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Concept
Motorcycle tyre
Summary
A motorcycle tyre (spelt tire in American English) is the outer part of motorcycle wheel, attached to the rim, providing traction, resisting wear, absorbing surface irregularities, and allowing the motorcycle to turn via countersteering. The two tyres' contact patches are the motorcycle's connection to the ground, and so are fundamental to the motorcycle's suspension behaviour, and critically affect safety, braking, fuel economy, noise, and rider comfort.
The history of motorcycle tyres is a clear progression of steady improvement in grip, allowing better acceleration, braking, and turning, along with improved comfort, safety, durability, and reliability. This progression has generally meant a steady increase in tyre width, so much so that Kevin Cameron noted the assumption among riders that "bigger must be better in every way", leading to, "the temptation to overwhelm motorcycles with the biggest tyres the owner can find." While many advances in tyre materials and construction have yielded unalloyed benefits, at a given level of technological sophistication, every design choice, such as tyre width, diameter, cross-section curvature, and the geometry of the motorcycle the tyres are intended for is a trade-off and a compromise.
Pneumatic tyres were invented by John Boyd Dunlop in 1888, and were in widespread use on bicycles and some early motorcycle prototypes by 1895. They were used on the first production motorcycle, the 1894–1897 Hildebrand & Wolfmüller, and have been on nearly all production and special motorcycles ever since. During this period tyre sizes were usually diameter and wide.
The early wheels were spoked, made of all metal, or wood and metal, and used inner tubes to hold air. Flats were a constant problem; largely the fault of poor roads and not necessarily tyres. For easier repair, butt-ended or open ended inner tubes were used on some models, and some brands made rear wheels easier to detach. Spoked wheels with tubes remained standard until the 1970s, when solid, usually alloy, wheels began to appear and eventually dominate street motorcycles, making lighter tubeless tyres practical.
Official source
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