Darkside and ABS

Are any of the darkside users riding ABS bikes?

Does the difference in diameter between a darkside and OEM tire affect the ABS function?

I am asking because I looked at an N700x today and the salesrep wanted to make sure I did not switch out the tires / wheels or it would mess up the ABS.

The rep is correct!! The ABS has splines on each wheel that measure the speed of that wheel. If they do not read the same speed the ABS tries to make corrections to balance the drag to match them up to keep one wheel from skidding. Simple explanation but that is the general idea behind ABS.
If you apply the brakes with tires that are not matched in size the ABS will not function properly and could cause skidding or increased stopping distance.

I ask that question on a DS forum for a 175 70 13 that is a much larger dia then the MC tire to someone that was using this tire and he notice no difference . I am using a 155 70 13 that is almost the same dia as the 150 70 13 MC tire and found no difference . P.S. The DS of this forum would be a better place to asked this information.

Check this out.

http://www.ashonbikes.com/content/how-abs-works

This thread is a bit dated, but since I use a car tire, I thought I would comment and
ask a question of tinman.

I use a Roadstone Classe Premier 165/65R13 on the rear of my 2006 Silverwing ABS.
Going by the numbers, the 165/65 sidewall height should translate to a tire that is
closer to the stock tire diameter than any other car tire.
BTW, my ABS brakes work just fine as they should in hard braking while using this tire.

Checking, I find the 165/65R13 car tire has an overall diameter of 21.4" while the
Bridgestone HOOP 150/70-13 scooter tire has an overall diameter of 21.3". That
0.1" is not very much of a difference.
OD of other car tires used on the Silverwing.
155/70R13 = 21.6"
165/70R13 = 22.1"
And just in case somebody uses a 175/70R13, that would = 22.7" and is significantly
taller than the stock standard scooter tire.

tinman:
If you could please, identify the DS forum and at least a link to the post where the person
says they use a 175/70R13 car tire without any differences noticed. I find it somewhat
incredulous that the much taller 175/70R13 wouldn't have an effect on the ABS system.
(that is assuming the bike in question does indeed have ABS brakes.) There would be
quite a discrepancy between the speeds reported to the system from the front and rear
wheels. (it would always see the rear tire as turning slower than it should relative to the front.)
Thanx.

The forum that I ask that question about the clearance of the forum is (Riding on the Darkside) where I am known as (Trip) . that question was asked about The 175 70 13 where I was told that it would fit. I still have that winter tire . I intend to try it now that my Swing has a Trigg Trike kit installed and have no intention to go back to riding on 2 wheels. If anyone decide to trike there Swing The Trigg trike kit is ( the best out there BAR NONE ) Big 2 wheel cruisers can barely keep up with me in the curves.

I did not post the 175 70 13 on the right forum .I found it on, Honda  fjs 600 Silverwing scooter forum . the comment said the tire would fit when comparing it to the 165 65 13 . When I compared my 175 to my 155 there was 1" difference in the hight,IMO it would fit if you have a longer in seam.

tinman wrote:

I did not post the 175 70 13 on the right forum .I found it on, Honda  fjs 600 Silverwing scooter forum . the comment said the tire would fit when comparing it to the 165 65 13 . When I compared my 175 to my 155 there was 1" difference in the height. IMO it would fit if you have a longer in seam.

OK, thank you so much. I found it in a 2010 post on the silverwing.org site and apparently a 175/70R13 WILL fit on the Silverwing.(with room to spare according to the poster) The thing not mentioned was whether or not it was on a Silverwing with ABS. Without further comment by the poster other than it worked great, I doubt that his bike had ABS.

I DO have a 175/70R13 mounted on a spare rim and my Silverwing has ABS.... Guess that'll make me the guinea pig for testing then I'd suppose. But the weather is starting to get lousy up here in Michigan so I don't know for sure whether I'll get around to trying it before snow flies and then can't test. If I'm going to try it out before then, it should probably get done this Thursday which looks to be cool but dry and warmer than days following. No promises on that though. But if I do then I'll be sure to post results/impressions.

I'm not worried about height difference. I'm 5'-10' (maybe slightly taller with boots on) and have used extra padding on the seat for my long rides and don't always necessarily try to flat foot it anyway. It's not really an issue for me.

bandito2 wrote:

But the weather is starting to get lousy up here in Michigan so I don't know for sure whether I'll get around to trying it before snow flies and then can't test. If I'm going to try it out before then, it should probably get done this Thursday which looks to be cool but dry and warmer than days following. No promises on that though. But if I do then I'll be sure to post results/impressions.

Ended up going out and buying back a 2006 Reflex that I restored and sold to a friend instead of putting the 175/70R13 car tire on and testing..... Looks like another chance for that on Monday.

