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The Evolution of Motorcycle Tyres

The Evolution of Motorcycle Tyres

Tips and advice motorbike

Today Michelin offers a range of motorcycle tyres for every type of use, from competition to commuting, from custom to off-road, each with its own specific performance characteristics. These ranges are the result of years of constant research and innovation. How have motorcycle tyres evolved since the very beginning of the Michelin adventure? We retrace here the most significant developments in their history. 

How it all started 

1891.
The incredible story begins like this: in Clermont-Ferrand, an English cyclist turned up at the Michelin brothers' factory, which at the time specialised in hoses and brake belts for carts. The cyclist was in distress because his tyre had a puncture. He asked the Michelin brothers for help. As repairs took several hours, Edouard Michelin had the idea of inventing a removable bicycle tyre that could be repaired much more quickly in the event of a puncture.  

Inventing a removable bike tyre

That same year, Charles Terront won the Paris-Brest-Paris cycle race on a bicycle fitted with Michelin tyres. From then on, tyres would be at the heart of Michelin's business.

Charles Terront won the Paris-Brest-Paris cycle race

From bicycle tyres to motorcycle tyres 

The transition from bicycles to motorised two-wheelers is a logical step for Michelin, which also begins to develop motorcycles tyres, particularly for racing. 

1899. 
Michelin wins its first races in this category, including Nice-Castellane, Paris-Roubaix, the "Critérium des Motocycles" and the "Coupe des Motocycles". The evolution of motorcycle tyre design is just beginning. 

motorcycles tyres

From Bias tyres to Radial tyres 

Since the beginning, all tyres are Bias, i.e. with a diagonal structure. On a Bias tyre, the carcass is made up of cords laid in plies oriented obliquely, and the plies are stacked in such a way as to cross the direction of the cords. The sidewalls and tread are designed in the same way, so the tyre remains rigid and deforms very little.

The first radial tyre for motorcycles 

1983.
As always, competition is an accelerator of innovation: for the first time in 1983, Michelin develops the first Radial motorcycle tyre for the GP500. 
The Radial is a type of tyre structure that Michelin invented for cars. It offers several benefits: the structure is lighter and the dissociation of the sidewalls from the tread makes it possible to design wider tyres.

The footprint of a radial tyre, which is shorter but wider than that of a bias tyre, provides a greater quantity of rubber in contact with the ground, and therefore increased grip. 
As the number of plies is smaller, it also limits the heating of the internal components, enabling much higher speeds to be reached (over 300 km/h with radial tyres compared with a maximum of 240 km/h with bias tyres).

It should be noted that, while Radials are now widely used for road, sport and long-distance trail riding, Bias ranges are still available for certain uses (notably Cross, Custom and Scooter tyres), simply because this type of structure is better suited to these specific uses. 

The first radial tyre for motorcycles

Towards a puncture-proof off-road motorcycle tyre 

Michelin Bib Mousse

1983.
For off-road motorbikes, Michelin invents the Bib MousseTM, an innovative foam-based technology that is inserted inside the tyre instead of a conventional inner tube. Thanks to its foam composition, it’s impossible to have a puncture! It is lighter than a reinforced inner tube and offers a pressure equivalent to 0.9 bar. 

Towards improved wet grip 

1992. 
That year marks Michelin's introduction of the first circuit tyre to include silica in its composition. Silica in tyres represents a major advance for motorcycling in all its applications. Its exceptional performance has been extended to consumer ranges that require good grip on wet surfaces with no compromise on wear or other performance. 

Why was Silica a major innovation in tyres? 

Originally, tyres were white, simply because natural rubber was used. But natural rubber presented a problem: it wears out quickly. It was the addition of carbon black to the tyre that made it more resistant to wear. It is also what changed the colour of the tyres to black. But there was still one drawback: while the carbon black provided better longevity and good grip in the dry, the grip it offered in the wet was not optimal.

The innovation was to replace carbon black with silica (which comes from sand). The advantage of silica is that it lasts as long as carbon black, but performs better in the wet. On the other hand, for certain uses not involving wet surfaces, such as racing, carbon black is preferred to silica because it offers better dry performance. 

Silica is now present in all categories of motorcycle tyres.

Towards better grip on cornering 

2CT technology

2005. 
Michelin innovates with its new 2CT technology (2 Compound Technology) 
This is not a range of tyres, but an innovative technology designed for sport and road motorbikes. This technology allows specific functions to be assigned to different areas of the tread. As a result, the rubber in the centre is differentiated from that in the shoulders. 

Why is that? Simply because you need more grip when you take wider turns. And as the shoulder section is used less often than the tread in the centre, it requires less resistance to wear. Conversely, it is necessary to improve longevity in the centre, as this is the part of the tyre that is used the most. For this reason, Michelin designs motorcycle tyres with two different qualities of rubber, in the centre and on the shoulders. 

More developments for wet surfaces 

2011.  
Michelin succeeds in integrating sipes into the MICHELIN Pilot Road 3 motorcycle tyre: a major step forward in terms of safety on wet surfaces, complementing what silica already provides in terms of grip on this type of surface.
The shape of the tyre is designed to evacuate water when driving in the wet. But as it can only evacuate part of it, grooves in the tyres are designed to store the water that remains. Then comes the siping, whose role is to break up the remaining film of water to dry out the wheel, which therefore improves grip in the wet.

2018. 
Michelin develops the Michelin Water Evergrip Technology, using the siping principle but with 3D sipes. Instead of being straight, they now adopt a more complex shape: they are wider at the base than at the top to offer improved performance for motorcycle tyres.  

michelin water evergrip technology

Conclusion

Ever since the removable bicycle tyre, Michelin has been constantly seeking to innovate and improve performance for all categories of vehicles, including of course motorbikes. 
Where will Michelin take your two-wheeler next? Only the future will tell...

In the meantime, we invite you to discover our range of high-performance motorcycle tyres, the result of decades of research and development. 

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