Welcome to Momentum, a motorsports podcast powered by High Gear Success. I'm your host, Heather Wilson Schiltz Here we share the stories and strategies that keep the world of motorsports moving forward. And joining me today is Keith Willcome Manager of Product Strategy and Business Development at Bridgestone Motorcycles. So thanks for being here. Yeah, thanks for having me. I would love to kind of give our listeners insight into how you found your way into the motorcycle industry and specifically tires. That's a good question. So my background is mechanical engineering. I went to Michigan Tech, is originally from Michigan. And I knew I wanted to end up in the automotive or motorsports space somehow. And it was just kind of happenstance that I saw a job posting at Bridgestone for a field engineer. And it sounded really cool. You know, cause I'm, very hands on. I love working on cars and bikes and trucks and stuff. So sitting in an office all the time was not where I wanted to start my career. so I applied for the job. got the job as a field engineer, traveling all over Texas, working with commercial trucks. and I did that for a few years and found my way, into corporate quality at Bridgestone and just kind of started working my way. Uh, just knowing that I wanted to end up in, the space of, you know, working with cars or bikes. And eventually I did, I supported a car and bike from the engineering side, from the application engineering side for a few years, uh, from about 2015 up until 2023. And then 2023, uh, this job came available just because of the connections that I had made within the company, uh, for a new position in our. motorcycle department for products or energy. And it was really exciting and it was like exactly what I wanted to do. So it kind of took all of my years of, you know, engineering and application knowledge and kind of supporting motorcycle from the engineering side. And now I get to work on the business side and help decide what products are coming, you know, to North America help with next generation products. So yeah, long, long path. That's all I got here. It's cool that you've been with Bridgestone since college, it sounds like. We're pretty close to that. much, yeah, about 16 years now. Yeah, that's awesome. So walk us through the tire development process from kind of that initial concept through production. What goes into developing a tire? So it all starts kind of with that concept. Like any engineering project, it starts with like what problem are you trying to solve? So you kind of have to define that problem. And the way we define that problem is by listening to riders and what they're looking for in tires. So whether it's an off-road tire or a road race tire or a street tire, just listening to the riders who using that, what they like about their current tires, what don't they like, what do they want more of. that type of thing. we roll that into kind of a product concept and then we set design targets. So we'll, we'll want, you know, increased mileage or increase, dry traction or increased wet grip or better mud performance for an off road tire or whatever it is that we're looking for or the few things we're looking for. And then with those design targets, then we go to work actually developing the tire. So starts. virtually and then goes into physical. There's a lot of different terms, technical terms when it comes to tires. I'm going to get a little bit of an education today, but kind of explain to us what a tire compound is. So when we talk about a compound, that is the formulation of the rubber itself. So there's basic ingredients to rubber. There's natural rubber. There's forms of synthetic rubbers, have all kinds of different ingredients, everything from sulfur to carbon black, which is used to strengthen the compound. You know, there's all kinds of different chemical components that go into, formulating rubber and rubber can be formulated from something hard and resilient that returns a lot of energy, like a superball all the way to something soft and squishy that, you know, deforms as soon as you touch it. and that's all kind of very similar ingredients. It's just all about how, what ingredients you put in and how you process it and things like that. So all of that together is what we call compounding. And then within a tire, there's several different types of rubber. Like the rubber that touches the road can be one compound. It can be up to three different compounds sometimes. The rubber that's in the sidewall is a different compound because it has a different job. The rubber that's on the bead area is different because it has a different job. And then there's different rubber on the inner liner or two, depending on what type of tire it is. So there's a lot of different types of rubber in a single tire. But usually when we're talking about a compound, as far as a rider's concerned, what they care about is the tread compound. Okay, so we've talked about compound a little bit and then the tread pattern. So how do you guys go about developing those different patterns to figure out what's going to be most effective for different applications? Yeah, so tread pattern is really, really interesting. I'll start with something simple, so like a race slick. Obviously there is no tread pattern. Then you start adding things like maybe we need to deal with rain, so on a street tire. So then we're adding grooves to the tire to displace water out of the footprint. But when you start adding grooves, you start adding stresses to the tire in abnormal ways. And you can introduce different types of irregular wear or different handling characteristics. And as you start adding grooves, you also start taking away from the amount of rubber touching the road. So you're trying to balance all of those different things with the groove shape, the groove orientations, things like that. So on a tire, like a hypersport tire, like for