Harley-Davidson Motorcycles: What PSI Should Your Tires Be?

Whether you prefer long-distance road trips or short city cruises, it's important to keep tabs on the condition of your motorcycle's tires. A key part of that is ensuring that your tires are always kept at the correct pressure. If they're under-inflated or over-inflated, you could end up with a more uncomfortable riding experience, as well as see premature tire wear and lower fuel efficiency.

Harley-Davidson offers a wide variety of motorcycles in its current range, and its recommended tire pressures differ between different models and tire sizes. To find the correct pressures for your particular motorcycle, you'll need to look in your owners' manual. If you don't have a manual to hand, you can find manuals online through Harley-Davidson's service portal. To find the correct manual for your bike, just enter your VIN or select a model and year from the dropdown menu.

Modern Harley-Davidson models require a broad range of cold tire pressures, so it's important to check what's right for your particular bike. For example, a 2024 Street Glide or Road Glide will require pressures of 36 PSI in the front tire and 40 PSI in the rear tire according to its owners' manual, while a 2024 Nightster will require 31 PSI in the front tire and 40 PSI in the rear. Meanwhile, a 2024 Sportster requires a higher rear tire pressure, with 36 PSI recommended at the front and 42 PSI at the back.

The recommended cold tire pressures found in Harley-Davidson's owners' manuals are a baseline figure to work from, but you might need to adjust your motorcycle's tire pressures slightly to account for warmer ambient temperatures. The listed cold tire pressures are correct for ambient air temperatures of 68 degrees Fahrenheit or less and assume that the motorcycle hasn't been ridden for at least two hours. If it has been recently ridden, Harley advises to leave the bike to fully cool to ensure you get the most accurate pressure reading.

Higher ambient temperatures will mean you'll need to add additional pressure to the bike's tires. For the 2024 Road Glide and Street Glide, Harley recommends adding 1 PSI to each tire if the ambient temperature is 79 degrees Fahrenheit or less, and 2 PSI if the ambient temperature is 88 degrees Fahrenheit or less. Higher temperatures will require further increases, up to a maximum of 4 PSI if the mercury hits 108 degrees Fahrenheit or more.

Harley-Davidson recommends that owners should check their bike's tire pressures regularly to ensure they remain at the correct levels. Specifically, Harley says a tire pressure check should be part of the pre-ride checklist that owners should carry out every time the bike hasn't been ridden for an extended period, and it should also be checked at every service interval.

Some tire makers recommend more frequent checks, with Michelin advising that tires should be checked every two weeks and also before any long journey. Heading out on motorcycle road trips might be one of the big perks of ownership, but if you don't carry out proper checks, your trip might be spoiled before it even starts. It's also worth investing in a good portable tire inflator and a gauge, in case you need to top up your tire pressure while you're on the road.