Hi guys can anyone help please. I am going to convert my blade to a track bike and try out the more track focused road tyres but as you all know they dont come cheap. My questions are, If using tyre warmers and keeping them on all day at the track is there a set rule how many time,s this can be done ie is there a limit on how many heat cycles. If not using tyre warmers can the tyre be used over and over agian and only change it when its on its wear indicators, is letting the tyre cool down between sessions doing it more harm than using warmers all day. The reason i ask is a few mates follow a rule of doing 3 full track days on warmers all day then they say change them as they have had it is this a well known fact and used by other track day guys. By following this rule if i try and do 10 to 12 track days a year thats alot of sets of tyres to try and pay for and to be honest they are no where near the wear indicators when changed, any help would be much appreciated.
If you are not wearing them after 3 track days, then - no disrespect, i wouldn't worry about it. The tyre is not going to simply give up after 3 days, it may however become slightly less effective but if you aren't wearing them then I really wouldn't worry about it until you get faster. By which time, 3 trackdays will trash the tyres so its not an issue as you'll have to pay up anyway! Supercorsa SP's £230 a pair.
It would also depend on which tracks to choose mate, places like Anglesey wear tyres quite badly due to the tarmac offering good grip....but its harsh on the tyre. Pembrey is another grippy track but not so hard on tyres. I use warmers all day and tend to change them every 3/4 track days depending on condition Also bike suspension comes into play, a well set-up bike will be more tyre freindly thus lasting longer
use tyre warmers if your half serious about track days they will actually make your tyres last longer as they're up to temp straight away so no cold tearing and also the bike will feel sh!t for the first couple of laps till the tyres are up to temp/pressures rise aim for 35psi front and back HOT with pirelli/metzeler (31f 29r) with dunlop 35f hot 22-25 hot for dunlop NTECs (31f 17-19r cold) there isn't a set amount of heat cycles you can put a tyre thru but the more you do the worse for the tyre after the last session of the day put your warmers on (without the power) while you pack away your stuff to let the tyres cool more gradually. this stops them going blue on the edges if they go blue that means they have overheated and the oils inside the tyre have started to come out. that means to get the tyre back you need to get to that temp again for them to work properly on a fire blade you will get 2 track days max out of a rear. round somewhere abrasive like donning ton and silverstone you will get a day on a pirelli. pirelli don't last long at donny for some reason i usually change them after one track day. i could get 2 out of my r6. the fronts last a lot longer. when you use tyres on the track the wear indicators are pretty useless you won't wear the middle but you will wear the shoulder. you will know its worn when you look down the profile and see a dip in the rubber on the shoulder. the middle will be relatively new. also if your suspension isn't working you will wear tyres out quickly. you can tell a lot about what your suspension is doing by looking at tyre wear
Hi and thanks guys some very helpfull info there, especially how wrong set up, however sort of close to ok it feels can bugger a tyre up. I guess my mind is made up that i do need to use tyre warmers and pay more attention to how each track is affecting the tyre wear and learn how to relate that to suspension set up. Does anyone have info on this or some pics to relate to, i seem to get a blisterd rolled snot effect pushed out to the sides of the tyre is this correct or not looks good lol but not sure if this is right. At the moment i opt for intermediate group and feel i have held my own passing alot of peeps as the day goes on and feel i shave secounds off with every session as i learn the track but i dont feel confident enough to go in the fast group and i dont want to come across as sounding big headed as i am just trying to describe where im at on a track day and wot i should do next to help me get more confident and faster. So any help guys on wot i should be looking for on the tyre wear wise sorry to be a pain.
yeah rolled up balls of rubber on the tyre edge is what your looking for you can tell if rebound and compression is wrong by tearing accross the tyre. also you can play around with tyre pressures if your getting poor wearing like reducing pressures ti reduce cold tearing
I once had the rubber balls and moulton rubber around the tyre edge after a trip to Wales on a GSXR 1000 i walked around like a King for a week until some one pipped up that the setting must be wrong (Gutted).