a sport bike, those grooves are oriented sort of perpendicularly to the forces on the tire. So that's why they have like that loop kind of shape to them, because when the bike's upright, the forces are kind of along longitudinally. And then when you're leaned over, the forces are going sideways. So that groove kind of matches that profile. When you move to the off-road side, whether it's designing a tire that's a dual sport tire or an adventure tire, or even a dirt bike or motocross tire, there you're starting to deal with balancing maybe street performance, but also different types of non-paved or loose surfaces. I'll use dirt bike tires as an example because we have very different tread patterns. So if you go all the way to a Battlecross X10, that's designed for mud and sand, sort of a scoop shape That most of the problem you're trying to deal with is the lack of traction and in that very loose surface like mud and sand. you orient the blocks in a certain way. So you get drive traction, but then you also have side lugs that you, you know, design so that you get good cornering grip. When you move to something like a hard terrain, like a rock and desert, stuff like that, there, the tread pattern changes because If you use a pattern that's too open and has too much void, then you're putting a ton of stress on that one log and the rock will tear it to pieces. So you need to disperse that, that force and put more rubber on the ground because you're not digging into a surface like rock. You need to put rubber against that surface. So there you have a more closed up pattern, puts more rubber on the ground, and then you get more traction that way. So it's all about. balance and somewhat compromise in the different surfaces that you're trying to design for. I've been told there's also such a thing called a carcass carcass construction. Can you explain that a little bit? So the carcass, we usually define the carcass as everything but the tread. So if you imagine like a completely bald tire, that's the carcass. So it's the beads, it's the sidewall, it's the belts that are just under the tread. That whole assembly, that's called the carcass. And then tire pressure. So riding off-road, my dad was always very particular about this when we would go riding. He feels that most people probably over-inflate their off-road tires. What's your kind of take on that for the different riding segments as to what the tire pressure should be? Yeah, so it really does vary depending on what type of riding. So we'll talk off-road riding first. So if you are doing slow technical trails, things like that, a lot of times that's where we see the lower pressures in the rear, five, six PSI, stuff like that. That's because the tire is going slower. It's not generating the heat that it would at high speeds. So you are able to work with a lower pressure without damaging the tire. As the speeds go up and you start impacting that tire more and more frequently, so think motocross now, now we need a little bit higher pressure to support that tire and to keep it from generating too much heat. As the tire flexes, it's going to heat up, and then that expands the air pressure. But it can also, if you don't have enough pressure, it can actually cause heat damage to the tire and then the tire can fail. Which I'll get back to that in a minute when we talk about street. So typically our tires, like for motocross applications, we're usually around 12 PSI. That's kind of our starting point. Most riders end up within a PSI or two of that for motocross. It's when you get it off road. and slow stuff that it gets a little wild and everybody's got a different opinion. I personally run a little bit higher pressures because I don't like pinch flats. So, you know, I'll run a little bit higher pressure in my front tire so that, you know, when you hit the rocks and things like that, you're less likely to get a pinch flat. And then on the rear, I'll deal with a little bit less traction just to protect the tire and protect my rim. but that's a personal preference. A lot of racers, they'll run 5-6 PSI or a stimulated 5-6 PSI moves or something like that. So that's pretty common. The street is a whole different story though. So with street pressures, this is where you really get into safety. so tires in general, they create heat when they flex it when they're going down the road. So if you're going down the road at 60, 70 miles an hour, that tire is flexing several hundred times a minute. And that's generating heat. If the pressure is too low, it will flex more and further, and it will generate more heat. When the heat generated by the tire becomes essentially so much that it's approaching the temperature in which the tire was cured at, the rubber will start to do what's called reversion. And it starts to break down and it will lose adhesion to the cords inside the tire. So if you've seen blowouts on the highway, stuff like that, cars, trucks, whatever, motorcycles, doesn't matter. A lot of times that's what happened. The pressure got so low. that it couldn't handle the load and the speed it was going at. So on the street, we always recommend following the motorcycle manufacturer pressure. And that'll usually either be on a sticker, like on the swing arm, sometimes up by the steering head, or it's always in the owner's manual if you have that with your bike. And you can find it online too. But yeah, street is just. pretty much what the motorcycle manufacturer recommends because they've done all the testing on their bike with that tire size. So that's our recommendation. And then off-road, you can play with that, but we have recommendations as well. With off-road, when we're talking about pressures and stuff, you mentioned pinched tube or whatever. Does Bridgestone do any testing with tubes versus mousse versus tire balls, those types of applications? Yeah, we do. A lot of our development on our off-road tires