Type of tyres you run in this awful weather!

It depends where you ride on the road, too - lots of bikers stick on the middle of the lane where it's slippery - stick to one or other of the dry, clean car tyre tracks and you'll get a lot more grip, especially in poor weather.

See, cars ARE good for something after all.

Almost 3 pages of advice about warm tyres

Tyre construction warms tyres up, it is nothing to do with outside temperature. modern tyres are made from chemicals which react with each other, that is how the temperature rises from within.

An old school teacher of mine used a simple exercise to demonstrate physics.

"What is heat?" "a form of energy Sir" if you didnt answer the question correctly he would slap your ear till it got warm

Road temperatures do not make any difference to tyre heat, it comes from within, like your ears :P

[northwind]

No man is an island friend Wheelnut- if the road and environmental temperatures are cold, that draws heat away from the tyre. More so in cold, wet conditions. war roads don't heat tyres faster, they just reduce the heat loss- which has exactly the same effect, of course.

As for "chemicals which react with each other", if it were as simple as that tyres would always be warm. There's no exothermic chemical reaction in a tyre, to the best of my knowledge anyway- what warms tyres is their own internal friction. The tyres constantly reshape, which causes friction within them, which causes heat.

Originally Posted by northwind

No man is an island friend Wheelnut- if the road and environmental temperatures are cold, that draws heat away from the tyre. More so in cold, wet conditions. war roads don't heat tyres faster, they just reduce the heat loss- which has exactly the same effect, of course.

As for "chemicals which react with each other", if it were as simple as that tyres would always be warm. There's no exothermic chemical reaction in a tyre, to the best of my knowledge anyway- what warms tyres is their own internal friction. The tyres constantly reshape, which causes friction within them, which causes heat.

Correct, but the chemicals hold the heat in the tyre without it going sloppy or slack :P

Tyre warmers are used to heat the internal carcass of a tyre, then the construction is designed to hold that heat.

I agree with your theory too, because a school teacher slapping your ears was demonstrating how friction works :P