Dynabeads

The dynabeads debate is also a hot topic on the Gold Wing boards (my other motorcycling "identity" for a number of years) and the opinions are varied.

Some swear they are the cat's meow and others disdainfully hold their noses and point while exclaiming "don't step in that...!"

Anyway, you asked for first hand experience so here is my sad tale.

A Gold Winger I know swore by them so I tried them in my GL1500. They did seem to fine tune the roll of the bike at speed, but from zero to around 40 mph I had better hang onto the grips or the particular bike would go into a vicious tank-slapper.

Granted, the GL1500's are known for a peculiar type of side to side wobble a low speeds, but the tank-slapper issue was a problem I did NOT have with that bike prior to installing the beads. The Wing was sold last year before I gravitated back to BMW.

The upshot is that on -- whatever bike, the tire has to be rotating at a speed sufficient for the beads to distribute their selves in whatever physical spread is called for in order for them to do their job. So yes, they worked, but yes, they had their own weird behaviors.

Next, reading up on them before the motorcycle installation I learned that some big RV's use them, and then I discovered some of the guys on the Ford Ranger forums had put them in their tires with (reported) success.

So I tried them in my Ranger and after about 5,000 miles I had them removed and the tires machine balanced.

Bottom line - I did not even think of having them put in the RT when I had it in the shop two weeks ago for new rubber.

FWIW

I tried the beads with my R1150RT and R100RT. Then I bought a good quality static balancer and a collection of wheel weights. I found that very careful static balancing results in a very stable ride and great tire life. Can't say the same for the beads. With the dyna beads I noticed what can best be described as a rough road feel on smooth pavement up to about 30 or so mph. With the static balancer I get less cupping on the front tire compared to bead balancing so for me its traditional wheel balancing.

I statically balance the wheel/tire AND use the dynabeads for all the above reasons.

I use them & have never experienced any of the negatives mentioned above or elsewhere in "bead threads". Some have also used soft pellets in car & MC tires & say they work fine. There's a guy on ebay selling ceramic & steel beads for tire balancing.

I changed tires about 2000 miles before the summer Salem rally, with dynabeads for balancing, and then put a 6000 mile ride on them, and a couple more 1K miles after that. My K bike was rock solid at 100+ speeds coming back through Montana and North Dakota, and I found the front tire had less cupping with the beads than with the previous static wheel weights. The rear tire still had plenty of rubber on her (Pilot Road 3's) when I traded her in on a F700GS.... So, when the Battlewings wear out on my Kleiner Roter Bergsteiger, I'll be using the beads again, as I don't have a balancer, and use spoons to change my tires, so that if I have a flat out on the road, I have the experience to change them......
Over that 10,000 miles with the beads, I never had any difficulty with the valves getting clogged. I always place the valve stem about half way up so that all the beads are at the bottom of the tire, so there is hardly any possibility of them getting clogged in the valve.....

basketcase said:

The dynabeads debate is also a hot topic on the Gold Wing boards (my other motorcycling "identity" for a number of years) and the opinions are varied.

Some swear they are the cat's meow and others disdainfully hold their noses and point while exclaiming "don't step in that...!"

Anyway, you asked for first hand experience so here is my sad tale.

A Gold Winger I know swore by them so I tried them in my GL1500. They did seem to fine tune the roll of the bike at speed, but from zero to around 40 mph I had better hang onto the grips or the particular bike would go into a vicious tank-slapper.

Granted, the GL1500's are known for a peculiar type of side to side wobble a low speeds, but the tank-slapper issue was a problem I did NOT have with that bike prior to installing the beads. The Wing was sold last year before I gravitated back to BMW.

The upshot is that on -- whatever bike, the tire has to be rotating at a speed sufficient for the beads to distribute their selves in whatever physical spread is called for in order for them to do their job. So yes, they worked, but yes, they had their own weird behaviors.

Next, reading up on them before the motorcycle installation I learned that some big RV's use them, and then I discovered some of the guys on the Ford Ranger forums had put them in their tires with (reported) success.

So I tried them in my Ranger and after about 5,000 miles I had them removed and the tires machine balanced.

Bottom line - I did not even think of having them put in the RT when I had it in the shop two weeks ago for new rubber.