was done in Motocross. And Motocross uses tubes for the most part. So that's where most of our design work is done. But we do testing with mousse and things like that to kind of understand how the tire is going to react to those things. And do you feel like the, I guess the feel and the performance can vary greatly between those different applications? Uh, the field certainly can. Um, I know, I've heard the writers describe mousse as feeling a bit numb, maybe compared to a tube. you know, mousse certainly has its advantages, especially with off-road racing. Um, I think pretty much every team is using mousse for off-road just because, uh, a flat tire is not, it's a deal breaker. You just can't deal with that. would, you know, it's not something you can recover from. And even a long race like a GNCC. so we see that a lot. but the, the performance is there. I haven't seen any degradation or anything like that because of mousse So yeah, for off road, say it's rider preference. When we're talking about tubes again, do you have uh any tips or tricks for changing tires? Because often that is not people's favorite thing to do. Yeah, so the first thing I'll say in this kind of goes for all tires, know, street tires and car tires or whatever you're working with is proper lubrication of the bead and the rim will make your life so much easier. So I see people trying to put tires together dry and stuff like that. That one, it's a struggle to you're likely to damage the bead, things like that. The way I do it, I use like baby powder or something on the tube. And then I'll throw a little bit on the inner liner and kind of run it around just to get everything dry and have that little bit of lubrication in there. And then I use just a little bit of tire lube around the bead. And then I'll spray it on the wheel as well. I use, a lot of times I'll use that spray, like Yama lube. Makes it, um, there's a few different companies, but, um, I'll use something like that. Uh, Windex also works well. So, Windex is kind of my go-to for like street tires, especially. but yeah, other than that, it's kind of technique, you know, making sure you have that, that bead down in the drop center. If you're trying to force the bead over and it's already up on the, the rim flange on the other side, you'll never get it. so. It's really just paying attention to those things and making sure you're using the proper tool. Can you talk a little bit about the testing that Bridgestone does, whether it's lab testing, track testing, just real-world experience from the riders? Yeah. So, I mentioned like the design cycle kind of starts virtually, and then we end up with physical testing. so we have a lot of neat equipment that we developed over the years. Um, all of our, all of our development is done in Japan, and then we do a lot of testing in Europe and then we do some, some here as well, in the States. But, um, our technical center is in Japan and those engineers are. or wizards, they're so fun to talk to and learn from. I don't know a tenth of anything compared to them. So we'll start with a virtual kind of design. We have a machine that we developed through Formula One and MotoGP when we were the spec tires for those series. And it's called Ultimat Eye. And it's like this big test drum. And it has thousands of load sensors on it. And we can run a motorcycle tire on there up to 300 kph, which is like 186 miles per hour, I think. And then we can sweep it up to 60 degrees camber angle. So we can simulate any road course in the world, any street, any load we want on that tire. And then it's measuring the footprint of the tire dynamically. Because if you press a tire against a plate of glass and look at it, that's a static footprint. And it gets very different when you start adding speed and camber angles and things like that. So being able to visualize that footprint dynamically is really important. And it helps us tweak that design so we can get pretty close to what we think is going to be a final design on the drum. And then we'll take it to the racetrack. We'll take it to. Our proving grounds. We've got proving grounds in Japan. We've got one in Rome and we've got one in Texas that we can do testing at. So we'll take it to the proving grounds. It goes through a series of tests, handling, know, stopping distance, practice, things like that. The riders, I did actually get the privilege to go to Japan last year and visit the proving grounds and talk to the test riders. It was really fun because those test riders have been with Bridgestone for like 20 or 30 years. And so they're extremely knowledgeable and they know what they like. So you, you kind of get, especially on street tires and race tires, you get sort of this Bridgestone, like DNA that's kind of built into the tires because it's a human that's testing that tire and is deciding, I like how this tire feels. I don't like how this tire feels. And that's kind of what guides the design. So it's really neat the legacy that they have. I mean, these are the same guys that have been testing since basically the 90s. And they're really, really knowledgeable. So that was really neat to see kind of that human aspect to the design. Can you talk about like the most important factor that riders should think about when they're choosing tires for themselves? Yeah, I think for me, the most important thing is always going to be safety. And I'm thinking through the lens of street a lot because, you know, that's kind of where we see safety become the biggest aspect. So I think safety and when I'm talking safety, of course, durability, you know, things like that. But I'm also talking about, you know, traction, braking, things like that, predictability. How much confidence do you have in that tire? Um, you know, the last thing you want to be thinking about when you're on a, on a ride is your tires. Like, you know, you want to just trust them and have a great