I have started using wamers for the first time this year, with Supercorsas. Prevoiusly i had a pair of Corsa 3's which i did 10 track days on. I sold them on ebay and got 90 quid for them as the centres still had 5mm. I bought a set of Scrubs and have doen 4 TD's on them (snett 300, Oulton, Mallory & Donny). By mid morning at Donny the tread on the RHS was just about gone but the tyre still felt good and lasted throughout the day, infact the last session at donny was my best ever on track. It is now destined for the bin. Having the wamrers on will only be 1 cycle i believe, but there are plenty of people i know that use them on the road without warmers, so they go through multiple heat cycles throughout a day out. I had to experiment with the pressure a little, escpecialy in the rear. I initialy had it too hard and it was ripping up the tyre quite badly. I reduced it down to 26psi and its now sweet. Seems low but thats also in the recomended pressure range for the SC. Im probably not helping you much but just giving you the info that i know. Edit to add. Kwak zx6r b1h, running mid to top Inters, so im no track god by any means.!
Balls of rubber at edge of tyres are good, blisters on tyres is bad. If your holding your own/ up the front in the inters your ready to move up mate, dont be fooled into thinking all fast group riders are quick, I've been in fast groups when some of the lads should really be in Novice, while other days some lads are mega fast, but abve all most fast guys are safe. Focussed events have a bad reputation of putting guys in groups they didnt ask for, in fact it happened to me twice, I booked fast, turned up on the day and they said sorry fast is overbooked your in inters. If you want to improve watch other guys, or try getting a tow off someone, the instructors on track are also good ask them to follow you around for a few laps they will then give you feedback on things you can improve on [its also free], but above all relax/breath and enjoy the day, I had as much enjoyment in the Novice group when I 1st started as I do in fast group.now.
yep, just normal road tyres though. Didnt use warmers or anything, ddnt even own a pair but i must say the tyres were great and would certainly use them again. I have to admit, they did look a bit chewed up on the edges but the guy that bought them was well happy.
I get about 3 trackdays out of a set of racetecs (the absolute best trackday/road tyre) so to get 10 trackdays out of a tyre is amazing. Were you in the Novice Novice group following a tractor?
Good write-up mate, just wanted to add 1 comment. Track tyres only last a maximum of 6 heat cycles, so be aware!!! I learn't the hard way when I lost the front end of my Desmosedici at Silverstone as the tyres had gone through too many heat cycles!!!!
To be fair they were my first set of tyres when i first doing trackdays, so was a steady build up in novice then into inters. The Corsa3's and Racetecs aint really comporable in that way anyways, massive difference. I forgot to mention before Hondo, were you at Mallory on the 20th of August? A Rothmans blade was in the same group as me and looked to be going well.
Hi guys Just to add on to this as im very confused wots gone wrong now, i bought a new set of avon extreme tyres for my blade to do a track day at oulton park the morning was a mixture of damp/wet and dry sesssions and as new to the track was building up slowly. I was in the inters and holding my own and going very well, i think tyres felt good and kept them on warmers all day i think i was running aound 34 psi hot all day. A guy sharing our garage also on a blade but in the fast group said drop them a bit more to 30 rear hot and 31/32 front hot which i did and it deffinatly felt better grip wise coming out of low speed corners as the front was trying to lift. So went home happy and the tyres looked good at the end of the day no blueing. Did silverstone last week in the warm weather and aimed for the same tyre pressures all going well in the morning and tyres felt good and my friends said i seem to be flying, also on warmers all day. Then last but one session the front tucked on me a few times in the lower speed corners and it felt twichy which knocked my confidence loads, when returned to the pits the bobbles of snot on the front edge were alot more than oulton and wot i had seen earlier in the day at silverstone. This put me off going out the last session plus i did feel tired so called it a day and packed up, looking at the tyres now home they are both very blue and like is said the front seems to have more larger bits of snot on the edges than i have ever seen, are the tryes now shot or could i get another day out of them, is blueing bad and wot is the cause. Do you think i was running the correct tyre pressure ? Any help and advise is most welcome guys thanks....
just a quick add to this thread. you will be very lucky to get any usefull grip out of a tyre thats had more than 3 heat cycles, racetecs/interacts should be run at 29f/27r for a summer day, 30/28 on a less than average day and thats set piping hot before you go out, never ever set your tyre pressures when cold, and thats recomended by the pirelli race suppliers, complog. biggest advantage you can make to any bike is having the suspension setup correctly, not only for tyre life but for rider feel. Oh, and OP, your cause is probably down to track use on two different circuits with the same suspension setup, different circuits have different effects on tyres by loading the tyres in different ways.
