Put an Avon Rear on this Weekend.

[Holy Cow]

I ordered a new set of Avons from SWMOTO and realized on Saturday that the rear Metzler was into the wear bars. so, I pulled the wheel and dismounted the old tire. I then spent a majority of the weekend building a different style balancing stand to balance the rim and new tire.

I noticed on the bare rim, the heavy spot was about an inch from the valve stem. On my Venture Royale, the heavy spot was probably 45 degrees from the stem. I don't really know what the means, but it is just an observation.

I then mounted the AV-46, which went of surprisingly well. As has been pointed out on this forum, there is no "light spot" mark on the tire like nearly all others do. Someone suggested the stamp on the inner casing might be the mark. I found a yellow "77" stamped inside the casing, so I lined it up with the mark on the rim.

I was surprised to find it took seven ounces to balance the wheel. That seems like a lot. So, I don't know if lining the 77 up was the wrong thing to do. Also, there seems to be a little vibration at speed, so I may have a problem with my new balancing setup. I will check that again tonight.

I ran out of time, and didn't change the front, so it still have a Metz 880 on it.

I rode in to work today and I really like it. I was watching for the "Drunk Hula Girl" effect, and didn't find it. I got the impression from this forum that it was due to side wall flex, but i don't think that is the case. The tires are extremely quick to reach and it doesn't take much pressure on the bars to turn. To me, the wobble was due to a too firm grip on the bars and then hitting something in the road that caused a non-uniform pressure to be applied. I found that by relaxing my grip some, the bike ran really well.

I really liked the way the bike cornered, very quick. I took it easy because I still has less than 20 miles on them, but overall, i was quite happy.

I'll report back on the balance issue when I check it tonight.

[lovetomotor]

I just mounted an AV46-St on the rear of my '03' LTE yesterday. I now have Avons front and rear. First of all I really like the front AV-45 with the rear BT-020 radial. Now with the rear AV-46, I can feel a little bit of a wiggle at speeds below 5 MPH but I suspect that will subside as I put some real miles on the set. As a matter of fact a new set of 020's gives a funky wiggle for at low speeds for the first several hundred miles.

I was able to balance the rear wheel with only 30 grams, 15 per side. I don't like to go much more than that. I balanced the front with only 10 grams, 5 per side. So, as far as the quality control on the Avons I'm impressed. I think the Avons turn really quickly and seem to be sticky.

I'll report back soon.

[meese]

Considering the main Avon rear detractors have several hundred thousand miles experience each, I doubt it's simply a too-tight grip. At least I can definitely say that's not the case with me, and having ridden with Shealey I seriously doubt that's the case with him either. We just don't like how they feel.

Glad it's working for you though. Keep us updated as you get more miles down.

[Holy Cow]

I pulled the back tire off to investigate why it took 7 oz to balance. I found the axle on my balancer was slightly bent, so I fixed that and checked the balance again. The block of weights was now my heavy spot, so part of the excessive weight was tool error. However, I found by taping a 1oz weight on the light side brought it nearly in balance.

So, I removed all the weight from the rim, and broke the bead again, and spun the tire about 180 degrees, and reseated the beads. This time the tire balanced with only 2 oz. So, it seems I lined up the heavy spot of the tire with the heavy spot on the rim. My initial assumption that the stamped "77" in the inner casing marking the light spot was wrong, and new is seems is marked the heavy spot.

Next was to mount the Avon from. I got that used tire from Big Bear that was on the classifieds a week or so ago. It has 3650 miles on it, but looks pretty good. When I had the bare rim, I found the rim itself is about 1 oz out of balance. This time, I lined the stamped numbers up opposite the heavy spot on the rim. Again, it took 2 oz to balance, at a spot almost across from the heavy sport on the rim. So, it would appear that the 1 oz went to balancing the rim and 1 oz went to balancing the tire. Once again, I mounted the tire in probably the worst possible orientation. I think If I had broken the beads and spun the tire 180 degrees, I may not have needed any balance weights at all.

So, the conclusion from all this there seems to be no relation between the stamped numbers and the heavy spot on the tire.

[dshealey]

--------------------- the wobble was due to a too firm grip on the bars and then hitting something in the road that caused a non-uniform pressure to be applied. I found that by relaxing my grip some, the bike ran really well.---------------------------.

That certainly was not my case. I always rode with a very relaxed grip, basically just resting my hands on top of the bars a great deal of the time. The rear of my LT wallowed so much you could look down by the bike at the road surface and actually SEE it, not just feel it. I rode some with hands off the bars trying to determine if it was back or front, and quickly realized it was the rear Avon doing all the wallowing. Even called Avon, they sent a new tire to a local dealer to have it replaced, that one was just as bad, knew within a few miles of the dealer it was going to come off as soon as I could get a new BT020 to replace it. That is how I accidently discovered the Rear 020/front Avon combination that many are now running. Much of the reason could be the roads, since much of my riding was on the infamous rain grooved concrete of many SoCal freeways, but even on smooth roads the rear Avon felt unsettled to me. The Metzeler 880s tended to dart around on the rain grooves, but an entirely different feel than the rear Avon, which just plain "wallowed" around on them. The BT020s did neither, and tracked very well over the rain grooves, with little to no detrimental effect. My last three of many sets of tires on the LT were back to the BT020 radials front and rear.