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can we go deeper on Dyna Beads and balancing?

ricochetrider

Out There Somewhere
howdy.
i just did a forum search on Dyna Beads and just turned up a few mentions of them but no in depth discussion. after perusing the assorted threads on balancing bike tires, it seems many folks here static-balance their tires, tho a few seem to have gone with the Beads.

i am interested in Dyna Beads for my k100, which i am having new Metzler ME880s mounted on next week. anyone have more extensive experience or opinions with this product?

i have 5 [street] bikes, and can see eventually going this route with all of them.
it SEEMS to make sense....
thanks.

Tom
 
I've never used them so claim no firsthand knowledge. MCN did a review and said they didn't work. Some folks say MCN did their test wrong. I've read folks who say they worked for them. I've read folks who say they didn't work for them.

I don't understand the physics or psychokinesis or whatever it is that tells the beads where to go.

So I static balance my tires.
 
Dyna bead threads are always like oil threads.

:lurk



My personal opinion is that they are snake oil.
 
I understand how they could work. They do not and can not balance your wheel/tire... what they can do is counteract the effect that an out of balance wheel/tire has on a moveable suspension. That may feel the same to the rider, but it isn't.

I also wonder how they could be effective at anything other than a steady pace. I dont use them.
 
I got this from a friend a couple of days ago. If you use them, bring a valve core tool and a tire pump.

"Will you send me an e-mail back reminding me to never put those dumb, f***ing Dynabeads inside my tires. Stuck valve again. That's the third time."
 
Uh-oh. Another Dyna Beads thread. I bought a tube of them from BestRest Products during the Christmas sale but have yet to wear out my tires and install them. That will be happening pretty soon though.

I've read a ton of posts about them here and on other forums. Funny thing about them is that for every naysayer you will also find lots of posts that say they work just fine. I got so fed up with reading all the arguments I just decided to try them out one of these days.

A friend in Seattle just installed them on his '92 R100RT a couple of weeks ago. He went for a 200 mile ride and reports they work perfectly and have also eliminated a 40 mph wobble he had before using the Dyna Beads. He's pretty happy.

The big problem seems to be they fail to balance wheels on a standard bike wheel balancer and when tested on a car tire balancer they do not appear to work either! The makers have long explanations of why that is and the naysayers have shot those explanations full of holes. But once they are in a tire and on a bike, it seems they _do_ work according to a lot of people. I'm going to give them a try and just see what happens next tire change.
 
I think tires are so close to being balanced that most riders won't know if they have beads or not. I just mounted a set of Z6s today, the front took 1 7 gram weight. I doubt I'd be able to tell the difference with or without the one weight.

I used the beads once and did not like them. They were a pain in the butt to get out of an old tire and in to a new tire. They became very dirty and clumpy with tire dust and bits, forcing me to have to wash them clean. I tossed them, I static balance, and I have no problems.
 
I think that most of those people that foolishly believe dynabeads can actually balance wheels are probably in the same group that believes that bumble bees can actually fly.

Everybody knows both things are theoretically impossible. ;)
 
I think that most of those people that foolishly believe dynabeads can actually balance wheels are probably in the same group that believes that bumble bees can actually fly.

Everybody knows both things are theoretically impossible. ;)

Beads can not balance a wheel. Never. That's why all tests on spin balancers with beads fail. As I noted above what beads can do is balance the effect that an out of balance wheel/tire has on your suspension. It is a different thing, although it may feel the same to the rider. This is made more confusing because most (all?) bead marketing talks about balancing wheels.
 
Tom, I've used them on three different bikes, tubed and tubeless tires, and think they work great. It could be they only work on tires owned by people named "Tom"; so you should be fine.;)

Tom
 
Beads can not balance a wheel. Never. That's why all tests on spin balancers with beads fail. As I noted above what beads can do is balance the effect that an out of balance wheel/tire has on your suspension. It is a different thing, although it may feel the same to the rider. This is made more confusing because most (all?) bead marketing talks about balancing wheels.

