GT16, what tire pressure do you use?

[Scatcat]

I tried 3.3 bar, which is supposed to be close to the max for the tire. The idea was to give more control and better efficiency, but that experience wasn't good for me at all.

The feeling I got was:

1. The wheel became too squirrely, and I don't mean in a wobbling or turning kind of way, but a feeling it wanted to follow cracks in the road, lines between cobble-stones and so on.
2. Turning the wheel, it took more force to lean in, and then more force to lean out of the turn. I wonder if there is something about the geometry in my tire that causes this?
3. Bumps and curbs did become quite a lot more uncomfortable, even though I just about never ride with straight legs.

So today I took it down again to 3.0 bar, where I was before, and that made all the difference. Once again I fell that it swallows bumps and cracks without noticing them. The tire is still pretty hard, but there is some give in it.

For reference, this is what my tire looks like, I understand they ship with a different one lately. Mine has a pretty well defined totally flat center ridge, an slightly curved outer ridge, and a more heavily patterned middle ridge.

[Piktukaz]

I'm using 3.0 KPa. I tried different pressures from 2.5 to 4 KPa:

• 2.5 KPa - very comfortable, especially off-road, it's harder to turn, and you start hitting the rim on the big curbs or when you jump
• 3.0 - optimal for my weight (85kg + 5kg equip + 17kg wheel)
• 3.5 - less comfortable, a bit wobbly on cracks and between cobble stones etc, very easy to turn and you can jump even from 30 cm sidewalks
• 4.0 - my knees start to hurt after long trips, very wobbly, you can easily make a 180 degree turn on the spot.

My tire is different from yours, and its recommended max pressure is 3.1 KPa:

[Scatcat]

2 hours ago, Piktukaz said:

I'm using 3.0 KPa. I tried different pressures from 2.5 to 4 KPa:

• 2.5 KPa - very comfortable, especially off-road, it's harder to turn, and you start hitting the rim on the big curbs or when you jump
• 3.0 - optimal for my weight (85kg + 5kg equip + 17kg wheel)
• 3.5 - less comfortable, a bit wobbly on cracks and between cobble stones etc, very easy to turn and you can jump even from 30 cm sidewalks
• 4.0 - my knees start to hurt after long trips, very wobbly, you can easily make a 180 degree turn on the spot.

My tire is different from yours, and its recommended max pressure is 3.1 KPa:

Hmmm, I used the wrong unit, kg/cm^2 when I should have used Bar, updated the topic to correct it. My tire has this interval: 280-345 kPa / 40-50 Psi / 2.8-3.4 Bar.

I'm going to stay at 3 Bar / 300 kPa for now, basically the same as you. But i really like your tire, seems like it should give very good grip.

[Piktukaz]

15 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

Hmmm, I used the wrong unit, kg/cm^2 when I should have used Bar, updated the topic to correct it.

Me too, used KPa's instead of Bar's 

17 minutes ago, Scatcat said:

But i really like your tire, seems like it should give very good grip.

Hard to tell, I have no complains about grip so far. One thing I noticed right now is that the tire has the wrong direction, it probably does not really matter, but still 

 

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

I would doubt that the direction matters that much on these unicycles.  I think I read that with mountain bikes and off-roading it can affect things possibly.  I accidentally installed some directional snow tires on and drove for months through deep snow.  I didn't notice a thing until the car was at the shop, and they mentioned it.  Oops.    Car handled just fine.

[Lorents]

I have the same tire as @Piktukaz, also running at about 3 bars. My tire is mounted in the right direction though

I think tire direction is most important in wet conditions as the threads are there to discharge water away from the tire.

[esaj]

Don't know about hydroplaning with an EUC (tire raising above the water on the street and losing control), but I think I saw a calculation somewhere showing that to hydroplane with a bicycle, you need to pedal closer to 200km/h (about 125 miles/hour). Of course EUCs use wider tires so that might affect at least somewhat. Never paid any attention on the rolling direction markings (except in car), but I don't think they matter that much with the speeds EUCs can achieve.

[Scatcat]

I doubt hydroplaning is an issue for EUCs