Dynabeads, or similar products: Yes or no?

drrod said:
My observations gleaned from some 80 sets of tires on different bikes, including the ST.
- many of today's tires do not require balancing. Manufacturing tolerances are better? Who knows? But many tires do not seem to need balancing. Not saying there are not some wheels that are out of balance though. I check my wheels' balance periodically and always check the balance of newly mounted tires and balance if needed. Cleaning the rim is a step that some people skip when balancing.
- Ride On - expensive, and did not prevent all flats (in my experience). When you take a tire off, with it in place, I found it was distributed in a relatively narrow band around the center of the tread area. Any puncture off that narrow line would not have been affected by the Ride On. I don't know how many flats it prevented but I had flat tires using Ride On where the puncture was well within the tread. It doesn't take too many bottles of Ride On to pay for a balancer.
- glass beads - I only used these on a couple of tires before I quit. The reason being that the glass tended to get pulverized into a very fine powder and this powder would clog the schrader valve, when checking the pressure, resulting in a slow leak.

Net result - I just check and balance if needed. YMMV
Click to expand...
Now for a bit more serious answer. ;)

I have balance beads at home in a plastic cup. If I need to balance my tires, I'll use them without question. But the last 4 sets of tires on my F800GT, didn't need balancing. I merely lined up the dot on the sidewall with the valve stem...and all was good.

Interestingly enough, the rims had weight on them from the dealership...but after taking that off, I never had to balance the tires. :confused:

Chris
 
I have mixed results with beads. I have run them in bike tires, car tires and big truck tires. In my research before starting down the path, the manufacturers of the beads (I have used 3 different manufacturers) all stated that the higher the section width, or profile, the better the result. They had little effect or inconsistency with low profile tires, they stated. I have run them in bikes and removed them now. When I first put them in, I was impressed. Then I started noticing vibrations come and go, albeit slight. I went back to static balancing with stick on weights and it is consistently smooth now. I ran the beads in a car once and I had exactly the same results, slight vibrations would come and go. Those car tires were 60 series profile. I drove a concrete mixer with dual steer axles before and it was smooth til one day, I cut a tire on a jobsite and had 1 tire replaced with a new one and a vibration appeared, consistently. I had the mechanic at work order in some beads from a big truck supplier and put them in the tire. They put in the recommended amount and it did help but didnt solve the issue completely. We never looked further into it after that. The bead manufacturers claim that while they have seen many accounts of beads, as a sole means of balancing, do the job, they caution that beads are meant to fine tune a static balance job, or at least they did 15 years ago when I researched beads. Overall, I'm not that impressed with them... YMMV
 
Every new tire I buy gets balanced before being installed. They remain balanced throughout their life.

Given that experience, I won't be using balancing beads regardless whether they work or not.

If I had issues with tires going out of balance mid-life, I might reconsider using beads or I might just have the tires re-balanced since that's been working pretty well for me.
 
How about we settle this once and for all? Those that think balance beads work, stand on the right side. Those that don't think they work, stand on the other side. Obviously those that think balance beads work are right, because...well, they are on the right. It's obvious. The right of what? I don't know. And everyone else is not on the right. :D :D :D

Now, does that settle the discussion? ;)

Sorry (sort of). I just couldn't resist that. We could go on and on about this, but we won't change anyone's mind...either way. :D
 
I'd say they work as long as there are enough and they remain free to move around.

If you think about it, a tire must first be out of balance for the beads to balance it.
 
ddemair said:
Every new tire I buy gets balanced before being installed. They remain balanced throughout their life.

Given that experience, I won't be using balancing beads regardless whether they work or not.

If I had issues with tires going out of balance mid-life, I might reconsider using beads or I might just have the tires re-balanced since that's been working pretty well for me.
Click to expand...
I question not only your statement, but also your logic on this.
Having tested several sets of the same tires, on the same bike, and having access to a state of the art wheel balancing machine, I spent a lot of time testing Ride-On, Balancing Beads, and wheel weight balancing methods.
In a nut shell (cartoon version) here is what we found.
Wheel weights may balance your tires the moment you put them on, but as the tires wear, the balance changes, yet the weights do not.
Often causing cupping and strange wear on the tires.
Several times the tires were pulled and the balance checked on the machine at various mileage.
None of them remained in balance after 800 or so miles etc.
Balance beads, flatten out, causing more vibrations than they fix, and every time we pulled the wheel, and spun them to check the balance, it was very difficult to obtain a balance again.
Ride on was the only product that was different,
It remains in the tire, re-balanced itself every time you rode it, and didn’t have the vibration from the shape or form of the inside of the tire causing issues.
After 6 sets of Pirelli angel GT tires, each tire balanced with ride on lasted longer, and didn’t get the cupping or strange wear that occurred with the other two methods.
Everyone’s bike and riding style are different, but these are the results that we found on these six sets of tires, on the same bike.
The interesting thing about the ride on is every time we pulled a wheel to check the balance, it was always still balanced.
You may think your tires remained balanced and working correctly, but I question if you even bothered to verify it.
I have not used weights, beads, or anything else but Ride On for the last 30 or so years.
Ymmv.
 
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