Hey Marc,

If the beads balance out the effect an out balance wheel/tire has on the suspension, and the bottom part of the suspension basically has a rigid attachment to the axle, when the wheel with dynabeads is turning, doesn't it function exactly the same as a balanced wheel?

If it does function the same, then why wouldn't the wheel/tire assembly with dynabeads be considered to be functionally equivilant to a statically balanced wheel/tire when in motion?
 
Hey Marc,

If the beads balance out the effect an out balance wheel/tire has on the suspension, and the bottom part of the suspension basically has a rigid attachment to the axle, when the wheel with dynabeads is turning, doesn't it function exactly the same as a balanced wheel?

If it does function the same, then why wouldn't the wheel/tire assembly with dynabeads be considered to be functionally equivilant to a statically balanced wheel/tire when in motion?

I believe it would be functionally equivalent at a constant velocity over a smooth road. The differences would occur as velocity and/or road surface changes. I suspect they will work well for the RT rider going down the freeway, but maybe not so well for a GS rider in the gravel or a sport rider at a track day. Those are the kind of tests I wish someone like MCN would perform. Of course those tests would be a lot harder than putting a wheel on a spin balancer.
 
I feel like I should weigh in with my experience with THE "Beads." When I first started reading about them I figured they must be too good to be true, and we all know how that type of reasoning usually ends up.

I have tried them in my last two front tires. I static balanced them as usual, then threw in the 1oz-2oz of the beads as called for in the instructions. Everything seemed fine, I didn't notice any improvement, maybe because they were already balanced and didn't need any improvement. On the other hand it didn't seem like things got any worse either.

I did notice one big improvement though, it is the cupping or scalloping or whatever you call it. I've only been riding BMW's since the 70's, so I don't have near the experience that some of the older /5 riders have. It seemed whatever tire I used on the front of my machines, it would always scallop. Now like magic, these last two front tires (the ones with the Beads) didn't scallop. If they did, it was almost indiscernible. They were two different brand of tires BTW, a Michelin and a Pirelli.

Now I don't have a clue how in the world the beads could help a scalloping problem, and I'd be the first to admit that it could very well be a coincidence. It just seems odd to me that as soon as I started using the beads, the scalloping problem improved immensely. I will probably try them in my next front tire, if the scalloping is still gone then I plan on not using them in the next tire just to see if the scalloping returns. I have heard that front braking technique can contribute to scalloping, I don't know.

One poster mentioned that they were difficult to remove. They are actually very easy to remove from the old tire, I use an old Indian trick that my daddy taught me.

So all of you physics majors can argue dynamics, semantics, etc. I'm kind of middle of the road when it comes to the Dyna Beads. Hopefully it has helped one problem I was having, but I have no idea if it actually helps to balance a tire. I have been thinking about purposely making a tire & wheel out of balance, then add the beads to see if I notice any improvement.

You all have a nice day!
 
Well...spill. What's the old Indian trick?


I use an old piece of my wife's pantyhose over the end of a vacuum cleaner hose. It will suck the beads into the pantyhose as if it was a small bag. Be careful and don't let it suck everything up the vacuums hose.
 
I believe it would be functionally equivalent at a constant velocity over a smooth road. The differences would occur as velocity and/or road surface changes. I suspect they will work well for the RT rider going down the freeway, but maybe not so well for a GS rider in the gravel or a sport rider at a track day. Those are the kind of tests I wish someone like MCN would perform. Of course those tests would be a lot harder than putting a wheel on a spin balancer.

I totally agree. Now how about that bumble bee thing? :)
 
Problem with these things is about the same as tyre discussions. Most riders are not able to tell the difference between two tyres because normally you'd change tyres when the old one is gone. Even if you mount a 'lesser' tyre, you'd notice an improvement over the old situation (to which you were grown accustomed to).

Now, the only way for an average driver (there are always super technicians who can smell the difference, so we won't count them) to notice differences between tyres is when you go to a track, have 2 of 3 sets of wheels at your disposal and try every set for 10 laps or so. Then you have the same bike, driver, track and weather conditions.

