Balance Beads

[Emporian]

My back used to hurt on long rides, and even worse, I'd have to stop every 50 miles to take a leak. My old school air cooled shovelhead vibrated to beat me to death while leaking more oil that I could afford, I went without food just to keep the bike running. I could go on and on, you good folks know the problems, many of you have some now - But no more, no more I say thanks to the modern miracle of tire beads!

[donkeysdad]

I've used them on the FJ and they're absolutely superb....

Ahem, actually, they didn't work for me, I ended up taking them out and getting the wheels balanced conventionally. Now every time I get a tyre fitted my (old style) bike shop owner says 'ah Mr Gary, and would you like your wheel balanced the old fashioned way, or the new fangled modern way'. It was worth the 30 quid for the fun they've had I guess. 

[spsmith_fj1200]

Typical justification reasons in the cruiser and custom forums:

1) wheel weight ruin the looks of my fancy, expensive chrome wheels (usually by the same people who remove front brake rotors so you can see the pretty wheels)
2) weights can come off and damage wheels and fenders and other parts

With all of the vibration associated with v-twin engines, I would be surprised that they would notice missing wheel weights. 

[Emporian]

S1 E2

[FJ Flyer]

Pure worthless crap, for me, at least.  Tried them on my FJR a while back, and the front vibes were horrible.  Got a Marc Parnes balancer and pulled the tires and balanced them conventionally, and all was good.

Real PITA to get the beads out. 

Another vote for snake oil.

[yamaha fj rider]

When I was working in bike shops, twenty years ago. We did a test, balancing the wheel first, no tire. Then installing the tire and putting it back on the spin balance. Most of time the wheel weights were unchanged with premium tires brands. Non premium brands Kend, IRC, Cheng-Shin the weights almost always need to be changed. Our Spin balance could balance to 1/16 of an ounce.

There seem to be a lot of interesting ideas, that gain traction in the cruiser market. I think most of these riders spend more time talking motorcycles than ridding them. JMO.

Tire beads NO. My Yamaha dealer charges $5.00, with the wheel of the bike. CycleGear does it for free.

Kurt