POLL: What tire pressure do you prefer to ride at?

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

I think this might have been polled before, but let's just do it again.  I'm too lazy to search for the older poll... 

55 psi on Ninebot One E+ over 1200 km

62 psi on Gotway Tesla over 1000 km

Edited October 30, 2018 by Hunka Hunka Burning Love

[RockyTop]

40-42 psi  on my 18" and 45-48 psi on the 16"   rider =220 lbs  

Any more and it gets squirrely any less and it feels flat.  

[Marty Backe]

I know what you're doing here. You want to remove some of the guilt that you feel for abusing your Tesla.

[Marty Backe]

BTW, each wheel does have a different high-pressure range. For instance many KingSong wheels use tires with a 65-psi max reading. That's what I use on my KS14S and it doesn't feel super hard. In your case, for that wheel you'd probably go with 90-psi 

[existensil]

35-40psi seems like the sweet spot for my weight on the InMotion V8 (~35psi for offroad bias, ~40psi for road bias). I suspect I'll pick a different pressure for the Gotway MSuper X when it arrives. This is all going to be very weight and wheel dependent, as well as riding conditions and comfort preferences.

[LanghamP]

In the bicycle community the trend is towards tubeless low-pressure tires, and after riding on a few of them I'm convinced that is the best way to go. As the tire provides most of the suspension, then it follows frames can be made extremely stiff. Carbon fiber and steel are liked because they are somewhat compliant, but now with softies one might as well go with extremely stiff lightweight aluminium frames then call it a day (and that's indeed what is happening).

And I think the EUC industry isn't far behind (and obviously the electric components are far in advance), as softer wider tires are standard, and even tubeless with the Ninebots.

Now the Z10 is an awful turner, and while I've never ridden one I have ridden motorcycles that could not turn, and in every case it's because the flat center profile discourages turning.

Do you want a Z10 to turn easily? The solution is extremely simple; just pop that center put via higher tire pressure, a wider tire, or a narrower rim. I'm guessing the reason the Z10 is such a hard turner is because the designers wanted more cornering clearance; by forcing the rider to hang off into the inside the chance of pedal strikes. If you've ever had a pedal strike with an EUC then you'll understand that pedal strikes are almost unrecoverable.

My guess is we'll essentially transition to the equivalent of Fat Tire bikes, if we haven't already done so, and it's very interesting to note that Schwalbe's fat tires are all eBike compliant, that is to say that while they need innertubes they are also rated to go 30mph and take 1000 watts. All those eBike tires should work on our EUCs, we just haven't put them on yet.

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

2 hours ago, Marty Backe said:

I know what you're doing here. You want to remove some of the guilt that you feel for abusing your Tesla.

  I loved my Tesla!  And it was even more fun at 62 psi!  It just seemed more lively at the higher pressure.  That plus there is that fear of accidental rim damage from a tire impact that reaches the rim from under-inflation.  Mostly it was the more responsive feel.

Ever since seeing the veteran riders pumping their Ninebot One E+ tires up 10-15 psi above the max pressure marked on the tire, I’ve been doing the same since.  I thought it was a standard thing most people did.  Give it a try on your Tesla.  It might not be for you, but the sharp difference in ride feel is tangible!

Edited October 30, 2018 by Hunka Hunka Burning Love

[Kuji Rolls]

I like to go with the lowest tire pressure that doesnt risk me getting a pinch flat or denting the rim... that being said, i have dents. I probably have about 25PSI on my MSX unless im forced to pump it up to get more range out of the thing. 

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

25 psi?   Wow.  That is like squishy flat, and I only weigh about 167 lbs.  I think with mountain bikers they use 40 psi for heavier riders, but because they have two tires the pressure is somewhat divided between front and back.  With one wheel it just makes sense to me to up the pressure to avoid pinch flats and rim damage as all our weight is on that single contact point all the time.

Edited October 30, 2018 by Hunka Hunka Burning Love

[Kuji Rolls]

Yeah, i know 25PSI is low, but i feel much more in control and its easier to jump. With the PSI jacked up to 60PSI i feel every bump and turning feels a bit squirrely. 

[Marty Backe]

33 minutes ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

  I loved my Tesla!  And it was even more fun at 62 psi!  It just seemed more lively at the higher pressure.  That plus there is that fear of accidental rim damage from a tire impact that reaches the rim from under-inflation.  Mostly it was the more responsive feel.

Ever since seeing the veteran riders pumping their Ninebot One E+ tires up 10-15 psi above the max pressure marked on the tire, I’ve been doing the same since.  I thought it was a standard thing most people did.  Give it a try on your Tesla.  It might not be for you, but the sharp difference in ride feel is tangible!

