Wider rear rim???

[Coil Coyle]

Does any one know of swapping rear wheels from another Yamaha to get a wider rim?
???

[Extent]

IIRC someone did it once (off a seca turbo??) and managed to get a 130 on the rear, but when it got up to freeway speeds the middle of the tire shaved against the swingarm and left quite a mess.

[Coil Coyle]

I just want to spread a 120/90 a little bit, I will look up the old seca roadtest for a rim width.

[Superfly]

I ran the dunlop GT501's on the stock rim, 120/90/18 works great.

[jasonm.]

remember the wider the tire the slower the bike turns. All the new sport bikes have WIDE tires. But to make them turn they have a short wheelbase and you still have to lean them more than our bikes at any speed to turn.  120 is plenty on the rear. Yes the Seca turbo has a wider rim. A 120 is suppose to be on a 2.5 rim. Ours is a 2.15 but we all know it works.

[VisionaryDan]

I just bought a second V on ebay. It came with a 130/90 tire on the rear. Is this thing safe with a tire that large? It looks kind of scary the way the tire is squeezed on to the rim. The former owner said he had one size larger then that on it prior to the 130/90.

This tire does clear the swingarm but I would hate to see what would happen if I were leaning into a corner and hit a bump in the road.

What do you think?
Dan

[h2olawyer]

Dan -

In my opinion, a 120/90 is as big as should be run on the stock V rims.  The handling with a 120 is a little slower than a 110, but the bike still handles great with the 120.  I'm currently running a 120 rear & going back to a 110/90 next time I change - likely sometime this summer.

H2O

[Walt_M.]

I think there was a post some time ago where a guy had a problem with a 130/90 rear tire. He said is actually 'grew' at high speed and contacted the front of the swingarm. He didn't crash but it got his attention.

[Superfly]

I ran a 130/80 fine on the rear rim, the 90 would rub the top of the swing arm.  I am not recomending it, but the dunlop seemed a little thinner for a 130 than the others.

[ProfessorRex]

Why go bigger?  I have great traction with my 110 along with light handling and a comfortable ride.  If you want more traction, get better tires.  ALSO (and this is a big deal) a tire designed for a certain rim width will not sit properly on a narower rim.  Yes it will fit, BUT the profile of the tire will be different than the designers intended, possibly giving you less contact patch.

-Rex

[Extent]

Well the root post was about putting a wider rim to get a wider tire, which would be the right way to do it.  I completely agree about squezing on a wider tire on the stock rim tho.  Sportrider had an awesome article a couple years ago exactly on that.  worrying about the size of the contact patch is a non-issue when you destroy the profile of the tire and leaning characteristics of the bike

http://sportrider.com/tech/tires/146_0206_size/