Why I Hate IRC Tires

[Live2ride]

Originally Posted by backinthesaddleagain

Cody - I guess I should have put a sarcasm icon there as I was kidding.

hehe, well that's the internet for ya, it's hard to tell sarcasm at times... especially when you got 2 hours of sleep last night and woke up from your dog barking it's head off and scratching the door because no one let it in this morning .

p.s. at least we got a good laugh out of it.

[backinthesaddleagain]

yeah for sure. but the waxed floor was a good guess. years ago i worked at a dealer and we were always pushing bikes around. Backing in a gold wing by standing in front of it and pushing the handlebars was nerve wracking.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by backinthesaddleagain

I was amazed and shocked the other day. Some new ninja 250's were being moved around the showroom floor at my local dealer and the sales guys kept dropping them. I asked what was going on and they said damn IRC tires. Then once the bikes were in place safely on their kickstands they started sliding out and falling on the floor again.
]

I don't see how that's even possible on a stock bike and a level floor unless the stands were not fully deployed. I mean, earthquakes or stands sinking into the ground is one thing, but failing to hold the bike up with none of those factors means something was geometrically wrong (surface friction is irrelevant; even solid ice is fine).

[Alex]

[backinthesaddleagain]

Alex, hope you are licensed for multiple copies of that award!

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by backinthesaddleagain

Alex, hope you are licensed for multiple copies of that award!

[Sailariel]

I do believe that OEM Tyres are perhaps a cheaper version--I did notice a difference in my second set of 501s--then again that would not really be statistically relevant because of two confounding variables, confidence in the tyre, and more experience with the bike. So all that I am left with is a scientific wild ass guess.

I do know that on new cars OEMs are junk--whether that applies to bikes, is in question.

Pirelli tyres are really nice. I used them on my SAAB Sonett when I autocrossed. They wore down quite rapidly--But what a ride! Everyone I have ever spoken to about Pirellis on a motorcycle just couldn't shower enough praise on that tyre. Their performance is legendary. Another tyre that gets rave reviews is the Metzler Lasertec--also sticks to the road like glue but lasts longer. This is not stuff I have read in magazines. It is based on talking to real people. I really don't know anyone with IRC tyres.

[CynicalC]

Originally Posted by Live2ride

That sounds like someone had just waxed the floor, and that the salesperson may have been new? Because if I was a sales person I'd probably throw my body in front of the bike before it fell so I didn't get fired . I hardly think that, even with brand new tires, that the tires alone would cause the bike to drop so easily while only being pushed through the showroom. Imagine how much it cost him per bike after dropping them. If I walked in there to buy a new 250 and saw rash / broken signals on a bike with 0 miles I'd look at the sales person like they're stupid and walk out never to return.

Originally Posted by CZroe

I don't see how that's even possible on a stock bike and a level floor unless the stands were not fully deployed. I mean, earthquakes or stands sinking into the ground is one thing, but failing to hold the bike up with none of those factors means something was geometrically wrong (surface friction is irrelevant; even solid ice is fine).

Oh lawds twice in a row!

[vkuchhal]

Originally Posted by 00NissanNinja

I had a similar experience on my IRC tires. I was nowhere near the max I have ever leaned, maybe about 30 degrees, and I was going about 20 mph through a turn. All of a sudden the rear just slipped right out. Since then I haven't really been comfortable leaning with these tires. As a matter of fact I've had the rear slip under mild lean angle about three times since, but at least I caught the bike before low siding again. The Tread design also causes problems just like you said. The tread in the middle likes to catch imperfections in the roads which can be unnerving at times.

I also had a similar kind of fall a couple of months back.. do not know who was the culprit. (tire or sand) .. Does any one know the reason behind these kinds of fall.

One of my friend suggested that this was due to riding a very low speed and on a turn , if the lean angle is more then the center of gravity of the bike changes and hence the fall..

any validation for this theory?

[backinthesaddleagain]

Originally Posted by vkuchhal

I also had a similar kind of fall a couple of months back.. do not know who was the culprit. (tire or sand) .. Does any one know the reason behind these kinds of fall.

