What determines how many beads you put in the tire? Size? How many in a 21" front and a 17" rear????

 

All bike tires get the 2 oz and car tires get 3 - I use 3 in back in my CT and 2 in front.
I'm a firm believer in them - I had 4 oz. of lead on the back, put 3 oz. of beads in and it got a little smoother at speed. I took OFF the 4 oz. lead weights and waddayaknow...smooth as silk!
Take 4 oz. of weights off your tire without the beads inside and see what happens.
Having tubes, I'd use RideOn instead of beads if I'd known about it sooner. Some friends swear by it after using since it came out.

 

2 .oz in both tires. Don't expect the miracles many are preaching. I can't tell the difference.

 

A big fear of mine, being down a hundred mile from know where and have
a flat tire. I have used them with no problem. But as of now I am packiing
slime as to try to get me off the road. Also I kicked my spokes to the curb.
Not enough time left to shine the spike rims, and I dont need the trouble
that a tube could bring................Tenn.Vol.

 

Well I used the dyna beads in a E3 rear tire. (2oz) They worked just fine until I picked up a metal object at about 4000 miles on the new E3!! Of course the guy that mounted it said it was "almost" balanced without any weight to begin with.

Purchased some Ride-on to try it. They claim it balances also, same principle as the beads. I am thinking the tire should be pretty close to balanced to begin with though. We shall see. (don't ya just love how these old threads live on!)

 

they're cool as long as they're not full of people who don't read them and just keep reposting the same crap.
One interesting thing to note: dyna beads don't do well on a tire balancer; they'll read it out of balance for some reason I forgot. I suspect something similar may happen with that dyno test. It has to do with it not being real road conditions that cause them to work.
I had a tire guy who won't put a CT on a bike, or dyna beads or anything that didn't come with the tire - he likes to show people how they DON'T work by putting them on a dynamic tire balancer - where they won't. He also won't ride his bike or yours with them in...I suspect he doesn't want to be proven wrong.
He can't believe mine is balanced after removing 4 oz. of weights. It's good up to 90 - the fastest I care to wind my engine.

 

CONS! I'm one of the unlucky ones. Used them f&r on my ultra. 2nd night out on trip decided to check air pressure in front. Used standard valve stem when I installed DBs. When I pulled the gauge off air coming out of stem, wouldn't quit - tire went flat. Pumped it up with Progressive shock pump - 100 pumps equal 1 lb of air? Finally got 30 lbs in it, went to back tire - MISTAKE! Rear flat, pumped awhile, limped to service station and aired up both tires. Discovered that if I beat on the valve stem it would quit leaking. Got the pressure right - didn't check the rest of the trip. Got home, brokem' down, cleaned the chit out and threw it away. All is good again. Friend riding with me on trip had DBs in his tires, no problem. So my advice would be if you choose to use DBs, buy the filtering valve stem core!!

 

I used them in sealed 40-spoke wheels on my Night Train. Coming home one night, I had a catastrophic failure up front. To be fair, I have no idea why the tire lost pressure.

Could've run over something.

Could've been the wheel failing on it's own.

Could've been a bad tire.

But, when I pulled what was left of the tire off the wheel, the sealant had been bead-blasted off by the Dyna Beads. Like I said, I can't say if the beads destroyed the sealant which caused the tire to lose pressure, but there's no doubt in my mind that the beads were degrading it.

In theory, Dyna Beads are a really good idea. They dynamically balance the tire & wheel, and the whole thing stays in balance as the tire wears. And on a cast or forged wheel, they're probably fine. No way I'd ever consider them again on sealed spokes or with tubes.

 

I like the DB's. When riding I can't tell the difference whether I have beads or lead weights. The pluses are the tire looks better without the weights and if I change my own tires balancing is easy. I haven't found any cons yet.

 

I have tubes and spokes myself. I make sure I put the valve stem on the bottom when checking air, and I thump it a couple times before taking off the cap, to drop any beads that might be in it. No problems yet and I check air before every ride over 5 miles or so.
I took the beads out of my Pirelli when I went Darkside, and there were a lot of tiny rubber ***** in them (about 5-8%), probably from rubber dust. There also was a strip about 1-1/2" in the center of the tire where they ran and kept it sort of sandpapered-looking.
I made a way to separate the rubber bits and reused the beads. The rubber ***** didn't seem to be hurting anything.