BTW, I'm tickled to have the Reflex with ABS back..... I didn't really want to sell it after fixing and test riding it in the first place since it rode so nice.

bandito2 wrote:

Ended up going out and buying back a 2006 Reflex that I restored and sold to a friend instead of putting
the 175/70R13 car tire on and testing..... Looks like another chance for that on Monday.

So today (Monday Nov. 3, 2014) I put the 175/70R13 on the bike and went out for a 200.7 mile ride to see
how it would do. Yes it fits on the bike fine without clearance issues and I never noted any noises or noticed
any tire rubbing on the underside of the storage space beneath the seat. The speedometer matches the GPS
pretty close speed wise, but the odometer reads off by 3.438% low with that tire.

It tends to keep the bike rolling longer when off the throttle and actually has a nicer feel to it and corners nicer
than the 165/65R13. The 165/65R13 is a little more square shouldered than the 175/70R13 so that may be why.
I thought it might help with fuel economy, but a 4 mpg improvement seemed not such a big deal to me.
The brakes worked only as standard brakes do. The rear wheel I had the 175/70R13 mounted to is a non-ABS
wheel and is not drilled and threaded for the pulser ring. The bike naturally is easier to get up onto the center
stand, but leans over further when using the side stand.

So the question still remains whether the taller 175/70R13 car tire will have a negative effect on the ABS.
With no pulser ring on the rear, the ABS never got past the start up self test and so the ABS light stayed on
the entire time with no error flashing. I may get the wheel drilled and tapped so a pulser ring will mount to it
sometime in the future.

So that is my initial impressions of the 175/70R13 car tire after only a 200 mile ride. I really would have liked
to test the ABS function with that tire. Maybe somebody else can if they use a tire like that with an ABS Silverwing.
Otherwise, I won't be doing anything more about it until spring.

bandito I do hope you end up drilling and tapping the wheel so a pulser ring will mount on it as I would be interested to know if the larger tire matters to the ABS function. The Silverwing that I use for longer rides doesn't have ABS on it but the one I ride daily does. If I put a car tire on one of them, it would be the one I use for longer rides so the 175/70R13 sounds like a good choice. If I end up liking the car tire it would be nice to know if I could put one on my daily ride(with ABS) although I'm not sure if it would be worth doing because it would probably dry rot before I wore it out.
Thank you for the detailed review of the different sizes of car tires.

Haha, I love the idea of the tire dry rotting before it's worn out.

For me it's seeing the wear spots on my tire, not wanting to ride on a worn tire so ordering one on the internet, waiting for it to ship, taking the bike to the shop and hoping the guys have time to get to it soon....it's a hassle, and it's being unable to ride for days, usually during the season when you want to ride as much as possible.

DuggleBogey I understand my dry rotting comment could be humorous. My 08 non ABS I ride on longer rides and have put 52,000 miles on it five years with about one year of that recovering from two wrecks, so four years of riding. That's the one I would use a car tire on. My 07 with ABS I use around town and also have other scooters so it would take a long time to wear out a car tire on it.

model28a wrote:

bandito I do hope you end up drilling and tapping the wheel so a pulser ring will mount on it as I would be interested to know if the larger tire matters to the ABS function. The Silverwing that I use for longer rides doesn't have ABS on it but the one I ride daily does. If I put a car tire on one of them, it would be the one I use for longer rides so the 175/70R13 sounds like a good choice. If I end up liking the car tire it would be nice to know if I could put one on my daily ride(with ABS) although I'm not sure if it would be worth doing because it would probably dry rot before I wore it out.
Thank you for the detailed review of the different sizes of car tires.

Last year somebody asked about buying a spare rear wheel I had, but it had a 175/70R13 car tire on it. Then I forgot about it for a while then later remembered having it so I took it out for a 200 mile test ride. Kind of liked it but it did not have a pulser ring to see if the taller tire would affect the ABS. The plan was to get that remedied and do testing again this spring. But I was recently asked if I still had it and if it was for sale. Well the 175/70R13 car tire test on an ABS equipped bike will probably have to be taken up by somebody else now because I sold it to someone that wanted a darkside wheel/tire set up for their bike.

Selling the wheel/tire was just a start to clearing out an excess of accumulated stuff. I really need to divest a bunch of things and that includes a couple scooters too. I'd like to dabble with maybe something like a Honda PCX 150 and maybe even do another streamline project with a 250 Ninja. (I should probably finish the Reflex Vetter streamliner first though) But I need the room and proceeds to do those things.

I'm pretty much done experimenting with different size tires I guess, but I will for sure still be using car tires now that I know which ones will fit on my Silverwing and my Honda Reflex scooters too.