One of my friend suggested that this was due to riding a very low speed and on a turn , if the lean angle is more then the center of gravity of the bike changes and hence the fall..

any validation for this theory?

Good point. Does it make sense that a lean in a slow speed needs some counterweighting to overcome the bikes wanting to fall? Misti often poses questions, perhaps she has a thought on this?

[tapdiggy]

I just bought a brand new set of IRC tires for my XT.

I hope they aren't too slippery

[backinthesaddleagain]

Remember Cheng Shin? They made knockoffs like the Metzler copy. Think today they just do atv and offroad equipment tires like golf carts.

[Alex]

They are still around; they re-branded themselves "Maxxis" a few years ago.

[tapdiggy]

Originally Posted by backinthesaddleagain

Remember Cheng Shin? They made knockoffs like the Metzler copy. Think today they just do atv and offroad equipment tires like golf carts.

My XT dual sport came from the factory with Cheng Shins. Most XT owners dislike them as much as some folks here dislike the IRCs. Speaking of knockoffs, the IRC tread pattern reminds me of Conti-Attack tire models; all of them. It's as if they carved a void shape from each Attack model into the mold for Road Winners.

[backinthesaddleagain]

Originally Posted by Alex

They are still around; they re-branded themselves "Maxxis" a few years ago.

As the late Ed McMahon would say "I did not know that."

[davisw4089]

Well me being a new rider and never riding on any other tire than the Stock IRC had my first Mishap With them today I bought my bike and since only have put just over a hundred miles on it and today i was riding to Class and givin the road was a little cold and my tires may have been not completly warmed up the rear slid out just a little on a turn and i wasn't even really leaning kinda makes you a tad nervous. so, I have been looking at some new ones but still in the if only i had the money stage haha

[V2Neal]

Maybe the older ones were better... front tire IRC, rear tire Cheng Shin.

[Sailariel]

Originally Posted by Alex

They are still around; they re-branded themselves "Maxxis" a few years ago.

Alex, Sure is hard keeping up with who buys out who. I almost exclusively use MAXXIS Tyres on our racebikes (bicycles) They are a great tyre. When I first got hooked on them there was when nothing could beat them for traction and puncture resistance on our gawdawful Maine roads. I still use them myself and recommend them to my customers. It is not uncommon to see 8K bikes using MAXXIS. Thanks for the info. They are still a great bicycle tyre.

[alex.s]

I'm confused and curious. (and i'm sure i'll sound like a dick asking these quesitons but,)
loosing traction on your rear tire, even at a lean angle, doesn't mean you low-side, does it?
look at dirtbikes, flat-track racers, or even moto-gp riders. they slide all around lap to lap and rarely go down. (unless your name is pegram)
i've worn down my stock IRCs and i'm on pirelli sportdemons now, but even still- you push the rear, the rear swings out, just like the IRCs... if they were covered in frozen mud thats one thing, but just being a little cold? something doesn't add up here.

you say you "fought the bike"... what does that mean? you provided extra steering input to "correct" the oversteer caused by the rear swinging out? i don't mean to be a dick (thats exactly how i'm coming off), but i feel like blaming a crash on the road and your tire is not a very wise thing to do for your future.

yes, if you lose traction on your rear because it truly is your tires fault (e.g. oil spraying on them, completely worn down, etc) and not a local road condition or something you did, you'll surely either lowside, or oversteer off the outside because you can't keep the turn radius. but if it's what you describe, a local road condition like a slick spot on the asphalt, simply changing nothing should have allowed the bike to correct itsself with an over-steer... right?

please don't take me wrong. i'm simply a squid noob trying to learn about situations he knows next-to-nothing about.

[almost40]

On a dirt track, stepping out the rear is a good thing. On the pavement stepping out the rear in most cases ends in a HIGHSIDE. Not a lowside. The tire losses grip and slides. When the rear regains its traction it sends you sailing over the top of the bike. NOT GOOD.
Street tires dont slide like a dirt track tire. Not unless you have the horsepower to keep it from regaining traction. Not the case with our lil 250's. The point when you lose traction on the rear in a fast sweeper is TINY. The time to react is even smaller than that. If the rear steps out your on the pavement.

