Red or blue or green tires? WHY NOT?

[Reid Welch]

A bit of a riddle which I will soon answer if no-one comes up with the correct answer.

Since about 1920, all auto tires have been black, through and through. This was a Michelin innovation.

WHY BLACK?

In the LBS, I saw the most gorgeous, high-end micro-wide tire being mounted.
It had a red rubber tread. Really pretty. It won't last. WHY?

Why are good tires relatively expensive? They have always been costly.
The early auto and bike tires were incredibly costly if they were of good quality.
WHY?

It's a most interesting subject.

WHY don't we see radial ply bike tires? (they are bias ply, like a century ago).
What makes for an easier rolling tire?

Lots of simple questions. Test your tire IQ. You are experienced and smart.
Black tires last.....why?

????????

Kind best regards,
Reido

 

[knightmb]

A bit of a riddle which I will soon answer if no-one comes up with the correct answer.

Since about 1920, all auto tires have been black, through and through. This was a Michelin innovation.

WHY BLACK?

Carbon is added to the tire to make it stronger. If they didn't, the tire would wear down like an eraser after a few miles. Carbon is also black, thus it makes all the tires black.

In the LBS, I saw the most gorgeous, high-end micro-wide tire being mounted.
It had a red rubber tread. Really pretty. It won't last. WHY?

For the reason above.

Why are tire expensive? They have always been costly.
The early auto and bike tires were incredibly costly if they were of good quality.
WHY?

Market bearing demand, basically how much will the market bear in terms of cost. Comes down to money and manufacturing cost basically, they try to keep the highest margin of profit.

It's a most interesting subject.

WHY don't we see radial ply bike tires? (they are bias ply, like a century ago).
What makes for an easier rolling tire?

Lots of simple questions. Test your tire IQ. You are experienced and smart.
Black tires last.....why?

????????

Kind best regards,
Reido

For bicycles, the weight is the reason. In a car, where you have a few thousand lbs of vehicle, you need the radial ply (steel belt) to keep the tire from exploding at highway speeds (or wearing out quickly as in the old days)
So a bicycle tire since it only bears the weight of the rider and bicycle, don't have the same pressure on the road that wears out the vehicle tires. This is just off the top of my head, I'm sure others will quote in some wikipedia here, hehe.

 

[Zoot Katz]

Carbon black sticks to wet roads better than silicon.

 

[chuck]

Vulcanized!! So the rubber won't melt.

Bias ply for stiffness bears the side loads experianced by 2 wheelers.

Adding piqment weakens the rubber, don't know why, color weakens replacement urethane bushings used in performance parts too.

chuck

 

[dogman dan]

The earliest tires were made from 100% natural rubber till WW II made that unavaliable. The natural rubber had to be painstakingly collected from the trees at great cost, even using native labor at slave wages. The carbon content of the tires today has a lot to do with the wear length I have heard somewhere with more carbon or better grade carbon lasting longer or something like that. When you do see whitewalls, the white part on car tires is just a surface treatment. On bike tires though, I have seen many that are basicly natural color, or tinted a light brown except for the tread. As those tires age, the black tread stays fine, but the natural color part starts to crumble after a decade or so.

 

[Gregory]

Black is added to the rubber to resist the suns' UV rays causing the rubber to perish as quickly. Colours and natural "gum" coloured rubbers crack and perish a lot faster.

 

[heathyoung]

Correct. Its a UV stabiliser.