day. Um, so those are the, those are the things I always recommend. Like, you know, talk to other riders, try a tire. If you don't like it, try something else. I always say the, you know, you only know the best you've ever tried. You know, so you never know what's out there. but I think Bridgestone tires, we always, we always put an emphasis on wet. Europe is a very large motorcycle market. a lot of people ride in the rain there because they just, they're riding to work in the U S a lot of people don't put as much emphasis on that. cause some of us are fair weather riders and we'll just ride when the weather's nice and, and that's openly admit to that. Yeah, it's sometimes hard to suit up when it's raining out. you know, so our tires are really designed for like the worst case scenarios. So that's one thing I always tell riders. Like if you're looking at street tires, like really consider Bridgestone because, you know, that wet traction is something we really build into the tires. And even if you're not planning on riding in the rain, sometimes we just get caught in the rain. And then on the off-road side, the technology that goes into tires is really quite amazing. know they all, like all knobbies kind of look the same for the most part, but it's not just the knobs, it's the shape, the orientation, it's the casing, it's the compounds. They all go into creating traction. and creating longevity. cause let's face it, you know, tires are expensive and we don't want to just buy a tire that's going to wear out in a couple of weekends. You know, I mean, I like to have a tire that's going to last me a season. You know, I don't ride as much as some people, but you know, things like that are good things to think about. So if we aren't going to be riding for a while or maybe it's winter and it's a place where you really don't get to do any riding, is there a correct way to like store your bike and tires for the winter? Does it not really matter if it's just sitting in your garage? Yeah, there's couple of things to consider. Storing tires inside is always best. So hopefully your bike doesn't have to sit outside. But the only things that I've seen that are really sort of damaged tires from storage, if you have certain electrical equipment in your garage, it's good to keep your tires. away from those because those can generate ozone and then that will artificially age your tires. So that's one thing and then just making sure that they're aired up. Like don't let the tires go flat and the bikes that they're on flat tires. That's gonna kind of know flex that tire and it's just gonna be putting constant stress. got a you know two, three, four, five hundred pound bike you know sitting on Essentially the rubber and it's pinching it the whole time. So that's not going be good for them. So keep them aired up, keep them inside. Hopefully it's a garage that doesn't get brazy hot in the summer and brazy cold in the winter. But even if it is, that's okay. As long as you're kind of keeping it shielded from the elements. So, like some of the adventure bikes, have like a center stand. So that's always feel like a good option to kind of the pressure off of certain points. But if you just have a more traditional bike or like a dirt bike where it's sitting, do you feel like they need to be moved throughout the winter? So it's not sitting like resting on the same spot or does it not really matter that much? Not, not so much. if they're aired up, you know, they're not gonna, you know, some people talk about like flat spots and typically you can get a flat spot that kind of sets in a little bit. and I'm thinking, especially with street tires, but usually once you've ridden it for 15 minutes or so, and the tire is starting to come up to temperature that kind of works itself out. So I wouldn't worry too much. You know, it's not like you need to go in there and like, push your bike around every week or something like that. A lot of us are parking them for three, four months and tires are aired up, you're fine. Talk about Bridgestone's sales model. So if you're a direct-to-consumer through distributors or direct-to-dealers. Yeah, so we we're through distributors. So you can buy Bridgestones at pretty much anywhere that sells motorcycle tires because we're with all the major distributors and you know, if the dealer doesn't stock them, they can get them. They should stop them. But if they don't, you know, ask your dealer and they can get them, guarantee you. And then where do you kind of see motorcycle tire design heading in the future? Like do you see it staying relatively the same? Are there any big innovations on the horizon? Yeah, I think the, the big things, and I would say it's more of a, not necessarily linear progression, but I kind of see it as progressing along. Um, if we think about, you know, tires from 20 years ago, they're, they look the same sort of, but the technology, once you scratch beneath the surface is very different. Um, and I kind of see it progressing that way every day, you know, we're developing. new ways of processing rubber compounds, creating new rubber compounds, developing the tire assembly machines that can be more precise and new manufacturing methods that can create more uniformity and actually better traction and better wear life just in the way that the tires are built. So there's so many different things. that will continue to advance in tires. That when we see tires 20 years from now, they may look very similar, but they'll be as big a difference to today's tires as today's tires are from the 90s. So that's kind of what I see. So tell people where they can go to learn more about Bridgestone motorcycle tires or maybe ask any questions that they might have about it. Yeah, so the first stop I would say is BridgestoneMotorcycleTires.com. That's our website. You can learn about all the different products we have there. There's some cool articles, some