Ducati Monster Forum

Driving home tonight in my 350Z and ended up stopping at a red light. I heard the familiar Ducati sound and looked to the left and saw a beautiful new pearl white 696 crossing the intersection and turning left. First thing I noticed was that the guy was going way too fast. I thought "oh no...", I then see him lean the bike quite far over and I thought "whoa there rossi...this is not going to end well.." Next thing I hear him rev it mid turn and the rear breaks loose, catches and the dude high sides right in front of me!  :o

Guy is moving, gets up, and is getting his bike together. I pull over to make sure he's ok. He appears to be a new rider. I said something to him about cold tires and waiting till they warm up a bit before going balls to the wall. He seemed noobish and had no idea that tires have temperatures, but whatevs.  Sucks for him though. Rear brake lever, jeans, rizoma bar ends and mirrors, confidence, and frame sliders trashed.

Be safe out there and remember to let them there tires warm up!!  [moto]

I hope you told him about the DMF.  ;)

I just rode my wife's new 696 home from the dealer tonight - it's 60 miles away with stretches of interstate, and she's not confident enough for that ride.

You'd better believe I was taking it easy in the traffic circle a couple of miles from the shop!

+1

IMO it's about going too fast & panic ..... not about cold tires at all ......

I remember riding my Hyper around a traffic circle about a week after I got it.

I was still getting used to the riding position and everything having come right off riding an S4 with really low clip-ons.

I felt like I'd fallen off a step ladder when I tipped into that circle.

 [laugh] [laugh] [laugh]

I wouldn't say cold tires so much....I'd say too much throttle too early.....definitely sounds like a noob mistake of poor throttle control and getting hamfisted with the gas....

shitty way to have to learn that lesson...that is...if he learned it!

Yeah, he was a bit ambitious with the throttle mid-turn, but even before then, the way he accelerated into the intersection was not "ideal" for the time of night and the type of turn.  He was leaving a community college parking lot after evening classes so I'm guessing it had been parked for a bit. His frame sliders def worked though. Not a scratch on the bodywork.  [thumbsup]

Cold tires may have been a factor, but I never trust intersections as they are often very slippery.

re:the tires.....if they are the stock tires ( which I have no clue what came on a 696 from the factory), temperatures wouldn't be as much of an issue for most areas here in the USA at this time of year. if at some point he had upgraded to something like Michelin Pilot Pure's or some other more track oriented tire...I'd say sure...but the confidence and grip of most street tires above 50 degrees  isn't a factor as they are better than most of us would like to think, unless the rider was doing something to exceed the limitations of the tires (ie: too much lean angle + too much throttle + too much speed = rider down)

+1 I'm pretty sure that tire temp had nothing to do with this. He probably hit a slippery patch as he was accelerating out of his turn. Maybe hit a bump.

A fistfull of throttle while leaned over never ends well.

It really doesn't matter what tire or temp.

Cold brain, not cold tires.  And that doesn't sound like bad damage at all for a high side.  They're particularly unfriendly to bikes. 

A friend of mine once told me that I could not out ride a street tire.

You think he was commenting on the tires ability.....


or yours?

Speaking from experience?  ;D

Mostly mine, but I street tires are manufactured to provide a ton of grip, which I presume has the byproduct of making them slower. I can't out ride anything, but I know that I can get into more trouble on my new track bike with cold slicks compared to at any point on street tires.

Yes.  :'(  There's even a youtube video somewhere out there. 

Don't you just love spring? The weather turns warm. The flowers bloom. The singing of birds heralds the leisurely days of summer. The smell of testosterone wafting off of noobs on over power sport bikes as they go careening off the road to their deaths. Truly a magical time of year.

sac

I hate to hear about stuff like this, especially if it's a new rider.

Was the bike pretty new?  If yes, then the tires were, too.  It's likely that there may have been some of the slippery 'mold release' compound remaining on the shoulders of the tires.  If he leaned the bike over to the point where some of the unscuffed rubber was on the pavement, the tire could have been really slick.

IIRC, Motorcycle Consumer News did an article about this a couple years ago.  They used heavy brushes and even some mild sandpaper on an orbital sander to remove the mold release compound from new tires. 

LOLZ  ;D sounds like a sneaky way to get rid of chicken strips  [moto]

http://www.sportrider.com/tips/146_0810_how_to_warm_up_new_tires/index.html (http://www.sportrider.com/tips/146_0810_how_to_warm_up_new_tires/index.html)

They don't use release compound on the tread anymore.  The surface of the tire does not need to be rough for it to grip and there is no release compound to wear off either.  However, waxes and oils used in the tire compound itself do concentrate towards the surface of the tire as it cools in the mold.  It is not until the tire is fully heat cycled that the tire will be able to achieve maximum grip.  Sanding your tire will not do it.  Hard acceleration and braking with the bike upright will create sidewall flex which will heat cycle the whole tire and properly break it in or warm it up for spirited riding.  It is not necessary to "scrub" the tire in from sidewall to sidewall either.  After the tire has been properly heat cycled you can safely lean it over to the edge the first time without any lack of grip.

