a set of tires (or more if on the bike) and this is $40 once and I actually practice fixing a tire at home and not 3 counties away in a ditch with bruises. [don't let my dark humor get you I am laughing]
http://www.harborfreight.com/motorcycle ... 98488.html

Not doing this soon but probably but will finish off these oems sometime this fall I guess. Maybe sooner. Those knobby tires are cheap compared to sport bikes but wonder about how long they last. Don't look like very long, makes a balancer even more desirable. And knobbies are cheaper than plastics.

This doesn't answer any of your questions, but you could just install 705's and not mess with them anymore. Good DS tires.

Hey Andy. A balanced tire and wheel will always wear better and a balancer is always preferable to balancing on the bike. That Harbor Freight set-up looks like it should do the job and what a great price. Bob Morgan showed me an easy method for balancing. Just wrap the spoke nipples and spokes in question with an appropriate amount of solder. This makes the weights easy to remove and the stuff is cheap...

I'm having this same dilemma with my 990. I love the stock Scorpions for pavement and light gravel, but chose to go with a Heidenau K60 Scout rear and Continental TKC 80 front on my last tire change to have something a little closer to 50/50. So far, the new combo works pretty well everywhere, but I haven't done much off-roading on them yet, although they would have to be better than the Scorpions no matter what. Unfortunately, the best solution would be to just have two sets of wheels, that way you could just swap back and forth, but that option would be around $2k unless you could find a used deal somehow (for some reason, used 990 wheels don't come up for sale very often).


As for your balancing question, I have not balanced a motorcycle tire since I started changing them at home about 7 years ago. This includes sport bike tires, dual sport tires, and dirt bike tires and I've never had a problem. I did experiment with Dyna Beads for a while in the sport bike tires, but I'm not sure if they were really doing anything since I've run tires/wheels without weights or beads and been fine. I always just make sure the marked spot on the tire lines up correctly with the valve stem (check with the tire manufacturers- some want you to line the marked spot up even with the valve stem and some want the marked spot opposite the valve stem). I figure worst case scenario if I discover a wobble, I can always try the beads again and if they don't work, just balance the tire with weights.

A tip from the pros, balance the wheel without a tire. These weights should not be removed (cover with tape). From that point on when you balance a tire you will only be balancing the tire. It is easier to balance and you will use less weight.

For what it's worth ($0.00), I've never bothered to balance a motorcycle wheel. Maybe if I'd ever owned a high-performance, high-speed type of motorcycle I would care. But for my sub 70MPH and mostly off-pavement riding, balancing is worthless. 10 feet of gravel or dirt and you've got rocks stuck in tread, mud, etc throwing the perfect balance off.

Please do not take motorcycle maintenance advice from me. I tend to be a LESS is more kind of guy. Beyond oil changes and fixing obviously broken components, if something does not cause me significant discomfort, I tend not to do anything about it.

I never used to balance tires, then I borrowed a tire balancer, you really can tell a difference. Probably not worth the time if you are bouncing around on trails most of the time. If you are going to spend a day at 50+ mph, balance the tires, really helps cuts down on fatigue.
I have the Harbor freight balancer, it works pretty well. Watch their sale adds and you can get one about 1/2 price.

MacWildcat wrote:If you are going to spend a day at 50+ mph, balance the tires, really helps cuts down on fatigue.

Some of us have balls. The rest of you can balance your wheels and change your panties. You think those guys riding hard-tail cruisers with ape hangers and a 280+ lb woman on the back balance their wheels?! Hell no! Those guys are REAL MEN.





Seriously, I bet balanced wheels do make a difference for the longer pavement sections. If a wheel is WAY out of balance it's a dangerous condition.

ajayhawkfan wrote:A tip from the pros, balance the wheel without a tire. These weights should not be removed (cover with tape). From that point on when you balance a tire you will only be balancing the tire. It is easier to balance and you will use less weight.

This is a good point. Typically, if the wheel is balanced without a tire and the tire is aligned correctly when mounted, it should be good to go. Unless you are running really cheap tires, I would venture to guess that tires nowadays are manufactured with such tight tolerances that they are balanced when new. Michelin is so proud of their full balanced tires (at least for sport bike tires) that they don't even mark the heavy spot on the tire, because they claim there isn't one.

As for speeds vs. balance, I've run sport bike tires without balancing weights 70-90 cruising speeds and all the way up to 130+ max speeds without any problems. I'm not going to say that balancing dual sport tires (or any tires, for that matter) isn't a good idea, but I'm in the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" school of thought and if you aren't getting uneven tire wear or weird vibrations at a certain speed, you are fine.

Hey guys thanks for the comments! I do wish I had 2k to blow on spare rims and just put some tkc80/606/mt21/k60s or whatevers on there and just swap them, but not the case.

I was just thinking of putting on some knobbies and then swapping back and forth on the same rims, probably halfway through the scorpions now anyways and was thinking why burn threw them locally when I can get some good knobbies for $250 and balance them myself and save scorps for commuting, knobbies for weekends. Yeah I know, I say that until it gets painful just thinking about it and its not like I got oodles of spare time - I would wind up using whatever was on there (and hopefully driving appropiately for them). This bike doesn't like slow anyways and neitehr do I so I don't want a tire that can't do it, but I also want something with more tread...so its a trade off just like the bike is itself. A second set of rims sounds great about now.

http://home.everestkc.net/malsin/Motorc ... _setup.htm
Of course copper cost has increased so the HF balancer may be more economical.

As to marking the tire: Should work, so long as tire wears uniformly. Easy way to check is to measure tread depth.

I don't balance knobbies. They don't last long enough and for reasons Troy mentioned.

Balancing the rim w/o a tire makes sense. Most of the weight I use is most likely compensating for rim locks. When you think how much a rim lock weighs, that's lot of potential for out of balance.

MacWildcat wrote:Most of the weight I use is most likely compensating for rim locks. When you think how much a rim lock weighs, that's lot of potential for out of balance.

Check out the Motion Pro Litelocs (sp?). I ran them in my DR-Z and they are supposedly half (possibly less, I can't recall exactly) as heavy as a standard rim lock. They might save you from using a few weights when you balance your wheels. I've also heard of people running 2 rim locks exactly opposite each other to cancel the weight out, but I imagine that would come with some extra pain when changing tires.

I never balance knobbies or 50/50 tires but I usually balance my road tires or sport bike tires. Weights are very very cheap and I already had the portable (<$30) balancer off amazon. I am out a few extra minutes in the end. I have never been able to tell a difference and I think it is mostly placebo effect and piece of mind. I wouldn't bother balancing if I didn't already have everything sitting in my garage.