FWIW

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Falling prey to some of the hysteria on one of the Goldwing forums back in the day, I tried Dynabeads only once in a GL1800 I had, but I couldn't see that they made any difference and went back to regular balance weights. Fortunately, we didn't experience any tank slappers (outside of the not-unusual deceleration wobble). The Goldwing is gone and I will not be using Dynabeads in my GS as I don't see the need.

I've used Dyna-beads in my K1200 bike for 27,000 miles of riding, but have moved to a F700 Adventure bike. Will be changing my tires out to Heidenau 50/50 tires in a couple of months, just before the GS Giant activities in July at St. Paul. Does anyone have any experience with using Dyna-beads in an adventure tire? I've used them in the past because I change tires by hand and don't have a balancer. If the experience out there is negative for this tire, I'll just go ahead and have them mounted at a motorcycle shop and get them balanced......I'd appreciate any feedback, and don't want to start any lead weight vs. beads balancing wars.....

I've used Dyna beads for about 7 years in a K75 and a R1150RT. K75 still has the ME880s and they're smooth and balanced. R1150RT got DB and a set of PR3s that lasted 18,000 miles of mainly commuting. No I don't run the tires completely bald. My buddies have looked at my good luck with them and have switched too. No bad luck here in at least 5 sets of tires.

I have used them since 2009 and about 4 or 5 tire set changes...

No problems...

I will not sing their praise but i like them and have had no issues... i recycle for the most part and have purchased a second set to top off what i lose during the tire change..

A lot of negative BS goes on about them that i don't think they deserve.. don't know about tire life... but with the balance issue the detractors are full of .....

There is no wrong answer, if you like to balance the traditional way do it... if you want to try to beads ( they are not the only brand out there) then try it. maybe it works for you.

dadayama said:

A lot of negative BS goes on about them that i don't think they deserve.. don't know about tire life... but with the balance issue the detractors are full of .....

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I think the problem is that it's really difficult to describe how they work and setting up a demonstration is too much of a PITA.
The beads in a bottle with a drill is a good demo but it's a bottle, not a tire.
The strobe on the clear wheel is also good but it's a lawnmower wheel, not a MC wheel.

Some demos are fun and easy and get people interested in figuring out what's really going on.
My favourite is 3 neodymium magnets dropped through a 12" length of copper pipe to show that the current induced in the pipe makes a magnetic field that slows down the magnets.

There doesn't seem to be a "Hey guys, watch this" demo for the beads.

Actually, in my second post, I was more interested in seeing if anyone out there had any experience with the beads in an adventure tire like the Hindenau K 60 adventure tire. I'm already versed on the the use of them in a touring tire, with excellent results, which allow me to change my own tires without having to worry about purchasing or build a balancing apparatus. My interest is geared towards the adventure tire and specifically how well the beads worked on the 50% riding on pavement. Pretty sure, off road, all the vibration from gravel, rock, or sand would pretty much disguise any vibrations from the tire balance, even running at a somewhat high speed.....But thanks for all the other comments, both pro and con.......

motorradmike said:

I think the problem is that it's really difficult to describe how they work and setting up a demonstration is too much of a PITA.

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Think of it this way; an object will always rotate about its center of mass. If the axis of rotation is fixed, the mass will try and evenly rotate around it. With solids it does not work. but liquids, and a bunch of beads will behave like a liquid, the mass can redistribute to reach equilibrium.

That being said, I still prefer to balance my wheels the old fashioned way.

I used them on my GSPD with Sahara tires and in K60s on my wife's 650 thumper. We lived in Alaska at the time and both bikes saw a fair amount of off pavement riding. The beads worked on and off pavement, but I think they are a pain in the posterior (particularly in tubeless tires), so I no longer use them.

akbeemer said:

I used them on my GSPD with Sahara tires and in K60s on my wife's 650 thumper. We lived in Alaska at the time and both bikes saw a fair amount of off pavement riding. The beads worked on and off pavement, but I think they are a pain in the posterior (particularly in tubeless tires), so I no longer use them.

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Kevin, thanks for the info. That's exactly the feedback that I needed. I don't have much issue with a mess while changing tires out, I just pop the tire bead off the rim and stick a suction tube down into the tire while vertical and vacuum the dyna beads out before removing tire from rim. I use an old wood clamp to bend the old tire bead in for access. Some have drilled a whole in the tire to allow the beads to drain out prior to removal, but I've not had any issues with using my small hand held shop vacuum, unless I forget to hold the hose up in the air before turning off the suction....

So, I'll be installing the beads in my replacement K60's once I complete a on-road trip in May with my younger brother......

