Ok - dumb question - you don't need the spoke weights if you use dynabeads. Or at least their website says to remove the wheel weights.

Is there a trick to removing the weights mounted on the spokes? I apologize in advance for asking dumb questions, but I'm much more comfortable working on cars, not bikes.

 

Spread them open with a screwdriver.

 

Looked @ Dynabead's recommendations according to tire size and think it might be too generic. A steel spoked wheel is going to require more weight than say...a forged aluminum piece. Just sayin'

 

The wheel should be balanced well enough by itself. It doesn't matter how heavy a rotating wheel is if it's balanced.

 

You're correct in theory, but not all wheels are created equal. This has been my observation over the years as an auto mech. The balancing process is for tire and rim together. So most of the time you really don't "know" where the imbalance is. It takes a sophisticated balancer to differentiate this info unless you try balancing the rim by itself first. (which usually won't happen)

 

The first time I switched to Dynabeads was when I installed a new tire. I had the wheel & tire balanced with regular weights so that I would know what too expect out of the complete tire/wheel assembly.

Then I removed the weights and replaced with Dynabeads +1/2oz. With dynabeads it doesn't hurt if you add a little extra, they just move around as necessary and you have some extra to compensate if needed as the tire wears.

I'll never go back to conventional, ugly weights.

 

I just put in 1oz and removed my weights from my 21" front spoke wheel, just waiting for the rain to stop for a few test runs at speed.

 

We can't both be right, and my experience is different from yours. Car wheels are much wider than motorcycle wheels and can be off balance from side to side. This is just not noticeable with a motorcycle wheel which is less than half the width of a typical car wheel. Aside from damage to the wheel, it should be fairly well balanced by itself.

I've never seen a "sophisticated" balance machine in a motorcycle shop but I haven't been in every shop. I have personally balanced wheels for everything from a motorcycle to a semi-truck (before Equal came along). I've never needed a sophisticated balance machine to do it.

I will stand by my statement that it doesn't matter how heavy the wheel is if it's in balance (i.e. undamaged). No additional balancing material should be required because the wheel weighs a few pounds more than another provided there is no damage to the wheel itself.

 

I agree with you on several points but all I was stating was that the weight amounts seemed "generic". The point I was trying to make is that an aluminum wheel tends to be true-er and better balanced just by the nature of it's constrution. Total weight is a non-issue until you start talking gyroscopic,mass/velocity effects etc. Maybe Dynabead's recommendation takes this into account by way of over-compensation. Maybe I'm just thinking about it too much(read ****) Maybe this is a Monty Python sketch"Hello, I,m here for an argument" Maybe I should stop thinking out loud(so to speak)