Ron, going by the directions, wouldn't a new tire get rebalanced:dontknow:? Then add the Rideon?
Just curious to your thoughts, not poking.:doorag:
The short response would be "You are right". Especially if we are talking about big wheels and tires like a lifted 4x4 truck.
But if we are talking about the 3 wheels/tires on the Spyder my opinion is that balancing is an unnecessary expense that won't provide any benefit.
I was doubtful that Ride-On alone would balance Lamonts rear tire. He had a ton of wheel weights on his. I wish I could remember how much. He had twice as many squares as I did (10) and they were heavier squares as well.
But we stripped off the weights and put Ride-On in and it balanced perfectly! I knew mine would be no sweat after that.
Ride-On is like any other manufacturer. They will recommend the best possible course of action even if it is overkill for your particular application. You can't blame them. They have no way of knowing what wheel/tire you have or how much balance you'll need. They don't want to claim their product will cure all balance issues because it won't.
Restricting my response to small wheels and tires like we have on the Spyder, my experience is that, except for bad out of balance situations, Ride-On will do as good or better job of balancing than weights alone, with or without the weights. This is because Ride-On is dynamic (constantly adjusts to the conditions) whereas wheel weights are static.
Some people get the wrong idea because a dynamic wheel balancer is used to determine how much and where to put the static weight. But the end result is still static (lead weights stuck to the rim).
Because weights are static your wheel will be balanced at some speeds and less balanced at other speeds. There is no way around it. With Ride-On you will get balancing at any speed.
As the tire wears, balance is affected. With wheel weights alone you may require another balance or you get increased tire wear.
But your question concerns wheel weights plus Ride-On. In the case of our Spyders, balancing the wheel with weights and then putting Ride-On in certainly won't hurt, but the weights are most likely unnecessary. If the wheel/tire is so out of balance that Ride-On can't fix it, it is very likely that a serious issue is causing the problem, like out of round, cord seperation, etc.
I have heard that some balancing machines have trouble mounting our wheels (I don't know because I've never had mine balanced). But if this is true, even more benefit to using Ride-On.
