Fat Tire Bikes

 

Sure, those huge fat rear tires look cool,
 but why on Earth would you want to put one on your bike?

 

 Godamn I hate this shit!
 This is probably one the most senseless wastes of time and money that I know of. It is probably the most expensive, no purpose, modification you can make.
That big, fat piece of meat like you see on the GSXR's may look cool but it is designed for maximum contact with the road during hard cornering. A Harley is not capable of that kind of cornering because it doesn't have enough ground clearance (not even Sportsters), you'll be scraping footpegs and primaries long before you use half of the tire's contact patch, resulting in a tire that you paid twice the $$$ for that only wears in the center and only lasts half as long as it was supposed to, so I guess the only real purpose is to look "cool".
I won't even go into what you have to go through to get everything to fit, balance and align properly (not to mention that they are just plain a huge pain in my ass) or how much all this will cost. The kit price is often just the tip of the iceberg (and they generally start at around $5,000).
If you really need to have a fat tire bike, then have the balls to pay for it! You can buy a Big Dog, Bourget, Redneck Chopper or any of many other manufacturers that design the entire frame around that big-ass tire. You'll end up paying about the same as what you'll end up putting into your stock bike...  And you'll still just have a modified stock bike!
I have ridden just about all of these bikes and if you don't want a misbalanced - left side heavy bike (primary and trans offset to the left so the belt will clear the tire), you will have to dish out the extra cash for a right side drive transmission or a multiple drive belt and jackshaft set up. No matter if it's a wide tire kit on a Harley or a Jesse James chopper, they all have serious handling problems. They are very hard to lean into a corner as it will actually raise the bike as it leans and they tend to get very unsafe at high speeds.

 The "Cruiser" style wide tires (240s-350s) are not rounded like the crotchrocket style tires, they are flat across the bottom and only rounded on the sides, therefore you will have a larger contact patch connecting the tire to the ground but this generally just tends to break drive belts during hard take-offs and for those idiots that argue that more tire on the ground makes for more braking power in an emergency, sorry folk, but you still get 70% of your stopping power from the front brake!

The people have spoken !
The 2007 H-Ds now have some models with a 200 rear tire.
Harley-Davidson market research has determined that the people want a wider rear tire.
Think about it, they increased the engine size to 96 cubic inches, increased the tire size to 200 and (to make room for clearance) cut the width of the drive belt in half. Hmmmm, more power, more traction, less drive train strength.
 As of 4/01/07 I have already replaced 4, 2007 broken Fatboy drive belts. Customers are also complaining that the new wider tire bikes have lost something in their handling around corners.
Yes, the people have spoken - and proven that the people are idiots!

I guess instead of worrying about what I look like, I'd rather ride!
 ( hmmmm, maybe that just comes from being an ugly motherfucker in the first place? )