[CZroe]

Originally Posted by almost40

On a dirt track, stepping out the rear is a good thing. On the pavement stepping out the rear in most cases ends in a HIGHSIDE. Not a lowside. The tire losses grip and slides. When the rear regains its traction it sends you sailing over the top of the bike. NOT GOOD.
Street tires dont slide like a dirt track tire. Not unless you have the horsepower to keep it from regaining traction. Not the case with our lil 250's. The point when you lose traction on the rear in a fast sweeper is TINY. The time to react is even smaller than that. If the rear steps out your on the pavement.

I lose traction on my rear in a left turn regularly at work (regularly wet manhole cover). I feel my rear slide and regain traction and it's always a little scary, but it hasn't caused an accident yet. The same thing happened to an EXTREME on the wet cattle guards I've encountered even when traveling as straight as I could.

[alex.s]

Hi Kevin,
I would agree with you if we're talking about riding at the limits of the tire... in that situation losing your rear probably happens very quickly and there's probably not a whole lot to do about it after it happens. but 20mph on a corner that can apparently easily take 40 shouldn't be anywhere close to the limits of a reasonably new (or at least not terribly old) tire, unless it's severely damaged in some way.

if a local road condition (like what the OP, or czroe describe) were to be encountered, would it really be a large enough area for the rear to slip out enough that it would be able to high-side the rider once it regained traction? maybe throw you into a tankslapper if you're tight on the bars... but a highside?

i would like to know what input the rider would have to give to the bike in order for it to low-side in an over-steer situation?
would trying to steer too far into the turn while in an over-steer situation result in a low-side? even if you aren't scraping parts?

i'm still curious to know what "fighting" the bike means. is that putting your feet down trying to hold it up? or applying input to the bars?

[choneofakind]

Just spit-ballin here.

so you take a right hand turn. Back wheel slides out like the OP had. In a car your inclination would be to steer into the turn (left) and drift through it rather than let the back end keep going and spin out. So if you do that on a bike, you's just be pressing the right bar further than it was when the back started sliding. This would lean the bike further and cause a low-side. I think...?

[bob]

I just wanted the chime in and agree that IRC tires are extremely dangerous. My guess is that the people who had no problem with them, even raced at the track, simply got lucky. Consistent quality is a huge challenge in any manufacturing process. Cheap tires = inconsistent quality.

I bought my 2009 Ninja brand new. I was horrified to find that gently pulling up to a stop light I could lock the front. I was never able to get appreciable fork dive with those ****** tires. The back tire would routinely slip out when commuting on highway 9 through the Santa Cruz mountains. I had to carefully navigate tar snakes even in ideal weather conditions. In the wet the tires were insanely bad. I had it completely sideways once on Steven's Canyon at extremely low speed. Miracle I did not crash.

Being cheap I rode those IRCs for 8500 miles. When I replaced them with my first set of Sport Demons it was like I got a different bike. Finally I was able to brake hard enough to dive the front forks. Tar snakes I don't even think about in the dry (still need respect in the wet or extreme heat).

I think that most people who blame the tires when they crash are full of it. However, if you crash on IRCs then your excuse is totally credible to me.

[Xoulrath]

The IRC tires are not great, but I can't complain. Change them if you think you need to. Otherwise, proper warming of the tires before pushing the bike, combined with clean steering inputs and proper body positioning gets great results.

Don't get me wrong, there are better tires and my IRCs will be gone shortly, as the tires for some reason have started to crack around the sidewalls. They will be replaced with something better - Bridgestone BT-45s. I just don't think the tires are dangerous for basic commuting and some spirited riding. The biggest issue I have had with them, aside from the sidewalls starting to crack, is the rear has gone square really quickly - about 3500 miles.

