All -

After an intense riding last weekend,
we had a riding group of 11 people
at GreenRidge, MD state park.
Those trails can BE challenging.
With mostly hard rock and small
boulder alot of fast pounding action
on those rock created a side wall tear
on my cousin's SP800 (06/anniversary
edition). I experienced the same two
trips ago, rough rough.

One of the guys running a Yamaha Raptor
highly recommended inflating the tires beyond
the PSI recommended levels to where they
are really hard with not much give, to keep
them hard, less susceptible of flats and tears.

My take on it is I would assume you would loose
traction, making it more bouncy, even more
dangerous, pouncing off the rock with less
control? Opinions, thoughts?

R'

 

I think with More air (harder tires) the risk of getting rock damage would increase.........The lower the air pressure the easier it is to forum to the rock...........With 5 psi in mine the tire usually takes the shape of the rock and can with-stand the sharp points..........With a hard tire that is over-inflated I would think the rock could puncture the tire very easy!!!....That is my view I would like to hear others as well..........Caper..

 

i agree, its not a good idea to over-inflate a tire for any reason.

on rocks the general idea is to air down tires so they can conform and have a larger foot print of rocks. the more of a foot print the less pressure there is on one single area of a tire allowing more traction and it being less supseptable to damage. most Jeeps who would run a street pressure of 33-35lbs of air will air down to about 8PSI on rocks. just to give you an idea

 

Ya, your friend has it backwards.

 

sounds good to me caper,makes only sense

 

yep, he has it backwards. less air is more traction.this way the tire (like has been said) will forum to the surface better. a hard tire will puncher/tear faster then a soft. besides the pxt tires are only 3 ply and cut easily.

 

I have seen with low pressure in the PXTs (about 3 psi) there is alot of sidewall flex and I can see a sidewall pinch and go flat with to low of pressure. I like 6psi in my PXTs and I think polaris recomends 5.

 

That is my thinking and I know our stock
tires being 3 ply get tore up thus another
reason to buy the ITP Mudlites (its coming).

Thanks for the posts, maybe somebody
(sports quad riders) may contradict?

R'

 

With rocks what rocks is more air pressure, (LOL) You want to ride on top of the rocks going at speed. Even at a lower speed,-- not rock crawling--- I want my tire pressure higher than the norm.

Also it takes alot less energy to just hit stanard size rocks--fast 4" to 7" round than it does to go around, just keep your but off the seat.

If you get good at this, you'll never look at rocks the same way. Why go around when you just can go over.


Good Luck.

 

Interesting post, to put things in perspective
where this trail is that I speak of is mountaineous.
So its Rock embedded in the trail not really loose
rock on top of the surface if you know what I
mean? Some tree roots sticking up from the surface
too, lots of dusty dirt as you cut thru, don"t get to close
to the person in front of you, or you won't be able to
see, dust in eye. Its all hard pack except loose dirt in
air, sounds contracting but I would imagine those who
ride moutain trails know what I mean?

R'