A question I’m asked frequently is whether or not you can repair a motorcycle tire. The answer is broadly, yes, you can. I’ll detail my experience repairing tires, and what to look for.
I have repaired my own motorcycle tires. Specifically, I’ve repaired tubeless motorcycle tires. For tubed tires, it’s a better practice to replace punctured tubes, rather than repairing them with a patch. You can, if you are in desperate need, repair a tube the same way you’d flat patch an inner liner of a tubeless tire. However, the likelihood that you’re going to be on the road, happen to have a compressor, pneumatic tire buffing tool, and the patch kit, is unlikely. Most major towns will have some tire shop that should have a tube that will fit your bike, and the tools needed to dismount and mount a tire aren’t that complicated to carry, or obtain if you’re in a tire situation.
Here are two plug patches in my Suzuki Bandit. I got a flat tire on the highway one time, and getting my bike back into town and examining the damage, there were just two holes. I plug patched both of them. The vast majority of holes will be in that general area. I have an internal flat patch without a plug. As stated in my Chevy Suburban tire patching post, I prefer internal plug patches to flat patches. I give a tutorial there on how to internally patch a tire.
The profile of a motorcycle tire is different from that of a car tire. Motorcycle tires are rounded, whereas car tires are flat. For contact patches, motorcycles only use about maybe a third of their overall tread width (that’s the first three numbers in the tire size, for example my front tire is a 120/70ZR-17. The tread width is 120 mm across). As you can see in the picture below, with the bike standing straight up, there is roughly a third of the contact patch area that is not being used.
With car tires, you can get away with patching close to the sidewall. Many shops won’t, but I personally have patched hundreds of tires that were millimeters away from the sidewall. With motorcycle tires, I urge caution. Because motorcycle tires are constructed differently from car tires, and how the sidewall and the actual tread flex depending on whether you’re cornering or not, your mileage will vary depending on how close the patch is to the sidewall. Because motorcycle tires are generally engineered for performance, the compounds and construction used to build the tire are not as durable or as capable of taking abuse as a car tire. I say to patch generally the bottom third of the tire only because that’s generally the strongest construction tread engineered on the tire. Unless you’re only riding your bike at the track, you’re going to spend easily more than 80% of your time riding fairly upright and straight, rather than leaned over and cornering. Most street tire manufacturers build a lot of tread on that part of the tire specifically, especially with cruiser tires. This is not to say you cannot patch that part of the tire. My point is that you have to determine for yourself what level of risk you’re comfortable dealing with.
Like I said above, I’ve patched the rear tire at least 3-4 times, maybe 5. I honestly don’t remember at this point. All of my punctures were within that bottom part of the tread area, so I personally feel comfortable with the patches I’ve made, even the one flat patch. I personally have never had issues when I go triple digits (on a track of course). The purpose of this post was to discuss whether you can patch a motorcycle tire. The answer is yes, just be smart and think about what you’re doing, and why.