I have tried higher pressures. I even remember putting high pressure in my Tesla by accident and when I got on the wheel I lost control and hit a parked car and whacked my ankle 

One of my 9,000 posts talks about it 

[Hunka Hunka Burning Love]

  Maybe best to keep it on the low low big M.   Hmm maybe I’m used to a squirrely wheel?  It just seems more responsive to rider input when pumped up to the sixties.  I don’t do any jumps so a softer tire plays no big role for me, but yeah you do feel all the road bumps.  To each their own I guess!

I remember forgetting to top up my tire once, and it went down to 52 psi.  The wheel just felt soft and I kept thinking I had a flat!

[Carl Svanfelt]

If I use a tyre of thicker and steady rubber material, I use the minimum pressure recommended by the manufacturer.
If the tyre is manufactured in Europe, the side walls are very thin and the tyre may collapse in sharp maneuvers at high speed, if low pressure is used. So in my current "Schwalbe Mad Mike" tyre I use the recommended maximum pressure.

It has worked so well that I have ordered a new one that will be assembled when the first snow comes. 

[stephen]

well?,,,, i use 30-35 on the msx now its super comfy and take the bumps and doesn't jump me in the air or jolt my knees even if i do have them bent , I've tried everything but keep going back to soft and comfy ,, next time you guys on some rough terrain try 32psi please go on give it a go ???

Edited October 30, 2018 by stephen

[Rehab1]

7 hours ago, Hunka Hunka Burning Love said:

I loved my Tesla!  And it was even more fun at 62 psi!  It just seemed more lively at the higher pressure.

Hunka don’t stop at a wimpy 62 psi. Go for the gusto and pump er up to 100 psi! 

Edited October 30, 2018 by Rehab1

[maxkan]

IMO low pressured wheel is a lot more stable than a wheel with 45+ psi, the only problem is "snake bites".

[Mike Sacristan]

I'm beginning to wonder if my pump isn't reading properly but on the other hand I have been using it for quite a while on my mountainbikes for both the tires and the forks.
On my mountainbike I try to stay around 19PSI on the rear and 22PSI on the front.

When I got my MSX last month it came properly inflated. After a couple of rides I let some air out. I got a much softer ride that did a lot better on snow and ice but I also noticed reduced range. Yesterday I pumped it up to around 23PSI and it felt a bit hard. I did get great range though. I did a 35km ride and the battery was at 60% when I was done. My riding weight was 70kg and it was 0C. However there were some ice/snow/frost patches that almost got me on my way home. Maybe I will try even higher next time just for laughs. The wheel did respond better to input at the higher PSI.

[Flying W]

On the 16s with the "flat defender" stock tire I run 40 to 42psi, it's a hard tire.

The mcm5 at 48psi feels like the 16s with 42. 

I dont like wallowing in fast grippy corners, but I also dont like losing fillings in my teeth.  Somewhere in between is my happy pressure. 

[mrelwood]

For a good compromise between comfort, distance and snappyness, to get the same feel for a 92kg rider I use:

16x2.125 = 3.6 bars

16x2.5 = 3.3 bars

18x3.0 = 2.7 bars

(18x3.0 winter = 2.0 bars)

The original MSX tire has a huge difference between 2.6 and 2.8 bars. At 2.6 I felt like it wouldn’t turn at a walking speed, and at 2.8 even small bumps were harsh.

A poll like this is meaningless without the tire size and rider weight.

[Girth Brooks]

What pressure do you Gotway Monster owners run? I tried mine up to 30 psi this weekend and it caused an awful wobble at higher speeds. Is this normal? It rode like a dream out of the box with low pressure.

[Smoother]

I don't actually know what pressure I run at.  I "know" what the gauge said before I started to unscrew the filler.  Because there is so little air in these little tyres, a few seconds of leaking makes a much bigger difference than on a car or truck tyre.  I fill my 16" x2.5 carrying an all up weight (including the wheel) of about 100kg (220lb) to somewhere in the low to mid 40s (PSI) then I do a squish test to see if i'm happy with the final result.  At no or slow speed I bounce up and down on the pedals while evaluating the "squishyness"  of the tyre.  Only you can decide what level of squishyness is right for you, through trial and error.

When I was a green horn I blew my 14" x 2.125 up to the full 65psi and rode it for 1000 miles like that.  Dame thing would turn on the first half of a dime, and ricochet off every pebble, pavement crack etc like a tennis ball off a racquet during a professional men's game. Me no likie

Edited February 22, 2019 by Smoother

[Meelosh123]

At 175lbs on a 16" x 2.125 " Tesla wheel I like 40-45 psi; around 43's a sweet spot.  If I am on a steep hill, starting at very low speed, a higher psi works better and feels safer.  It seems like a low psi requires more torque at very low speeds.

[uekarashi]

If people start listing off dimensions and pressure, I'll happily graph it  I'll give it a go with what's already been said, too. 

