I am attempting to make home-made bicycle tires, and so I am researching what types of metals are used. There's not a lot of info available on that, so I switched to looking at what was used in car tires.
On this page is such a discussion:
There's also lots of comparisons between the handling of radial vs. bias-ply car tires, but not any comparisons of the different handling characteristics of steel-belted radial vs. textile-belted radial tires that I could turn up. Anybody know of any online? Most other drivers wouldn't care, but I'd expect that autocross racers must have looked into it.
When I began to search for info on textile-belted radial tires, many of the results I got were for motorcycle tires. I never owned a motorcycle, so I don't know anything about buying tires for one.... But from searching for just a bit, it seeps apparent that even in the USA, motorcycle tires are commonly available both ways, but I could not find any clear divisions between the uses. That is to say--sport bike tires aren't typically used on a cruising/touring motorcycle, and touring tires aren't used on an off-road-only motorcycle. Are the tire construction methods of each of these three types usually one particular way? That is [for example] are sportbike tires usually textile-belted, and touring tires usually steel-belted?
Also I am curious as to if there's any tires out there made totally of Kevlar/aramid... This article from 1975 notes that Kevlar was the strongest and highest-temperature fiber to use for tires, but at the time it was too expensive for regular use.
There is currently at least one radial bicycle tire, the Maxxis Radiale. It is closer to being a "radial" than any other bicycle tire sold right now, but it's not a true radial construction like car tires use. I read a few different reviews of it, but none seem to indicate any clear advantages or disadvantages. ....Are there any?