of the racing and stuff that we've done. And we're usually adding articles fairly frequently to that so you can see some cool news and stuff going on. The other thing that's on there is really good technical information. So we've got all the technical specs for our tires, of course. But if you're a road racer, we've got track pressure recommendations on there. We've got tire care and service guide on there. So all kinds of different learning resources are available through our website. Your dealer is a good place to get information too. They may be more knowledgeable in off-road or street or, you know, maybe both. So, I would say talk to your dealer as well. But yeah, website is the definite first stop. You bring up some good points too about how technical people want to get into it. So like this whole episode, I called it my tire education and I love learning about all this stuff, but for the most part, I have very good resources in my life that I can just rely on to tell me, tell me what I need or what would work. And so a lot of times I don't get deep down into the tech specs of stuff. Also some of the terminology and, and just. technical factors are very in depth and not necessarily my skill set, but I think it's really cool because there are people out there that love that type of information and are constantly trying to dissect stuff and learn more about it how they can just make different changes for themselves using that technical information. Yeah. Yeah. It's really interesting. Once you get into it, um, you know, that when I got into this industry, you know, thought I knew a decent amount about tires, having ridden motorcycles and worked on cars and all that stuff. And then you get into it and you're like, Oh my God, there's so much more to tires than I ever thought. And I've been doing this 16 years in the engineering space and Like there's people at Bridgestone that have forgotten more than I'll ever know. So there's so much to it and it can be overwhelming, you know, when you're shopping through tires, you see all these like features and benefits and everybody's got this little piece of technology that they think is the best thing ever. And then this company over here has something else and it's like, well, how do you compare those? And the thing I tell people is like, Yes, everybody's going to have a widget, but look at the results and look at what people are using, what they're having good luck with. I, I lean to racing a lot. you know, if a tire is really good in racing, then I take that as a, as an indication that the company probably knows what they're doing when it comes to designing street tires and everything else. So like, you know, with Bridgestone we've been the spec tire for MotoGP, we've been the spec tire for Formula One, we're the spec tire for Canadian Superbike right now. We did a ton of winning in Supercross and all of our off-road tires right now were developed from our Supercross Race Spec. So like all that technology and Bridgestone is really good about this. All the technology we developed through racing really does trickle down into our, our street tires and our off-road tires and everything that, that us mere mortals can buy. and it's, it's pretty cool to see like, you know, some of the stuff like in our battlecross line, which is our off-road tires. You know, we have this castle block technology and it's like this little block inside a block. And it looks very similar because a lot of other companies copied it. So all of that was developed in Supercross and then we brought it into the new tires. yeah, everything in Bridgestone's portfolio, you're benefiting from decades of racing, you know, at the highest levels, no matter what oh type of racing you're into. Yeah. And like you said, if it's good enough for those professional athletes, it's definitely good enough for me. I'm not going to, I'm not going to put it through the, the tests that they do. so yeah, that's pretty cool. Um, so talk a little bit about what type of riding you like to do, what bikes you have, if you have any free time to get to enjoy them. Yeah. Um, so I've got right now I've got four dirt bikes. Um, and I'm, I'm a trail rider. Um, mostly I've done, I did one enduro race, like a long time ago, uh, down when I lived in Texas and I loved it. And I'm hoping to do an AHRMA race because I have an 88 KTM 250. So I want to do an AHRMA cross country race, uh, pretty soon. And then I've got a 2005 gas gas 200. Which is great. My wife is somewhat commandeered that that's her bike. And then I've got a 2011 Husaberg 390, which is kind of my normal go to bike ride on like dual sports. And if I go trail riding and stuff, I usually take that. And then I have a 2002 Cannondale X440S, which is a very unique bike and I love talking about that thing. It's crazy, but it's a lot of fun. For me, the ownership experience is fun. I like working on it. like riding it. Is it the best bike ever? No, but it's cool and I like it. Yeah, awesome. Tell people where they can connect with you if you're on social media or if they see you out in an event. Yeah, so you can always connect with the company through BridgestoneMotoUSA. So we're on Instagram, Facebook, and YouTube. And then, so my handle on Instagram is KDubMoto. So you might see an occasional post. not all that active. I usually kind of leave that to the company. But yeah, if I'm at an event, you might see a post or something or just reach out to me. All right. Well, I appreciated you kind of giving me an education on all things tires, and I'm sure this isn't even all things tires. It's just a fraction of what we could get into. Right. But yeah, thank you so much for joining me today. And thanks to everybody for tuning into Momentum. This has been a production of High Gear Success. If you want to connect or recommend a guest, head to MomentumMotorsportsPodcast.com. Until next time, keep the momentum rolling.