Epee

Thanks Cobie for input and Iwarner for suggestions.

It's kindof a chicken and egg thing if you ask me. Is it best to ride the bike a certain way because it is designed to be ridden that way, or is the bike designed to be ridden a certain way because that's just the best way to ride it? To put it another way, if a bike had equally sized front and rear tires, would you ride it any differently? To me it seems the laws of physics dictate that it is best to accelerate through turns, and that the bike will spend more time on power than on brakes, and that its best to support more weight on the rear than on the front. Therefore, the bike is designed, with a larger rear tire and many other things, to work that way and be ridden that way. Therefore, since both the laws of physics and the bike's design are both dictating that it be ridden a certain way, it would be doubly stupid to ride it some other way and expect a better result. It starts with the laws of physics, not the bike's design. If it starts with the bike's design, why not design it with more weight on the front, a fatter front tire, smaller rear tire, and ride around the turns on the brakes all the time? Afterall, you'd still have the tires "loaded proportionally to the tire contact patch area." Please don't misunderstand me. I am not making any statement about the laws of physics, motorcycle design, etc. I am simply looking for engineering data to support the premise that tires work best for cornering when they are carrying load proportional to their contact patch. This thread is about tire grip; which I take to mean how to use tires most effectively. I am very interested in how tires really work. The more I know about the engineering behind tires, the better decisions I can make about how to use them. I think this is entirely consistent with what you teach at CSS; the best riding technique is one that is in harmony with motorcycle engineering. I am looking to learn more. Most of data on tires I find is based on automotive tires, which generate side (cornering) forces in a fundamentally different way than motorcycle tires. I have Tony Foale's "Motorcycle Handling and Chassis Design", Vittore Cossalter's "Motorcycle Dynamics", etc. These are excellent books, but do not cover tires in sufficient detail to cover optimal cornering performance. So, if anyone knows of other sources of tire information, I'd love the pointers. Thanks!

The keystone to TOTW is that tires work most effectively cornering when loaded proportionally to the tire contact patch area. Almost everything taught from CSS follows from that tenant. While I find that entirely plausible (and a much better explanation of motorcycle dynamics than most alternatives), I have never been able to find any engineering tire data that makes the same assertion. Can anyone point me to technical articles that support this claim? I'm not trying to cast doubt on the tire rule, just find more detailed explanation. Thanks.