Thread: tire direction
View Single Post
Old 06-17-23 | 09:48 PM
  #23  
Russ Roth
Senior Member
 
Joined: Dec 2019
Posts: 2,841
Likes: 1,062
From: South Shore of Long Island

Bikes: 2010 Carrera Volans, 2015 C-Dale Trail 2sl, 2017 Raleigh Rush Hour, 2017 Blue Proseccio, 1992 Giant Perigee, 80s Gitane Rallye Tandem

Originally Posted by TC1
"Slippery roads" are hydroplaning. Otherwise, you need to provide some alternative explanation for why gravity ceases to function, and allows a tire to lose contact with the surface.

You are apparently a few decades out of date with your understanding of the interface between rubber tires and road surfaces. It was once thought that rubber somehow "gripped" pavement, and provided the traction we all rely on. The advent of superior inspection tools, like electron microscopes and others, has improved our knowledge in this field, and we now understand that rubber tires provide traction by deforming into microscopic imperfections in the surface. And that gravity provides the force required to cause that deformation. This is why dynamic weight distribution, and the control thereof, is so critical to performance on both two and four wheels.

So, what you call a "slippery road" is, in reality, we now realize, just the hydroplaning effect of a potentially microscopic layer of water preventing the rubber from deforming into those imperfections.
.
You're stretching the definitions and overstating the effects to make your point. While it is true that the tires deform into the imperfections in the pavement improving the grip it isn't true that that's the only source of the grip, as rubber is a high friction substance that can find grip on smooth surfaces just not as much. Liquids like water and oil can reduce this friction and make it easier to crash. This means when wet the tires don't grip the smooth areas as well and it also means that the water in the imperfections can't be sufficiently displaced (water can't be and doesn't have to be compressed, tires cover small areas and water can be displaced throughout the road surface) to create optimal grip between the surface making the tires less capable of holding. But that isn't the same as hydroplaning where the tires are using the water as the road surface and are no longer in contact with the actual road.

OP, the tires in the pic have a center tread that has lines coming in and pointing towards the way forward.
Russ Roth is offline  
Reply