[choneofakind]

You're going to love the BT45's. I'm like you and didn't really think the Dunlop K630's on my bike were THAT bad, but I upgraded because I didn't like how squirrely the bike got. Night and day difference. You'll see just how bad the IRC tires are once you've switched to a better tire

[gfloyd2002]

Originally Posted by alex.s

I'm confused and curious. (and i'm sure i'll sound like a dick asking these quesitons but,)
loosing traction on your rear tire, even at a lean angle, doesn't mean you low-side, does it?
look at dirtbikes, flat-track racers, or even moto-gp riders. they slide all around lap to lap and rarely go down. (unless your name is pegram)
i've worn down my stock IRCs and i'm on pirelli sportdemons now, but even still- you push the rear, the rear swings out, just like the IRCs... if they were covered in frozen mud thats one thing, but just being a little cold? something doesn't add up here.

you say you "fought the bike"... what does that mean? you provided extra steering input to "correct" the oversteer caused by the rear swinging out? i don't mean to be a dick (thats exactly how i'm coming off), but i feel like blaming a crash on the road and your tire is not a very wise thing to do for your future.

yes, if you lose traction on your rear because it truly is your tires fault (e.g. oil spraying on them, completely worn down, etc) and not a local road condition or something you did, you'll surely either lowside, or oversteer off the outside because you can't keep the turn radius. but if it's what you describe, a local road condition like a slick spot on the asphalt, simply changing nothing should have allowed the bike to correct itsself with an over-steer... right?

please don't take me wrong. i'm simply a squid noob trying to learn about situations he knows next-to-nothing about.

You're not being a dick at all. The whole point of the forum is to stimulate discussion. Here is what I said earlier in the thread that I think touches on some of your points.

Originally Posted by gfloyd2002

To be fair, the slick bit of the road combined with a cold tire, which probably was not even clean so early in the ride in a sandy country, was the culprit. (Well, that and the stupid rider not seeing and riding around the slick bit. ) Though I'm convinced the IRC is a worse choice than BT-45s, BT-16s, Sport Demons, etc., and I'm relatively sure a better tire would have been fine even on the slick bit - I'm not saying that IRC is going to lose grip at 20mph. Its just that road conditions pushed the IRC close to its edge at a lower speed, and I think (subjectively without a ton of evidence) that other tires would've still had grip left over on that particular turn.

I'm not blaming the tire or the road conditions that were the contributing factors. It was me for running over a slick spot at 15-20mph without seeing it when I had cold, hard commuter tires that needed to be 1 or 2 mph slower. Seriously, I felt (feel) like a chump. Know your road conditions, especially mid turn. But there are those times when you just need a hair more traction to bail you out of a bad move and you wish you had that better tire on the bike. And seriously, at some point you just have to say, wtf are tires for if everything has to be completely perfect on a corner for them not to lose grip?

As to the technical elements of the fall, needless to say I'm not proud of going down. As you say, when the back tire goes out on a street bike you can try to save it, just like on a dirt bike. The difference is that when it grips again on the street and you aren't straight on the road, it catapults the rider high side. The self-correction process is easy enough for a dirt bike rider, but it gets street riders hurt. So when I say I fought it, I thought I could pull it back upright as you suggest while the tire was squirrely - I think I could have balanced and gotten grip back. But I decided to choose a very low mph lowside with zero chance of injury and a couple of scratches to the possibility of a highside and maybe getting hurt. Whether the right call or not at those low speeds I don't know, I might have been able to ride it out. But in my estimation, I wouldn't have had to make that call if I had just a hair more grip.

Also, I did note several other concerns with the tires, like the front tread center line grabbing on lane lines, the deep grooves on the outer portion of the tread that helps in rain but reduces corning grip and the lack of a dual compound ala BT-45s to aid in handling. Regardless of what you think of my little getoff, the fact is that the tires have some flaws that don't exist in the competition.

At any rate, here is a high side video that shows what I'm talking about. The bike self-corrects after the rear wheel slides out, and you can see the results.

Link to original page on YouTube.

[CynicalC]

Originally Posted by gfloyd2002

You're not being a dick at all. The whole point of the forum is to stimulate discussion. Here is what I said earlier in the thread that I think touches on some of your points.