The same applies to these bead things. Not everybody can change their own tyres and do the balancing themselves. So how on earth can you compare it? First you need to try how an unbalanced wheel feels like and what it does to you wheel with regard to wear. Then you should change to a static balanced wheel and notice how different it feels. After that, try it with the magic beads and try to notice the difference.

Just out of curiosity: what is the problem the beads should solve? When I have my tyres changed, they balance my wheels. I can imagine that with the wearing of the tyre, the balancing goes off. But I never really noticed a problem with that. It's not that the bike starts handling like a pig or something. So...what's the big thing with the beads anyway? What do the solve actually?
 
I did notice one big improvement though, it is the cupping or scalloping or whatever you call it. I've only been riding BMW's since the 70's, so I don't have near the experience that some of the older /5 riders have. It seemed whatever tire I used on the front of my machines, it would always scallop. Now like magic, these last two front tires (the ones with the Beads) didn't scallop. If they did, it was almost indiscernible. They were two different brand of tires BTW, a Michelin and a Pirelli.

Now I don't have a clue how in the world the beads could help a scalloping problem, and I'd be the first to admit that it could very well be a coincidence. It just seems odd to me that as soon as I started using the beads, the scalloping problem improved immensely. I will probably try them in my next front tire, if the scalloping is still gone then I plan on not using them in the next tire just to see if the scalloping returns. I have heard that front braking technique can contribute to scalloping, I don't know.

The same happened to me: same bike, same rider, same roads, two sets of the same type of tires. The first set cupped badly and quickly, the second almost not at all. The only intervening variable was the Dyna Beads.
 
I totally agree. Now how about that bumble bee thing? :)

Are Carpenter Bees & Bumblebees related?The former eat my house and the latter sting big time! I am one of the fools that uses them and find them easy to capture using an old hillbilly trick(I didn't know indians wore panty hose?) that includes dismounting the tire and dumping them on a newspaper,etc.. No, I don't wash or clean them either, simply reweigh them and place back in the tire. I bought a bunch on an Advrider group buy and keep to the 1 oz fron/2 oz rear amt.. I have a electronic scale I bought new on ebay for 99 cents that goes up tp 76# and weighs to the tenth of an oz!!! It weighs the same as my local USPS scale.
I have placed them in maybe 6 sets of tires and get better than most mileages. As to the valve thing-a blast of air prevents that problem as does simply having the valve at above bottom road position. Whatever the little buggers do in there it works for me. As to the GS thing, I don't see having a muddy tire being in balance anyway or does it matter at slower speeds. The only wear I see that is noteworthy is my rears getting the center wear from slab miles.
I have mentioned this before, but Goodyear used to place tire boots inside truck tires(in the factory) that failed to meet factory standards that were not possible to achieve via grinding the tires outer tread surface. I was there to do repair work on the grinding machine. As lead in the environment is a serious concern that dynabeads solve I have wondered if there is another solution to tire balance besides beads and lead free weights? Perhaps using specific weight boots/patches inside the tire would work? Are these out there & available now?:ear:lurk:ear

Also , does anyone know what out-of-balance standard is used for motorcycle tires? At Goodyear(1960's & 70's) we had a balance machine that all car passenger tires went through after human visual inspection and white sidewall grinding. A drop of one of three colors of wax identified the tire as havng met a standard, what with one color indiacating that it was suitable for thr OEM ,i.e., new car factory. The tires then went to a force variation machine that inflated, then used an ultra sensitive load cell to determine structural defects. I would like to hear /read something of real substance about MC tires but every article I have ever read was so generic as to pass for a free ad for the bike tire mfgs.! Never do they really touch on standards or unique processes that being what "trade secrets" are made of, I suppose.
 
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The same happened to me: same bike, same rider, same roads, two sets of the same type of tires. The first set cupped badly and quickly, the second almost not at all. The only intervening variable was the Dyna Beads.

I've been through 3 or 4 sets of the same tires on my current ride and they all wore differently. Go figure.
 
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