No - you might be able to lever it on - but it will be very distorted and the tread cross section will be very round....there will be tread rolled over onto the sidewall and very little tread touching the pavement.

You can see in the chart that a 140/70 tire is not recommended for a 2.75" wide rim.  As the tire profile number becomes smaller (90 -80-70) the height of the sidewall gets shorter, and the rim width must be closer to the width of the tire.

Would a 140/80 be safe. I'm running 140/90 but the middle wears out before the sides. Some on here seem to think the 140/80 promotes better handling.

jcstokes wrote on 03/31/18 at 17:43:35:


Unfortunately - the only tire I know that comes in the 140/80 size is the original IRC, and it is not a very good tire.

A 130/90 - 15 tire is within millimeters of diameter and width of the 140/80 tire, and it offers a much better choice of tires.

And most riders wear out the center of the tread long before the sides - you spend very little time in corners compared to the miles of straight sections that link the curves.......and your hard acceleration is most often done in straight lines.  Some sport touring and sport bike tires come with a harder rubber compound in the center of the tread to help get more mileage out of the tires.