Inmotion V3Pro, 14x1.5: 40-45psi

 

[Scatcat]

Well with the motocross tire on the MSX I found myself gravitating towards about 25 psi, with the standard tire more like 35-40. But I may let some air out for the time being, as I just changed back to the standard tire and got a bit shocked how squirrely it is in comparison. But I also suspect that before the summer is here I'll be up to 40-45 as I like a firmer ride and the feeling of effortless acceleration.

I'm weighing in at about 200lbs right now, but will probably burn off 10 of those shortly. That usually happens when I ride a lot.

Edited February 22, 2019 by Scatcat

[esaj]

Oldish topic, but I decided to play a necromancer..

How have you guys found a big change in tire pressure changes the ride behavior? I've favored high pressure (over 4+ bar / 58+ PSI) due to how much "faster reacting" it makes the wheel, not to mention that I get much better mileage at high pressure (can't quote exact numbers, but I'd say 1/3 to 1/4 more mileage vs. really low pressure, like 2-2.5 bar / about 30-36 PSI). 

Now, I've tried different pressures a long, long time ago with the Firewheel, and found out that I favor the high pressure over lower pressure (especially since my FW had such a small battery at 260Wh, more mileage ), despite making balancing at any speed much more delicate. Usually I've topped up the pressure after two-three months, but this time it seems my tire pressure had been dropping faster than usual. I think I've also been riding faster than usual lately, with average speeds topping 30km/h (yes, yes, I know it's not "that fast", but it's a KS16S ). I'd consider myself a fairly experienced rider (but there are more experienced in the forums) after something like maybe 10k+ km behind me (I don't know, I stopped measuring a long time ago, but then again, I only get to ride 5-6 months per year, since spring of 2015).

So, early this week I noticed my tire pressure is getting really low, since I could just "bounce" on the wheel (can't say exact figure, since my car-battery powered -compressors' meter doesn't seem to even react to anything below 2.5bar or thereabouts), and was worried I could cause a "pinch puncture" riding over some corner stones or whatnot. The bright side was that slight irregularities on the road felt like nothing, and I could ride fast into turns with no issue (although at some point I likely would have hit the pedal on the ground). I pumped up the tire until the compressor said something like 4.3-4.5 bar or thereabouts. I pump the pressure "over", because some of the air always escapes removing the compressor nozzle and the valve extension, and the final pressure could be more like 3.5-4.0 or something like that. Probably should invest in a pressure meter to know better  Also the cheapest battery-powered compressor in the hardware store probably doesn't have the most exact measuring. Anyway, this time I managed to rip out the nozzle and extension really fast, with very little loss in air. Of course I didn't test the wheel afterwards, as it was late in the evening, just went to sleep.

The next morning when I rode to work, holy hell, was the wheel acting strange. The tire was super hard, I've used to feeling small pebbles and such on the road, but now it was like the tire had zero give at whatever slightest irregularity the road might have. The wheel was super sensitive to even my slightest move, and would start to wobble on its own riding straight on a more or less even road. But the biggest surprise was the effect on cornering. I'm used to riding pretty fast into 45 or even 90 degree wider turns, when there's not people around and I can see that I'm not going to hit anyone after the turn. Also, I'm used to leaning more on my body, and only more slightly tilting the wheel on turns, like "leaning out" from the wheel, allowing the foot opposite to the turn to lift off a bit from the pedal, remotely what you'd do on a motorcycle pushing your knee out and "hanging" from the bars, leaning out from the bike, but this was much different to before. The wheel seemed to stay more upright, like totally upright, and resist me trying to tilt it with my calf. This was at speeds something like 25-30+km/h (first warning playing) and change, tried it a couple of times. After a 5-6 kilometers, I had to stop and let some of the air out to ride rest of the way. I don't know where I dropped it, likely something like 3.5-4 bar, since it's more like usually after filling up the tire.

What most surprised me was the cornering behavior, since the wheel "fought back" on leaning sideways a lot more than what I remember having experienced before. I'm a lightweight rider (probably pretty close to 60kg/ 130lbs in full gear), so heavier riders might not have the same effect, but it certainly made my turns much wider than usual at higher speeds. In lower speeds, I could still ride fine at sub-walking speeds, while simultaneously opening my helmet and lighting a cigarette, so at low speeds it seems not to be much of an issue. Might still be that I'll start to prefer using lower pressures (but not too low ), considering that allowing the pressure to drop, it made fast speed riding far more stable ("you haven't lived until you make a tight 90-degree turn with full tiltback"... nah, actually, I don't recommend it  ), and riding at slug pace was even easier than with high pressure. Of course on the low end, you're going to likely hit a point where it becomes an issue (I was already noticing that I was using more battery than usual and probably would have hit the pedal on the ground sooner or later on a tight turn).

Edited July 19, 2019 by esaj