Larger Front Tire

[Oldscoot]

I replaced my front with a 130/70 16 Metzler.  The ride is rock steady with no discernable loss of steering acuity.

[Scootaloot]

Hi Oldscoot! New doughnut looks nice. How many miles do you have on your scoot? I have over 13K now and bought City Grips at a good price with the idea of having them mounted before spring kicks in. The Metzlers were considerably more. Have you changed the rear yet? Unrelated but I haven't changed the belt yet as unlike my old BV250 I haven't noticed the revs increasing so I am really impressed with the wear on the original tires and belt. My BV belts never went more than 12.5K

[Oldscoot]

Hi Oldscoot! New doughnut looks nice. How many miles do you have on your scoot? I have over 13K now and bought City Grips at a good price with the idea of having them mounted before spring kicks in. The Metzlers were considerably more. Have you changed the rear yet? Unrelated but I haven't changed the belt yet as unlike my old BV250 I haven't noticed the revs increasing so I am really impressed with the wear on the original tires and belt. My BV belts never went more than 12.5K

I have 8,500 miles. I could have gotten more miles but I got bit by the new tire bug. Rear tire is original.  I've had Metzlers on other bikes so I bought this one. $103.00 plus free shipping from Bike Bandit. From what I've seen Kymco builds a really strong bike.   

[rgcolter]

Oldscoot,

Have you noticed the front end would get wobbly at speeds over 70MPH, especially on windy days, with the stock tire?  Is that why you got the wider Metzler tire?

[Oldscoot]

Oldscoot,

Have you noticed the front end would get wobbly at speeds over 70MPH, especially on windy days, with the stock tire?  Is that why you got the wider Metzler tire?

I moved to a larger tire to get better tracking on our rough roads here.  A bigger tire doesn't get caught up in the crevices caused by separation of the road surface and it handles the bumps better. I believe I may have also improved my braking a little by increasing surface area.

[mrmike]

I replaced my front with a 130/70 16 Metzler.  The ride is rock steady with no discernable loss of steering acuity.

       Oldscoot

              Getting ready to put a set of Michelin city grips on my GTI300. Want to change the front from a 110/70-16 to a 120/70-16. Have you noticed any problems with the bigger front tire yet? I'm thinking the slightly bigger diameter tire would also correct my slightly optimistic (2mph) speedometer

[scrollderf]

Am I missing something: there must be a downside to moving to a 120 or even 130 front tire. What is that downside? Why does Kymco use a 110? Cost? Handling? If some of you that have moved up in size could comment I would appreciate it.

[boo]

that when you go to a larger size tire, the speed rating is lower on the
bigger tires.
Example: 130/120 = P rating   110 = S rating.

[GRUB]

Is there any consideration to the width of the rim? Any chance of the tire pealing off the rim while leaning into a corner if the tire is to wide?

The rim size is 16x3.0 which according to the chart below the biggest you should go is 120x80-16.

Tire/Wheel Fitment

Front
16"   
Tire Size   Rim (inch)
110/90-16   2.15 - 3.00
120/80-16   2.50 - 3.00
130/70-16   3.50 - 4.00
130/90-16   2.50 - 3.50
150/80-16   3.00 - 4.00   
17"   
Tire Size   Rim (inch)
110/70-17   3.00 - 3.50
110/80-17   2.15 - 3.00
120/60-17   3.50 - 3.75
120/70-17   2.75 - 3.75
120/80-17   2.50 - 3.00
120/90-17   2.50 - 3.00
140/80-17   3.00-4.00
150/80-17   3.00 - 4.25   
18"   
Tire Size   Rim (inch)
100/90-18   2.15 - 2.75
110/80-18   2.15 - 3.00
110/90-18   2.15 - 3.00
120/70-18   3.00 - 3.75
120/90-18   2.50 - 3.00
130/60-18   3.50 - 4.00
130/70-18   3.00 - 4.00
140/70-18   3.00 - 4.50

[fest]

@ Oldscoot
What is that windscreen you have, how good is it? The only downside with bigger tyre is more fuel used up, but you'll get the other benefits, which you have stated.

[wheels]

If I did the math correctly, the bigger front tire (130 vs 110) should yield a speedometer reading of 10%+  .  Contact patch about 18% larger.

The Downtown speedometer is very accurate, how accurate is the GT  ?

EDIT   correction
Speedometer reading is +5% at 70mph actually doing 73.5mph.  Tire width about +18.6%. 
Used this website  https://tiresize.com/comparison/
EDIT   addition
On contact patch, if you read it make sure its the entire article
http://www.stevemunden.com/friction.html

[Stig / Major Tom]

Most old veteran two-wheel tire techs will tell you that putting an over-sized tire on a stock scooter wheel will actually pinch it out of it's designed shape - thus you have actually slightly reduced the contact patch of your tire.  Only increasing the wheel rim width along with the tire width will increase the contact patch.
 

But after spending the $ for that bigger tire........
Not easy to convince the "bigger is better" folks that, without the wider rim, using stock PSI - you are not adding width to the contact patch, but just the opposite.
Stig

[Jaxkruiser]

@ Oldscoot, did you consider a 130/60-16 size tire? If so why did you choose the 70 series tire?

[DIRKHUNT]

Just as note, I  used an oversize on my Scarabeo and noted these differences.

Smoothed the ride

Increased stability of the bike on rough pavement

Seemed to corner better.

Threw Speedo off a little

No change in gas mileage or acceleration.

Second part if the questions that folks seen to gave is "Do wider tires have greater rolling resistance? "

Minimal difference for one size up.
How minimal? Pro cyclists have shifted from 23mm width tires to 25mm tires. Why? Because they couldn't feel a difference in rolling resistance,  and that group wouldn't give up a quarter of a watt if you paid them.[emoji16]

Hope that helps,

Dirk

Sent from my SM-G950U using Tapatalk