Winter tyre pressures

Anyone SET their tyre pressures at/to a different pressure in/for the winter?

Not here

Edit:

Well strictly speaking, tyre pressure should be checked cold so if when cold you need to increase to the recommended pressure then your doing nothing wrong and should be done.

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Anyone change their tyre pressures in/for the winter?

Er, why?

As it happens, I change the pressure in my tyres at least once a week. Sometimes I add air, other times I let some out. But all with the aim of maintainin 33/36. ;0)

Originally Posted by toonyank

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Originally Posted by chazzyb

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I can see where it was a little ambiguous now ... I'll reword the original post

Well maybe ambiguous but I think the main thing is that people would probably not tend to change because it's winter because when you check regularly, you're making adjustments throughout the year.

Originally Posted by toonyank

Well maybe ambiguous but I think the main thing is that people would probably not tend to change because it's winter because when you check regularly, you're making adjustments throughout the year.

Ok, less ambiguous still ...

If you normally set to say 36psi, would you tend to set to a different pressure (when checking pressures) for the winter?

i.e. you might choose to set pressures higher/lower than you would in the summer ... say 34psi, or 38psi (or whatever).

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Anyone SET their tyre pressures at/to a different pressure in/for the winter?

OK, why might you want to? If the tyres perform optimally when set at say 33/36 cold in the summer, why would using different pressures in winter change things?

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Ok, less ambiguous still ...

If you normally set to say 36psi, would you tend to set to a different pressure (when checking pressures) for the winter?

i.e. you might choose to set pressures higher/lower than you would in the summer ... say 34psi, or 38psi (or whatever).

No just set at the same pressure you normally would (36psi) cold. 36psi when cold in the winter is the same as 36psi cold in the summer.

PS. Reason being is that temperature variations will affect the tyre pressure. 36psi in say 25 degrees will decrease in say 5 degrees so when you start off at 36psi when taken cold you're starting off the same. Only danger would be that in the morning when you set off it's 5 degrees and in the afternoon it's 25 degrees now you know that's not likely here.

Originally Posted by chazzyb

OK, why might you want to? If the tyres perform optimally when set at say 33/36 cold in the summer, why would using different pressures in winter change things?

Ah, right, yeah ...

Tyres don't work optimally at say 36PSI, they work optimally at say 40psi.

Air expands with temperature, the 36PSI COLD pressure is actually a base 'constant'* to achieve that hot pressure of 40psi ...

The rationale is that you would need to change the 'start' pressure in the winter as not so much heat will be generated as in the summer and you won't hit your optimum 40psi.

*you can always know when a tyre is cold/not used for a while, its hard to tell how hot it is after different length runs, so you set them cold - its more constant, a bit like valve clearances, you set them cold, but it is the hot clearance's that is important - you expect expansion of components with heat and take that into account when dreaming up the cold setting.


Not sure I have explained that particularly well? ... trying to multi-task!!

Originally Posted by Blue_SV650S

Air expands with temperature, the 36PSI COLD pressure is actually a base 'constant'* to achieve that hot pressure of 40psi ...

The rationally is that you would need to change the 'start' pressure in the winter as not so much heat will be generated as in the summer and you won't hit your optimum 40psi.

Well this is so very true but it's not as critical in the winter cuz at low temps you're probably (hopefully) not pushing the tyres as much as you would in the summer.