+1 on the bad idea...

I had a buddy once who decided it would be cool to "Armor All" the seat of his dirt bike. No more than 3 minutes into the ride he was scooping dirt and rubbing it onto the seat after sliding off several times. I imagine it would have the same effect on tires, which would be bad.

 

Oh OK, I get it. I thought he might be talking about using a gel (goop) for mounting tires.

Yes you can IF you do it correctly by applying it sparingly to a rag and lightly wiping the sidewall only. DO NOT SPRAY OR APPLY DIRECTLY ON TO THE SIDEWALLS!!! If you do, it will puddle to the bottom of the tire and seep onto the contact patch which would have very bad effects on your cornering.

Clean the tires as good as possible beforehand. The cleaner they are the lighter the application needed for nice results.

 

Meguiar's tire gel is what i use on my car, works really nice. It dont sling off like a lot of spray on's. I have not used anyhing on a bike tire just for the fact that there is a chance that it would get on the tread. But I did talk to some one that works with me about hes bike. He used meguiars tire gel on hes 600 gixer.. I was just all ways told that it would pull the oil out of the tire it self. dry it out basically.

 

I know that's true with vinyl and leather, but I've never heard of that happening with rubber.

 

I wipe on Armor All on my sidewalls without issue... but like previously suggested, I spray it onto a rag, and wipe it on to the sidewall making sure to not hit anything but the sidewalls... if your careful, you'll be fine.

J.

 

What they said.... But would I do it? No... But as long as you dont let it drip and keep it isolated to the sidewall....well you dont ride on the sidewall even in corners so you'd be fine. But why take all that time, to shine up a sidewall that's got to be only about half an inch?

 

I use tire gel to keep my chicken strips pointy. A well groomed tire is a happy tire.