I'm not blaming the tire or the road conditions that were factors. It was me for running over a slick spot at 15-20mph without seeing it when I had cold, hard commuter tires that needed to be 1 or 2 mph slower. Seriously, I felt (feel) like a chump. But there are those times when you just need a hair more traction to bail you out of a bad move and you wish you had that better tire on the bike.

As to the technical elements of the turn, needless to say I'm not proud of going down. As you say, when the back tire goes out on a street bike you can try to save it, just like on a dirt bike. The difference is that when it grips again and you aren't straight on the road, it catapults the rider high side. The self-correction process is easy enough for a dirt bike rider, but it gets street riders hurt. So when I say I fought it, I thought I could pull it back upright as you suggest while the tire was squirrely - I think I could have balanced and gotten grip back. But I decided to choose a very low mph lowside with zero chance of injury and a couple of scratches to the possibility of a highside and maybe getting hurt. Whether the right call or not at those low speeds I don't know, but in my estimation, I wouldn't have had to make that call if I had just a hair more grip.

Here's a high side video that shows what I'm talking about. The bike self-corrects after the rear wheel slides out, and you can see the results.

Link to original page on YouTube.

What caused that? Just a slick spot in the road?

[choneofakind]

If you watch right before his tail slides out, he got back on the throttle. On a 600, the power delivery isn't terribly linear, so when he was accelerating through the turn and got into his powerband, there was a surge of power to the rear wheel, which caused it to spin and he high-sided. Hence, 600's are not good beginner bikes. Enter our beloved ninja 250

my question is this. You see tailslides happen in motogp all the time and they dont high-side nearly as often. What would be the best way to keep the bike from suddenly getting traction and bucking? In this situation, the handlbars pressed left before he went off. Should he have pressed the right bar?

[Boom King]

Originally Posted by choneofakind

If you watch right before his tail slides out, he got back on the throttle.

What I observed from that video as well. Quick analysis anyways. Looks like he didn't have good control of speed going through the curve and he was starting to cross over onto the other lane so he gave the bike some throttle to hold his line. You can see how the bike weaves a bit through the turn. The second time he gives it throttle, the angle of the bike was already off and starting to go across the lane. Bike angled one way but momentum and weight pointing another way and when he gave it throttle, it just couldn't hold. If I were him, I would've just slowed down and squared up before I gave it more throttle. However, I'm a newb and could be totally wrong...

EDIT: After watching that video in slow motion, I feel more strongly that it was rider error that caused the highside. You can see the turn start to straighten out behind him but he's still leaning hard into the bike instead of starting to make the transition to straightening up out of the turn. His momentum wants to carry him out of the turn and he should be starting to straighten out but instead he is still leaning hard and starts to apply some throttle. The bike starts to slide out and go wide. Looks like he wants to exit the turn with a lot of speed and to compensate for the bike drifting wide, he tries to hold his lean longer than he should. Something catches at the end, maybe the footpeg because he is leaned in too hard or if/when he chomps on the throttle, the rear tire catches and wants to "self correct" with the bike's natural momentum out of the curve... the rest is history. There was a scraping sound earlier in his turn as well. At the end, when something catches, he jams on the left handle bar and becomes airborne. Looks like he was more focused on the camera man than following his line. Again, a newbie analysis...

[backinthesaddleagain]

I think a split second before he spotted the camera and made 2 simultaneous actions - looking at the camera and getting on the gas for the camera.

[alex.s]

poor body position. poor throttle control.
he leans it over too far, scrapes the first time and it scares him so he picks it back up a bit, maybe sees the gaurd rail coming after he picks it up and forgets he was just scraping? and pushes it down again even harder at the same time he gives it more gas, when the hard bit (looks like his foot peg) hits the second time, it wrenches his wheel out. then if you watch his right hand carefully you see when his wheel comes out he chops the throttle, causing the sudden regain of traction, and the high-side... just my thoughts

edit: to be fair to the guy though, it looks like he may have chopped the throttle because of the steering being swung to the other lock... might be hard to keep a steady throttle in that situation