That may be true for the Pirellis in the article you quote, but Michelin still uses mold release on its motorcycle tires. (http://two-wheels.michelin.com/2w/front/index.jsp?codeRubrique=8092004155045&codePage=8092004155045_16092004175457&lang=EN).

I read another article that I don't have handy at the moment, but it said that some manufacturers still use the term mold release simply because customers are familiar with the term and the concept that new tires need to be heat cycled (scuffed in) before they can use all the available traction.  If it really were a mold release then the tire would need to be "scuffed" from bead to bead before providing maximum traction at full lean.  This is definitely not the case even with Michelin.  I, and many others, have mounted brand new Michelins at the track, done some hard acceleration and braking to flex the tire and then put the bike to full lean on the "un-scuffed" outer edge without any lack of traction.  If the mold release compound theory were correct then that would not be possible.

696?   Couldn't have been from too much power.     Lack of experience. 

I see some guy in San Luis Obispo with a new Black 696, that rides like a complete idiot in heavy traffic.   He's going to crash if he hasn't already.

I'm with silentbob on this one.  I've mounted up brand new tires in Michelin, Pirelli, Avon, and Dunlop and immediately taken to the track with them.  After one lap I'm comfortable at 80%.  After 2 laps it's time to boogie.  I haven't had a tire feel like it had mold release compound on it since the advent of radial motorcycle tires.  I do remember a few sets of Dunlop K591 DOT race tires back in the '80s that didn't grip well out of the box........but that's another story.

Cloner
ABQ, NM

Ok - this discussion piqued my interest in the topic, so I went to my stack of old Motorcycle Consumer News issues.  Found the article I was looking for, called "Tire Conditioning Experiments" written by Dave Searle in the March 2006 issue.  Here are a couple of quotes for consideration:

"According to tire manufacturers, a new tire does not operate at maximum efficiency for approximately 100 miles.  During this time, the fabrics' fibers are 'settling in' to their rubber bonds as applied loads cause the tire to stretch and flex as it is deformed against the road.  As this happens, the tire's carcass gradually softens and it becomes more resilient, laying down a bigger footprint for more traction"

"As we've found on previous technical investigations, tire manufacturers were reluctant to talk about the subject - understandably - for fear of lawsuits, and we counted ourselves lucky to learn what little we did about the use and nature of mold release on some brands.  Contrary to our preconceptions, most do not use a mold release of any kind, and those that did said that silica (presumably in a powdered form) was the only agent, not soaps as we had supposed."

The article goes on to discuss the unique characteristics of race tires and also the editors' experiments with techniques to remove the slipperiest surfaces from new tires.

This is an interesting and worthwhile riding safety topic.  I'm glad this came up.  If anyone would like a copy of this MCN article, PM me your email address and I'll scan it and send it to you in .pdf format.  [thumbsup]

okay...so that was 2006 ( which means they tested in 2005 and took the time to produce and compile the article) ...how much has tire technology changed over the last 4, 5, 6 years with the compounds and build structures?....I would tend to gravitate towards the idea that the stretch/deform/release into resilientcy probably occurs much quicker and easier.

Maybe.  But, I'd still call it wise to ride easy on new street tires for the first 100 miles or so.

How could that possibly be true? "Too much power" is entirely relative, but a 696 has more than sufficient power to get many riders into trouble.

As you point out, this sounds more like a problem with experience than with power (or with tires). However, your point sounds like a dig at 696's more than anything else.

agreed. 80+ horses are enough to get into trouble. Hell, I can crash with less than that  ;D

I binned fantastically on a 60 HP machine.  ;D

My worst crashes were on (off) bicycles. ;)

It's hard to argue with this statement, moco.  I personally think (and I have no empirical evidence to back it up, I have done no research, I have only my experiences) that the biggest reason folks get off on new tires is that they're not used to the "new" handling characteristics of the bike. 

As tires wear in they change profile.  Street tires, as they near the ends of their pitiful lives, tend to get a bit if a flat spot near their middles and take a considerable effort to turn in.  This wear is, however, gradual, and the rider gets used to the handling characteristics of the bike in this condition.  New tires with a well rounded profile tend to fall into turns.  The rider shows up at "X" bike shop and gets off of a bike that takes considerable effort to turn.  He buys new tires and instantaneously gets back onto a bike that turns easily and, in short order, makes a mistake.

Maybe I'm wrong, and maybe new tires ARE slippery.  If they are, that slippery sure wears off in a hurry.  The Avon DOTs on my racer right now have about 40 miles on them, and they stick well enough to have big globs of rubber hanging off of them.   ;D

My M750 makes less power than the 696 and I can EASILY push the rear end out into a nasty slide on cold tires ~

JM