Hi All,

My 2F, 1R trike is starting to take shape, but one fairly vital bit of info in regard to my rear end (well the trikes rear end) is will a car type tyre fit on a 17" bike rim?

By the look of it the bead height must be somewhat different.

Any tyre fitting type folk out there?

Thanks all, Andrew.

the other question is can a bike rim take the side loadings a trike will put on them ?

Would have to be single rear double front to use a bike on the back and I would guess then that you are after a car tyre to get a nice flat contact patch.

Still as the bike tyre will be designed to put that amopunt of power on the tarmac why not stick with a bike tyre

Andrew

A conventional bike tyre & rim will not be designed to take the sideways forces that will be exerted in a trike format. The tyre will also have a very small contact patch when compared to a car tyre. I am sure there must be a rim & tyre which is suitable though - maybe a sidecar racing jobbie?

It can be done, I've seen custom builds that have used two bike wheels welded together and a car tire fitted over them. So i guess the beading is suitable.
Sticking to a bike tyre is a none starter, with aggressive riding you can trash a £150 rear in less than 1000 miles on a bike, additional weight and forces in a trike, half that milage

John

Plenty of road legal quads down here, I saw 6 together and I'm sure they were race jobbies as they were as wide as cars with fat low profile tyres not those daft ballon things...oh and they weren't hanging around either...mental things...and I want one

Thanks all for your input.

Yep 2 wheels at the front and one at the rear which is currently a bike rim and tyre.

I definately wish to run a car tyre along the lines of my front tyres which are 195/50x15.

I would have thought that a bike tyre would be a bit dodgy with the extra weight versus the original bike and would obviously wear flat and square pretty quickly and just doesn't make sense. Hence enthusiasm for fitting a car tyre.

Strength of the rim certainly could be an issue. They certainly are light.

A sidecar race tyre wheel thingy might be a possibility as is just making up a suitable hub etc which is I suppose what I will do.
I have the wheel as I bought 4 used MX5 original wheels cheap. Pretty light little wheel actually.

Having said all that, the consensus is that perhaps a car tyre will fit on the bike rim?

I think I'll turn up at a tyre store this week with a bike rim and ask. With all the litigious bull these days I expect they wont touch it with an extra long barge pole.

Thanks again, Andrew.

My mate had car tyres fitted to his rims to run with a sidecar. The rules for bike tyres make it a good idea as the tread limits for them are stricter, the car tyres last a lot longer.

I believe you can safely fit car tyres to a bike rim, but haven't any data on what will or won't fit.
Failing that any decent alloy wheel supplier will sell you a "blank" wheel with the corect size & offset, you then just need a machine shop to drill it for the bike hub & I guess you need the wheel centre from your original wheel - I've seen this sort of thing done but never looked closely at the setup.

Well Russ after my visit to the 'tyre experts' today if what they say is true I will need to start nutting out something along the lines of what you are alluding to.

The thing is almost everyone here thinks its not a problem and life would be so much simpler if I could just bang a car tyre on what I have.

Mr tyre Guru (pimply 19 year old done everything twice super tyre fitter of the year two years in a row) though assures me that the beads are different the diamter is different and apparently bikes lean in to corners and therefore dont have any lateral load (in technical terms ie. the terms he used, "na sidewayz forse".

I thanked him for his imformation and left.

I will try another tomorrow if a get a spare second.

Thanks again for your input, Andrew.

PS. Oh and Russ that car of your is verryyy nice. Mighty effort!

Hi all.

Well its done!

I managed to find a tyrefitter that thought it would be 'not a problem'.

Sure enough within minutes of arriving at their workshop and handing him the 17 x 5.5 inch bike rim it had a 205/40R17 wrapped around it.

It has a bit of a curve across the face of the tyre and it looks incredibly low profile but it seems to fit fine.

Have to take it to a bike shop now to get it balanced I suppose.

Thanks again everybody for your input, Andrew.

205 is wide for a 5.5" rim so you will have a curve. If it's on the rear I wouldn't bother balancing it, you won't notice any difference.

Hi Pete,

Yeah I was thinking it wasn't too critical but I am something of a balance fetishist.

Mind you I am also lazy and scungy with money so I'll probably leave it as it is.

It is a second hand tyre with about half tread so at some stage soonish it will be replaced and I'l try to find a 195/45R17 or something along those lines that isn't so much of a stretch.

Bye, Andrew.