Effect of temperature on the mechanical characteristics of bicycle tyres

Bicycles are becoming always more popular as a cheap and healthy tool for urban travels. The concerns für crowded public transport means are changing the habits after the pandemic situation caused by Covid-19, encomaging people towards the use of bicycle. As stated in literature, tyres play a large role in the handling ofbicycles . This is why it is necessary to characterize tyres so as to derive useful parameters for modeling. To this purpose, proper experimental methods have been implemented for bicycle tyres. A deepen knowledge of the phenomena occurring at tyre/road contact patch is indeed fundamental to ensure proper adherence and safety conditions, especiatly for vehicles as bicycles or motorcycles working with high camber angles. This paper aims at enabling the future development of bicycle tyres, in order to improve the safety and the performances. Specifically, the focus is devoted to understand how the road temperature can impact on tyre performances, and therefore on bicycle handling. After a brief section describing the methods and instruments used für this research activity, the results of an experimental campaign carried out on road racing tyre are presented and discussed. The remarkable variation of temperature oftyre rolling surface can have multiple impacts on the performances. lt can affect the noise emissions as weil as rolling resistance, as noted in, where higher temperature was co.rrelated to lower rolling resistance coefficient. In the temperatu.re influence on car tyre lateral characteristics is investigated on a drum testrig. A They found a decrease in cornering stiffness as temperature increases, while no particular variations on relaxation length were observed. Despite the known influence of the temperature on tyre properties, there is a lack of studies regarding bicycle tyres. In a test on testrig of wintertype tyre revealed remarkable differences with respect to the mechanical characteristics of other tyres tested at room temperature. This may suggest the important role played by temperature on bicycle tyres characteristics, thus affecting the tyre/road interaction.