There's a lot of different factors which can have an effect on tyres and their performance. Lots of people have different opinions on how a tyre works and what it needs. In terms of heat cycles, if your buying proper race tyres then yes they the number of heat cycles will have an effect on them. For mr average on a track day it's not something that'd be a major worry. A heat cycle relates to the tyre going from stone cold to hot. So if your running tyre warmers, which if using race tyres you should be, then it's literally about keeping the heat in the tyre, so coming in from your session and putting your warmers straight back on to prevent any heat loss. Generally 3 heat cycles is the optimum for a race tyre, but you can get more out of them and most of the time unless your on the total limit you won't overally notice. In most cases, a tyre will be done before it reaches 3 heat cycles. We're a Pirelli/Metzeler Race Support dealer, as well as running a full Irish Supersport team. We find that in the case of Pirelli and Metzeler race tyres, after some many laps they will lose the optimum grip, and maybe drop 0.5 - 1sec per lap of the fastest front running pace. But after they drop of this, they don't tend to lose much more and then they're spot on for trackdays and testing to be honest. Losing that 1s is critical in race terms, as your always wanting to go as fast as possible but on a trackday your never anywhere near this limit or pace. Furthermore, we've found that the Metzeler Racetec Interact is probably a slightly better tyre for trackdays as they are a bit more durable and tend to last slightly longer. Again set-up and tyre pressures are also quite important to get the best from the tyres. A lot of people will tell you different pressures, again this is quite a personal thing. It also varies quite a bit with tyre compound and weather conditions, track temperature etc. Best is to ask the tyre support at the trackday as to a base to set your pressures at. It's best to set tyre pressures when the tyres are up to temperature, so let them sit on warmers for 30-40mins before checking pressures. If your wanting to run Pirelli's then you've a few compounds to choose from. We're running SC2 fronts and then a choice of either a 0, 1 or 2 on the rear depending on tempeture. The fronts of SC1 and SC2 are actually very similar in compound. It's the construction and more significantly the sidewall which is the difference. The SC1 has more flex and a softer sidewall, with the SC2 having a much stiffer sidewall. Thus meaning that if you trail brakes into the turn, the SC2 is the better tyre for you, as it's got much more support. Where-as with the SC1 you would feel it trying to fold on you. With the rear's the SC0 is quite a trick tyre, it's harder to get hold of as it's really a BSS race tyre and only available through race vendors (like ourselves). The 0 is very critical of temperature, tyre pressure and bike set-up. We find that for most club racing an SC1 or SC2 is more than suitable. The 1 is a softer tyre which we find works really well in most conditions, with the 2 giving a bit more durability. If it's for trackday use, I'd be still with the 180/55 rear to be fair. Compound wise for us would be a SC2 front and either a 1 or 2 rear depending on how long you want to get out of it. Cheers
Agree on everything, but i wouldnt be asking many, if any, trackday tyre support bods advice on tyre wear. I rely on personal experience, advice from complog and advice from padgetts. I generally run k1 front k2 rear if im running treads, but im usually on slicks (but the 17inch flavour pirelli slicks are getting harder to find!) I once tried a SC0 front, back in 2009, as johnnyannet probably knows, when everyone had problems with them just losing grip all of a suuden, and the front tucked when pretty much upright going into barn at cadwell.
Nice one guys alot of great info there i think i deffinatly need to move up to the next series of track focused tyres i think but wow they dont come cheap do they lol.. So just to sum up my questions, 1- if a tyre gone blue is that a no no to use it again? 2- did you think my tyre pressure choice for silverstone and a very hot day was wrong or about right? 3- the big balls of snot a problem or not ? Many thanks guys just new to all this so need help..