If anyone would like a review of my experience once I've put a few miles on them after May, or wants to look me up at the St. Paul international rally to compare notes, I'd be glad to provide any feedback that I can.......

My experience has been that either the wheel weights or the dyna beads work fine. It just depends on what is available to you when you change your tires. If you go the dyna beads ( or other similar products out there ) they do come with a different air valve so make sure you change it when you put the beads in. I've found that when travelling not all tire places can balance a rear BMW R1100 wheel as they don't have the right adapters, so if you want to have the tire & wheel balanced then you have to go with the bead product. Just make sure you take the wheel weights off if you go with the beads.

cycleman2 said:

My experience has been that either the wheel weights or the dyna beads work fine. I Just make sure you take the wheel weights off if you go with the beads.

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I agree that either method works just fine, but wonder why you would suggest taking off the wheel weights before going to the beads? The beads should work just as well with the weights as without, since the beads will seek equilibrium either way..... Just wondering if there is some experience behind this recommendation?

weschmann said:

I agree that either method works just fine, but wonder why you would suggest taking off the wheel weights before going to the beads? The beads should work just as well with the weights as without, since the beads will seek equilibrium either way..... Just wondering if there is some experience behind this recommendation?

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In theory (only) the weights are on the wheel to balance for any imbalance in the tire that was on there. In practice, wheels themselves are often rather a bit out of balance so removing the weights might well leave more imbalance for the magic beads to deal with than if the weights were left in place.

On my bikes I have balanced the naked wheels with marked weights that stay on the wheels. I usually don't have to add any weight once the tire is mounted, and if I do it is normally a very small amount of weight.

weschmann said:

I agree that either method works just fine, but wonder why you would suggest taking off the wheel weights before going to the beads? The beads should work just as well with the weights as without, since the beads will seek equilibrium either way..... Just wondering if there is some experience behind this recommendation?

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Don't know what you mean by experience. But it is common practice when putting on new tires etc to rebalance the whole assembly, therefore you remove the old weights and rebalance the tire assembly. If you know that the wheel was balanced alone and the wheel weights are still good, you could just go with installing a new tire. Some manufacturers claim that there tires are balanced already. Yes you could leave the wheel weights on with the dyna beads, but see no useful reason for doing this. There probably is no right or wrong answer, just a matter of practice and personal preference.

GateWay BMW in St. Louie had a great tech day topic yesterday with the conversation focused on tires. A representative of a company here that provides tire services at the track touched on several of the topics listed in this discussion, including dynabeads. On the topic of perfectly balanced tires from manufactures, he suggested that only two manufactures can lay claim to that status....Michelin and Pirelli. But of course, once installed and riding down the street, with a skidding stop that lays a patch of rubber on the ground, and they are immediately unbalanced. So, his suggestion is to re-balance your tires a couple of times during the life of a tire, which I agree with if using conventional lead weights. As far as dynabeads, his only comment was that due to humidity in the air compressor (specifically a home compressor) that the build-up of moisture inside the tire may cause the beads to gum up and clump, causing the tire to go off balance. He did not suggest that they are just a gimmick, and agreed the physics of the process are sound. His only disparaging remark was that he had seen the beads actually scorer the inside of the tire, in some instances. Of the couple of tires that I've used the beads in, I didn't think to look at the inside of the tire after changing out, and before my wife could send them to the recycle.... so next time I'll have to take a look and report on what I find.....
So, I think I'll continue to use the beads in my adventure K60 tires once I change them out this spring, after a long road trip on the slab out to Colorado with my younger brother......

Some pictures of DynaBead effects

I have a home compressor I use to mount tires as well as adjust pressure. I've never had them clump, I think mounting lube would cause more trouble than moisture. They do get difficult to install after having been used twice though because they stick a bit when plated with rubber.

Obviously they pick up rubber from inside the tire.
<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31927430@N06/3732771808/player/64d95b07be" height="375" width="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's a tire that never had DynaBeads in it.
<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31927430@N06/3732784918/player/1ffbec8e2e" height="375" width="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

Here's one that had them in for 15,000 Km
<iframe src="https://www.flickr.com/photos/31927430@N06/3731979975/player/2b16e25fb0" height="375" width="500" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen webkitallowfullscreen mozallowfullscreen oallowfullscreen msallowfullscreen></iframe>

The tires are probably Pilot Road ll but I'm not certain.