Am I crazy? When I was in Colorado last summer, I ran across some guys on Goldwings. One of these guys had a car tire on the rear of his bike. At the time I thought the guy had seriously lost his mind for about all of the reasons that you can think of.

Not to long ago, I was sitting in a local diner talking to another customer who was telling me that he had a car tire on the back of his Goldwing. Within a few days, I was doing some simple searching online for others that have done the same. I found an author by the name of Daniel Meyer who has riden over 100,000 miles on a car tire on his Valkyrie. He recently helped a friend put a 195/50R16 tire on the back of a Goldwing. It fit great.

After getting about 8,900 miles on the factory Bridgestone rear tire on my bike, I replaced it with a Dunlop Elite E3. I am very happy with this tire, but the fact of the matter is that motorcycle tires wear fast, they are not cheap, and the manufacturers recommend if you get a flat to buy a new tire. While to repair a motorcycle tire is a debate for another day, the fact of the matter is that if you were to think about putting a car tire on the back of a heavy touring bike like the Goldwing, it makes a lot of sense… and it leaves many questions. In the piece that Daniel wrote, he answered many of my questions… albeit a bit skewed. One question that I have remaining after reading his article, is how well do the sidewalls of the car tire hold up to tortures that a motorcycle will place on the tire. I am not talking about riding on the sidewall (Daniel answered that one quite well), I am talking about the torque and twisting pressure on the sidewall that the tire is bound to experience during acceleration, deceleration, and cornering. Especially when you combine two of these.I am considering placing a car tire on my bike in the next few months as I wear out that Dunlop. I want to hear from anyone that has used a car tire on a motorcycle. Also, I am looking for more people to help me consider the choice. Right now I am leaning about 55% towards that car tire, but I really want to be at least 75% sure before I do so.

Check out part 2