What’s the Proper Way to Balance Motorcycle Tires?

Balancing motorcycle tires and wheels properly is mostly a matter of evenly distributing weight on both sides of the wheel to straighten it out.

Partzilla’s motorcycle expert John Talley livestreams Q&A sessions on our YouTube channel every Friday at 3pm Eastern. In this edition, John answers a viewer’s question about the right way to balance both the front and rear tires of a motorcycle.

Proper way to balance motorcycle tires

Motorcycle Tire Balancing Q&A

What is the proper way to balance a motorcycle tire, front and rear?

John Talley: It’s the same process, I mean if you don’t want to take it to a shop where they actually have a machine and they calculate which side’s heavier than the other, and you’re just adding weight to the other side … This is the perfect question to ask me. All you would need is just a rim straightening stand, but just mount your wheel perfectly level, let it spin, and then look for a high or a low point. And then start adding just a little bit of weight until it balances out. Once you find that heavy point, bring it up here [shows with hands], counteract your weight here [shows with hands] and see if it stays still. So basically a rim stand like the one behind me will get you fairly accurate as far as balancing. All you’re looking for is just a heavy spot somewhere, and you bring that up 90 degrees, counteract it over here [shows with hands], there’s your pendulum. You get that to balance and I’d call it good.